All too often I think the discussion misses the fact that there is no alternative to driving for the vast majority of US citizens. Busses, trains, walking, biking, etc are not viable options because US infrastructure & city planning overwhelmingly neglects everything but the automobile.
It is supposedly a personal moral failing every time someone drives too old, too tired, or too impaired, but if trains, busses, & walking were the default ways to get around then this chronic societal problem would diminish dramatically. Incompetent driving is rooted in systemic failures, not personal moral ones.
In Germany drivers licenses issued before 2013 do not expire, meaning basically every senior would have to give up their license of their own accord. Spoiler: they generally keep driving, even when it’s abundantly clear that they shouldn’t.
not anymore, they will be replaced with EU licenses and also expire after 15 years. but you don’t need to take a test to renew, but that also applies to the licenses issued after 2013.
There are plans to make a test for people of 70 years of age mandatory, but that will still take a while…
Heck, I’d support regular testing for everyone. Laws change, best practices change and regular testing is a good way to keep most up to date. It would cost, be a hassle and extremely unpopular. But if it saves lives and/or make traffic softer it is worth it.
Oh I know man, I know
I recently saw some numbers, published by an automobile club, that suggested drivers over the age of 70 are involved in only 13% of crashes. My first thought was, that number is only that low because every other driver is already very cautious around old people in cars. And they usually drive rather slow. Still no reason to defend older people in death machines.
also probably they drive less, as they’re likely to no longer be working for a living and so don’t commute?
You are right! I didn’t even thought that far. It just made me kind of mad.
Just put them into relation with factors like “distance driven”, and the picture turns upside down.
Suddenly, the old people who don’t commute daily or drive children around to school and other activities like younger people do, but only drive to the supermarket twice a week and to church on Sunday end up in a different place on the statistics.