It’s my god given right to drive a 5,000lb vehicle. Any attempt to make sure I’m fit to drive this safely is an assault on my god given rights.
That is a home-made American problem. If you are not living in a city center that happens to have usable public transport, being left without a car makes you an outcast. No shopping, no personal social contacts, no way to visit a doctor, etc.
It’s not strictly american. I’m not american, and here we have plenty of elderly drivers, it makes me worried when I see them. Luckily we have good public transport too.
You missed the point. It’s an American problem because our public transport got gutted or never even existed in the first place.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140214-the-last-places-without-internet
TLRD: “To truly avoid the internet, then, you have to make a great deal of effort. Even the remotest wilderness now yields a signal of some sort.”
It’s hard to fault elderly drivers for holding on to their ability to drive. In the United States not having a car is the same as being isolated from your community, ostracized, excluded. That everybody can afford a personal driver, few can.
They’re so few transit oriented communities in the United States, it’s sad. People need to drive. It’s just part of life. As much as we issue the changes of self-driving cars they can’t happen fast enough, it’ll enable people to have quality of life in these large automobile driven communities.
Many middle-class Boomers are are emotionally invested in their houses, which locks them into their cars. They were taught to tie their self worth to their big house in the suburbs, and our car-based transportation infrastructure was designed to get them into those houses. Now they are living in houses they do not need in low-density areas but they will not move not because they like driving, but because they cannot imagine living in an apartment.
My mom does not like cars, does not like driving, and is not a safe driver, but will not consider moving out of her house that she has been in for forty years. So she keeps driving.
I let my license expire during the pandemic and had to retake the written and driving tests in my thirties. Made me of the opinion we should all have to retest for licenses every 10 years. It makes sure everyone is at least aware of the laws and also helps naturally remove licenses whose ability to drive has diminished for whatever reason.
Driving shouldn’t be something you certified in for life, it isn’t like riding a bike
This coupled with the amount of accidents and deaths on our roadways, it really should be a no brainer that we recertify frequently. Some trades have some fields that require frequent retesting, first aid training requires renewal, but cars get a pass. I think big auto and oil would have a strong push back on any of this legislation because it could add barriers to their profits. Grandma can’t drop her retirement fund on a new SUV if she fails the recert.
I mean, I even understand suvs to a degree, but giving them to an elderly person is just straight up stupid. It goes against my inner logic. Like giving granny an ak and gramps a rocket launcher for self-defense, when going to the store.
Hammer Toyota, Mission Hills (where the 5, 405, and 118 intersect).
