Mixing Compassion With Sense on Older Drivers
“Any day now, granny.”
In the back seat, the kids hear you muttering. Not a good example. Bad mom. How many times have you told them to treat others the way they’d want to be treated? On the other hand, how you’d love to give Mrs. Magoo there in the car ahead of you the treatment. Who knew it was possible to be so slow?
In fact, who knew people could be that old and still be out driving? Here, your mouth thins to a righteous line. Then you recall that the state is talking--finally--about bringing the hammer down on older drivers. “Any day now, granny,” you mutter, “you’ll be kissing those car keys goodbye.”
There’s the tiniest touch of Oedipal road rage in Sen. Tom Hayden’s new proposal to require drivers to take a behind the wheel exam at 75. Who hasn’t gritted their teeth at some little old motorist holding up traffic, or gone ashen at some near-miss by an aging dad?
Not that the bill is based solely in annoyance. In fact, it rose from the death of a teenage pedestrian who was run down by a 96-year-old. People hear about such accidents and say, good bill. Which it is. But running through it is something that doesn’t feel quite so good.
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Maybe it’s the timing, on the heels of last year’s bill to make it harder for teenagers to get licenses. Maybe it’s the depression that doctors report among senior citizens who can’t get around anymore. Or maybe it’s the fact that the statistic everyone points to--a U-shaped curve showing fatal accidents to be highest for teenagers and folks over 80--fails to note that most of those far-end fatalities are the elderly drivers themselves.
John Eberhard, a senior research psychologist who is studying the issue for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says that senior citizens actually have far fewer crashes per 100,000 drivers than any other age group. But, he adds, they are four to eight times more likely to die in them because they are physically frail. Interestingly, the vast majority of senior drivers understand this and curtail their driving voluntarily, he says: “Older people are not, not, not the culprits they’re painted to be.”
This isn’t to say that older people don’t lose capability, and more than they often realize. Night vision, peripheral vision, reaction time--all, Eberhard says, go kaput. “But to have Big Brother come in--I just think we have to be extremely cautious, so the tools we apply have value.”
This is not because it isn’t good to rid the road of dangerous drivers, but because there’s also a deeper human issue. This isn’t just about driving tests. It’s also about one of life’s most wrenching passages and whether good sense will be twinned with compassion. “I’m not even sure,” he says, “that the DMV should be involved in this.”
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This conversation occurred at a recent forum on older adults and transportation, hosted by Cal State L.A. and the Automobile Club of Southern California. Like Eberhard, the experts expressed deep ambivalence about a senior driving crackdown. The concern ran through presentations by gerontologists and insurance specialists and transportation experts: Yes, on paper, retests are great. But things get complex in the real world.
For example, could senior citizens suddenly adjust to Southern California’s patchwork of public transit? The Hayden bill states legislative intent to provide alternative modes of transportation, but intent doesn’t get grandma to her doctor’s appointment in one piece and on time. What about older people in high crime neighborhoods? Which is the greater danger--letting Uncle Bud drive once a week to his card game, or seeing him get mugged?
What about the blow to the self-worth that comes with losing a license? “I’m nothin’ but a nothin’ now,” a friend in her 80s murmured after her dizzy spells prompted her doctor to recommend that the DMV forbid her to drive. What about the astonishing number of senior drivers who are on the road because they’re the sole source of transportation for even more elderly neighbors? What about the intimidation factor in this new test, even with sensitivity training for examiners? As it is, studies show, older women tend to curb themselves too soon.
And what about the other half of the equation: the growing need for more senior-friendly streets and vehicles? What about sensors on cars to help with peripheral vision, or large-type street signs? What about mandates or stronger incentives, like bigger insurance discounts, for repeated refresher courses such as the one offered by the Auto Club, or AARP’s popular 55 ALIVE?
As good an idea as a retest is, how much better would it feel if its consequences were addressed more thoroughly? It’s amazing how many perfectly young voters wake up one day to discover that they’re the 75-year-old in the hot seat. It could happen to you. Any day.
Shawn Hubler’s column runs Mondays and Thursdays. Her e-mail is shawn.hubler@latimes.com.
