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| Yes | 49% | 181 votes | Total: 373 votes | |
| No | 51% | 192 votes |
Yes
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Add to FavoritesWhile I can certainly understand the strong argument to not limit someone's personal freedom, especially in the latter years in life, there also comes a point when the safety of others must be considered. Every year lives are tragically lost because a senior makes a grave mistake behind the wheel of a car.
The medical facts are they motor skills are very much effected by old age. Reaction times slow considerably. Muscles weaken. Eye sight weakens. Hand-eye coordination declines. There are numerous effects that aging has on the elderly that impair their ability to safely operate vehicles.
I understand that everyone ages a bit differently. Some seniors should certainly be able to drive longer than others. I believe a maximum age should be set, but it should be very reasonable. In other words, very high. I think we can all agree that even the most spry one-hundred-year-old should not be behind the wheel of a car.
But the more important task is to institute a law that requires seniors to take a driving test every six months. The test should be at least moderately challenging and detailed records should be kept of the individual's performance. If there is an are that they are beginning to perform poorly in (for example, checking blind spots or something), then the tester should be aware to pay attention to this in advance.
I can appreciate those who say we can't take this right away from seniors. But consider the family that is torn apart when a confused senior citizen drives into a crowd of people and kills a little girl. Consider the family of the teens who are on their way home from school when they have a head-on collision with an elderly driver who didn't see a stop sign. Similar tragedies happen every day, and we should take whatever steps we can to avoid them. Too many seniors on the road are not physically equipped to operate a car.
Every day we entrust several tons of steel and metal to individuals who have declining motor skills and mental sharpness. And only through rigorous, twice-yearly testing will we be able to determine which senior still possess the ability to safely operate their vehicles and those who do not.
Learn more about this author, Sean Curtis.
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No
In my humble opinion, there should be a graduated (or de-graduated) licensing process for the elderly similar to those adopted in some states for teens. If you pass the test you drive, and if you don't pass the test you don't drive. Simple. As you get older the on site recertification process is more frequent
If you're eight-five years old with all your faculties in tact and in good health with ample vision and hearing capabilities and also command passing grades in an annual driving test then, yes you should be able to drive.
However, if a case should arise similar to that of my own mother where she became nervous and confused in her sixties, then driving is a privilege that should be lost. In her case it turned out to be Parkinson's Disease advancing into the dementia stage. She would not have passed a driving test and should not have been allowed to drive at the time a police officer found her stopped in a busy lane of traffic, confused and angry.
For every elderly individual like my mother there are several more that are very capable of driving and for that reason should be allowed to drive. The government deciding that seventy years of age is the cut off age for driving is ridiculous. I say that because it would simply be another encroachment on personal rights and "big brother" telling us what to do with our lives and when.
The testing process is a fair and equal method, so long as it is managed correctly. It goes back to issues with other laws and regulations, especially with traffic and driving. That is that more laws are not the answer rather enforcing the ones we have in place. If you pass the test legitimately then you maintain your right and privilege and unfortunately if you fail then you lose that right.
Mandating cut off ages also poses a huge burden on the rest of the public in another way which is in the form of added costs in providing some sort of transportation system to those who can not drive any more. Yes, I understand from the right wing hard cases that it should be the responsibility of the family to take car of those now left without wheels; I'm one of those hard cases, but if government is the one laying down the law then it should also bear some of the responsibility of the fallout. I took the responsibility of seeing that my mother,who I love very much, was in a safe and healthy environment. She has access to anywhere she wants to go most of the time which isn't as good as anytime but a positive compromise.
There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of elderly, tax paying and capable elderly citizens that should still maintain that right to grab the keys and go for a drive, get their hair done, go to church, buy groceries, walk at the park, dance at the VFW, bowl, or eat at their favorite restaurant at 4:00 in the afternoon - at their leisure - just like the rest of us.
Learn more about this author, John Stuart.
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