When you’re driving on the road roughly 41% of the time there are senior citizens driving their cars no matter the weather according to Liberty Mutual Insurance. Some are good and some are bad, really up to the situation. Even though senior citizens are some of the slowest drivers, they still get into the most accidents leading to death, minor or major injuries for not only themselves but for other drivers all around. This is because, “As you get older, your reflexes might get slower, and you might not react as quickly as you could in the past.” which is what the National Institute on Aging stated to just have people in general be aware that sometimes your reaction time slows down.
When an adult reaches the age 65 they are officially considered a senior citizen according to Interim Healthcare. Also when you are officially considered a senior citizen most people start planning their future and setting things up for family and friends if anything were to happen to them. So I ask you this question: Why not get retested for their drivers license?
When you are first driving at the ripe old age of 16 you have to do online classes or go in and take in person classes, then on top of that you have to get driving time and observation hours. Then the last and final step is taking the drivers test and that’s it! Assuming that you never get pulled over, that’s all the instruction when driving. So again I ask: Why not freshen up on your driving skills and re-learn the rules of the road?
There will always be car accidents, whether it’s an AI vehicle or a human behind the wheel. Accidents will always happen but it has been proven that people over 65 have, “higher crash death rates among this age group are primarily due to increased vulnerability to injury in a crash” according to CDC-Older Adult Drivers. Who’s website is made for older adults who have general questions about driving and what their stats are. They also provide some tools older drivers can use to lessen the risk of getting into an accident. Those include: wearing a seatbelt, going to the eye doctor every year, trying to be active to increase strength and flexibility, and avoid distractions like texting and listening to loud music.
One might object that if senior citizens had to be retested for their drivers license and fail the test it would be a loss of independence. They would have to rely on other people for transportation and that costs a lot of money. It has been proven by the Massachusetts Senior Action Council that 6 out of 10 senior citizens don’t have the funds for basic needs, let alone a driving service if they need to go out and do their regular activities, appointments, and chorus. So in order to change that number and give senior citizens a safe way to get from location A to location B (if they do fail their drivers test) would be to come up with a program that helps the senior citizens get where they need to go by having them pay in advance or after the ride. It would look like this: If the senior citizen does not have the money they need they would then click a button and will pay at the end of the month so they don’t have to worry about missing an event if they don’t have the money just yet. Or another option would be to pay for whatever rides they need that month so they don’t have to worry about the cost when the time comes. Yes, I know it’s still a loss of independence but it’s for the safety of them and others on the road.
But most importantly knowing which medication they are on. From Seidman Margulis and Fairman, LLP they found that 70% of the medication people 65 and older were taking the medication has the potential to cause, “drowsiness, dizziness, blurry vision” which is not good at all and again can cause a whole lot of harm.
