This past week, I ordered an Uber to take me to the Columbia Airport. I have taken several Ubers and figured I knew how the whole process worked. I’ve learned how to make small talk with many different drivers from different backgrounds, with different personalities and from different walks of life. These different walks of life have never wandered past the 65-years-of-age mark, however.
Imagine my surprise this past week when I climbed into my Uber to see that my driver looked old enough to have retired 20 years ago. This gentleman had not only wandered beyond the 65-years-of-age mark, he appeared to have sprinted past it before I was even born. Our ride to the airport was a stressful one that consisted of me having to anxiously alert him of stoplight changes several times.
This experience got me to thinking about other elderly drivers and how it must get much harder to drive the older one gets. It is because of this gradual lessening of fine motor skills that senior citizens should be required to re-pass an on-the-road driving test every 5 to 10 years.
When we think of reckless dangers on the road, our mind generally goes straight to teen drivers. We have an image in our head of a teenager speeding around a curb in a bright red sports car while blasting the radio and texting on an iPhone. Teen drivers can be dangerous and do cause a large amount of accidents on the roads; however, the fatality rate for drivers over 85 years old is four times higher than that of teenagers. This means that, in reality, you have more reason to be afraid of that little old lady in a Volkswagen killing you than the blond-haired football player in a Jeep.
I know what you are most likely thinking: “Not my Paw-Paw; he’s a great driver! This law would just be an inconvenience to him.” I am not denying that there are some perfectly capable elderly drivers out on the roads and, yes, having to retake a driver’s test will be an annoyance to them. The fact of the matter is, however, that there are also several extremely dangerous senior citizen drivers who are not only a threat to themselves, but to others as well. There needs to be a way to determine when a person has simply lost the ability to drive safely, and a test is an easy way of figuring that out. If your Paw-Paw really can drive perfectly, then he should have no problem passing a simple driver’s test.
I remember taking an on-the-road test to get my license a few years ago and, to be perfectly honest, it was a challenge even to my young 16-year-old self. Between the Y-turns and the parallel parking, it is easy to lose enough points to fail. That’s why I’m not proposing that these elderly citizens take the very same complicated test they had to pass when first obtaining their licenses. No, they should just have to take a test that gauges the basic skills required for driving such as maintaining a steady speed, breaking in a timely manner and correctly using blinkers.
I don’t want all elderly citizens off the road: I love my grandma as much as the next person does. But I do think that, for both her safety and mine, she should have to take such a basic driver’s skills test every 5 to 10 years. The danger that such sweet little old ladies and men behind the wheel can present is easy to overlook, but must not be ignored. For both their sake and ours, a re-testing of their basic driving abilities must be required.