The impact sent the Hyundai careening into an unoccupied parked car. In total, eight people, including the drivers and their passengers, were involved in the smashup.
People lose their faculties at vastly different times. There should be mandatory re-examinations for older drivers with increasing frequency, not a hard maximum.
That’ll never happen, because we don’t give voting day as a holiday (should be mandatory, imo), and old (retired) people ALWAYS have the time to vote, and moreover, our legislature is largely a gerontocracy. The way things are structured in the US now makes this effectively a non-starter, despite the fact that it’s clearly a good and necessary idea.
I disagree. If there’s a hard minimum, there should be a hard maximum too. By your logic, I could argue that younger people mature at different rates, but no one wants to see 14-year-olds on the road. The same should apply to older drivers. If you’re 80+ (or whatever age is deemed most appropriate), you’re just not sharp anymore. Stay off the road for the safety of everyone involved.
Not to say 80 year olds should be driving, but a 14 year old kid has nowhere near the same amount of need for a car as an 80 year old would and the 14 year old can just as easily hop on a bike or have their parents drive them somewhere. I would hope an 80 year old wouldn’t have their parents driving them to the grocery store or doctors appointments.
No, I disagree. I know 80 year olds who won the genetic lottery and are still sharp and can operate a car just fine. I know others who probably shouldn’t be on the highway anymore, but they have accepted that and only use their car to get around locally. They know their limits and work within them.
One older person I know is a perfectly safe driver, who used to be an expert navigator, but now once you get him off of his well-known routes he will spend forever looking for “that next turn” and end up driving off in a random direction. His family tries very hard to discourage him from driving alone now.
Yes, younger people mature at different rates, but the decline of older people is much more varied and there is a much larger range of age and abilities to consider. There is no practical way to differentiate solely based on age. Even in states where they periodically retest older drivers, all 3 of the cases I stated above would probably pass. (While a 4th older driver, who is perfectly fine driving by themselves but gets confused while being talked to while driving, would fail because they wouldn’t process the tester’s directions in real time).
A 14 year old should be allowed to a 100cc motorcycle (not no highway, not at night). They are not fast, and the only person they could really hurt are themselves.
France has a classification of small cars that can’t go very fast, that anyone is allowed to drive, can’t go over 28mph https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572
These are helpful in rural areas, for elderly that use them for groceries. I feel that such a car would cover 95% of the population living in suburbs.
There should be a maximum driving age.
You need good public transportation as well.
Agreed.
People lose their faculties at vastly different times. There should be mandatory re-examinations for older drivers with increasing frequency, not a hard maximum.
That’ll never happen, because we don’t give voting day as a holiday (should be mandatory, imo), and old (retired) people ALWAYS have the time to vote, and moreover, our legislature is largely a gerontocracy. The way things are structured in the US now makes this effectively a non-starter, despite the fact that it’s clearly a good and necessary idea.
I disagree. If there’s a hard minimum, there should be a hard maximum too. By your logic, I could argue that younger people mature at different rates, but no one wants to see 14-year-olds on the road. The same should apply to older drivers. If you’re 80+ (or whatever age is deemed most appropriate), you’re just not sharp anymore. Stay off the road for the safety of everyone involved.
Not to say 80 year olds should be driving, but a 14 year old kid has nowhere near the same amount of need for a car as an 80 year old would and the 14 year old can just as easily hop on a bike or have their parents drive them somewhere. I would hope an 80 year old wouldn’t have their parents driving them to the grocery store or doctors appointments.
Actually that is a good point. The hard age limit is stupid. We need a regular adequacy test for min and max and whatever.
No, I disagree. I know 80 year olds who won the genetic lottery and are still sharp and can operate a car just fine. I know others who probably shouldn’t be on the highway anymore, but they have accepted that and only use their car to get around locally. They know their limits and work within them.
One older person I know is a perfectly safe driver, who used to be an expert navigator, but now once you get him off of his well-known routes he will spend forever looking for “that next turn” and end up driving off in a random direction. His family tries very hard to discourage him from driving alone now.
Yes, younger people mature at different rates, but the decline of older people is much more varied and there is a much larger range of age and abilities to consider. There is no practical way to differentiate solely based on age. Even in states where they periodically retest older drivers, all 3 of the cases I stated above would probably pass. (While a 4th older driver, who is perfectly fine driving by themselves but gets confused while being talked to while driving, would fail because they wouldn’t process the tester’s directions in real time).
A 14 year old should be allowed to a 100cc motorcycle (not no highway, not at night). They are not fast, and the only person they could really hurt are themselves. France has a classification of small cars that can’t go very fast, that anyone is allowed to drive, can’t go over 28mph https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35210572 These are helpful in rural areas, for elderly that use them for groceries. I feel that such a car would cover 95% of the population living in suburbs.