Age Isn’t the Issue

I’m thinking about selling my car and buying a pass for the commuter train. Better yet, I might just move back to the Maritimes and take up a lucrative position selling coffee at a Starbucks.

As if the teenagers, drunk drivers, road ragers, and cell-phoners aren’t enough, now, it seems, there’s another menace on the highway: our parents. As I write this, the Ontario coroner is holding an inquest into the death of a pedestrian who was run down and dragged almost a kilometre to her death by an 84-year-old woman who was apparently unaware of the incident until police arrived at her door.

The judge who found her guilty of criminal negligence causing death said the lady might have been “impaired by age.” That comment put a spotlight on older drivers, although after a week of testimony from almost a dozen witnesses there was little to support the idea that age played a role in this case.

What has happened, though, is that people are asking serious questions about the province’s ability to spot drivers who are unfit due to mental impairment. Older drivers just happen to be a good target. In 1996, Ontario eliminated rules requiring drivers aged 80 and older to take an annual road test in favour of a classroom course every two years. They also must pass vision and “rules of the road” tests to keep their licences.

Those sessions should be required for drivers of any age who are cognitively impaired or otherwise lack common sense or whose abstract reveals poor performance.

I personally know people who are driving in their eighties and are much less of a threat than a cell-phone junkie or a guy who has a few drinks at lunch and then drives back to the office. Most “high-risk” drivers get that label not because they’re mentally unfit but because they have poor skills, a lack of knowledge, a medical condition that impairs their reflexes, or they’re simply trying to be cool.

The trouble is, I’ve just described a huge chunk of the driving population. Once they have their licence, their skills are not re-tested. Their knowledge is not refreshed. Worse, their licences are rarely revoked. They’re turned loose on the highways for the police and the rest of the drivers to deal with.

Then we need to deal with all those who are fighting for the minority, criminally insane, the poor alcoholic or drug addict, or other do-good organizations, which represent the rights of so few. Why would anybody who has seriously injured or killed someone while driving continue to have the right to operate a motor vehicle?

This issue of older drivers is important to watch. Look around at your own drivers and figure out their average age. It’s probably older than it was 10 years ago, creeping up into the late forties through to mid-fifties. This trend is not going to change any time soon.

There are training programs aimed at older drivers. I met a driver trainer who runs a program called “55 Alive.” It talks about how to compensate for slower reflexes, and the deterioration of eyesight and hearing. The key word is “compensate,” so that aging drivers can continue to safely share the road.

Maybe we need to start working with the provincial safety leagues that deliver the “55 Alive” program and incorporate it into our training for commercial drivers.

For certain, we need continuity in driver training, evaluation, and testing to ensure that all drivers understand the rules of road and are capable of following them. We need to ensure that these laws are enforced without interference from the minority. Lastly, we need to take away driving privileges from those who have clearly demonstrated that they no longer deserve them.

On another subject. I recently came upon a good, economical driver-screening tool called the “Driver Performance Analysis System” from the Advanced Driving Skills Institute in Clearwater, Fla. It’s as easy as sitting down your driver candidate in front of a VCR with a questionnaire to complete. The video runs about an hour and presents different driving scenarios where the candidate either agrees or disagrees with the outcome.

Once complete, you fax it for scoring. An analysis comes back within hours, and will help you identify a driver’s weaknesses and strengths. For more information, call 727/669-8308.