Driver’s Test?

Should there be an annual driver’s road test for elderly people? If so, starting at what age?

I work two mornings a week for an auto repair shop near my home doing bookkeeping. It’s a family-owned business that has been around since 1975.

Last Thursday morning one of the guys said, “Come take a look at this.” I looked out of the window and there’s an elderly gentleman getting out of the drivers side of the car.

It took him several minutes just to get his feet on the ground, get his balance, and while hanging onto the car, he opened the drivers side rear door.

At that point he pulled out a walker from the back seat, closed both car doors, and slowly made his way into the office door. All of this took about eight minutes.

He was bringing his car in for an oil change and something else. The service manager asked him if he needed a loaner car and he replied that his girlfriend was picking him up as soon as he called her.

After all the information was given, he pulled out a cellphone and called his girlfriend. She would be there in about fifteen minutes.

In the meantime he was talking to the service manager and mentioned that his birthday was coming up and he will be ninety-seven years old.

It’s a good thing my back was to them when he said that because my jaw hit the floor. In my opinion, with his age, coordination, and reaction time, there’s no way in hell this guy should be driving.

Ahhhh…but it gets better.

He mentioned that his girlfriend is also in her nineties. This I gotta see.

She pulls up, he shuffles out the door, puts his walker in the rear seat, and gets in the front passenger seat.

Just for reference, our parking lot is long and narrow. You can pull in the lot but in order to get back to the street you have to do a Y-Turn to turn around.

We didn’t think anything about this when they left and we all got back to work. Ten minutes later one of the mechanics came in and told us to look out of the window.

The girlfriend is doing a “Y-Turn” but moving forward and backing up in six-inch increments.

One of the mechanics, per the elderly couples request through the car window, guided her until she could pull straight out of the lot.

As I’m writing this my blood is boiling just as it did last Thursday when I witnessed this in person. These two elderly drivers are a car accident waiting to happen.

Fast forward to Friday night. On the local news is a story about a car accident. Two cars involved. Head-on collision. Two people in one car died at the scene. The other driver was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.

The two people who died were a husband and wife who turned into oncoming traffic and hit the other car head on. This accident happened about 7pm and it was dark outside thanks to daylight savings time.

The husband and wife were about ninety years old, well-known and respected in the community.

Driving at night is difficult enough for a lot of people. Then you factor in age, reaction time, distractions, glaring headlights, and a host of other factors.

So, should elderly people be required to take a road test each year after the age of seventy-five? Eighty?

None of us want to give up our license and driving privileges. Me included. I struggled with my mom to give up driving at ninety. Why? Because she couldn’t walk without a walker, refused to go over thirty miles per hour no matter what the posted speed limit was, and she was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. If there were emergency vehicles with sirens or someone beeping their horn, she couldn’t hear them.

Is it the responsibility of the driving public to turn in elderly drivers that appear to be a danger to themselves and others? We call in drunk drivers, impaired drivers, reckless drivers…why not elderly drivers?