Joshua

The Florida legislature, faced with a mounting traffic accident rate caused by its increasingly older population but habitually unable to address the problem because of resistance by senior voters and their lobbyists, finally passed a law in May to improve highway safety. From now on, seniors' eyesight will be tested at every license renewal, but only for drivers age 80 and older. [St. Petersburg Times-AP, 7-12-03]

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The Apexer formerly known as SnotRocket.

"Like I ****ing said, "Ok, so I hear it may be a repost. Blah But I had never seen it, so..." **** you Canta." -Jenny 12/4/2003

ray

It's about time. How often is their license renewal? Hopefully it's not the standard every 4 years.

raimin

80..heck it should be for people 60 and over

Joshua

ray

at least someone is taking a step in the right direction.

bachviet

It needs to be done for all seniors (62+).

Cantacuzene

Prayers answered: 1

To go: 73499365974635934650834

Kevster

We really need to think about getting questionable senior drivers off the road. Apparently here in Ireland they start testing them after 55.

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I think over again
My small adventures, my fears.
The small ones that seemed so big,
For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing:

To live to see the great day that dawns,
And the light that fills the world.

-old Inuit song

Peachhead

I know...my grandmother is 93 and she still drives sometimes

frankly, it scares me to death. It's not necessarily her eyes, but I think just a general loss in reaction time. She's mending now from hip surgery so hopefully we won't have to deal with that anymore for a while.

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"I love being alive and I will be the best man I possibly can. I will take love wherever I find it and offer it to everyone who will take it..seek knowledge from those wiser..and teach those who wish to learn from me." --Duane Allman

thatonefilipinoguy

I agree with bachviet.

Testing eyesight will at least get a potential problem off the road.

Ladogaboy

Hmm, now I'm wondering about California's laws. I was in a DMV office in January, and there was a senior citizen who had had his license revoked because they required him to take an eye-exam, which he failed. Is that law already on the books in California? Also, the guy who had been tested couldn't have been over 75.

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Kevster

Yes it is. It used to depend on the DMV office at one time, but now it is uniform everywhere. I'm only saying that because when my grandmother and her friends were still driving, they all went to a particular DMV office in Concord, CA to get their licenses renewed because they didn't get a test there. It was like this vast AARP conspiracy or something. Fortunately, the office changed it's policy and they were thwarted.

Before she passed away about 18 months ago, the thought of my grandmother driving used to scare the hell out of me - it also made me wonder out loud to my Dad when I noticed a massive scrape on the passenger side of her Plymouth Reliant K car ( ). She said it happened in the parking lot when she was in the store. We knew otherwise.

eSDee

Now if we could only get an IQ test for SUV drivers

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~~~~~~~~~~~~
3 days ~ Willie Nelson

3 days I dread to see arrive
3 days I hate to be alive
3 days filled with tears and sorrow
yesterday today and tomorrow

gwilks98

Yes, old people are slow and incredibly dangerous behind the wheel, but someone is going to have to drive them to and fro. Volunteers?

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"Cold silence has
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Atrophy any
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MJK

Kevster

Isn't that called the local bus system?

gwilks98

I have to walk 2 miles to get to a bus stop. (And I'm in a highly populated suburb.) Regardless of weather conditions, that's too harsh for someone who's 80 with hip problems. Just remember: you just may have to fill their shoes in a few years.

Nija

Sounds like a problem that the St. Louis Transportation committe should be taking care of, or it hasn't been made aware of.

I know where I live I have a fairly large hub 2 city blocks away and a bunch of different bus stops all within walking distance. Of course, all the old people in my building use taxi's but that is a totally different discussion (and not a bad one )

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Kevster

In my Los Angeles South Bay neighborhood alone I can find 4 bus stops within a 1/4 mile of my house. One is even about 100 yards away.

Ladogaboy

I think I just heard one stop not more than 100 feet from my place. Oh, wait... that was a garbage truck.

LegendKiller

I live down the street from a community of about 15,000 senior citizens. It is called Century Villiage, aka Cemetary Villiage. Anyway, I have to drive around old people all of the time due to this fact. I believe that most of the 80+ crowd can in fact drive reasonably well. They may drive slower (to make up for slow reaction times).

In fact, senior citizens in this community have the lowest accident rate of any of the demographic groups. I am sure a good number of them are 80+.


Sure, find if they are blind and then revoke the liscense, but dont generalize.

bachviet

The slower reaction time causes accidents. That's enough for additional testing for seniors.

Cantacuzene

You dont know how many times I've seen senior citizens driving the wrong way down a one way street. And they are totally oblivious.

LegendKiller

I have seen the same thing of younger people. Your making a fundamental attribution error Canta, and your generalizing through anecdotal evidence. YOU may have seen 5 SS' driving down the street the wrong way, but you miss the other 100,000 that dont.

Furthermore, not only do you make the mistake of generalization through attribution, but you ignore the 15 YOUNG people you might see doing the same thing. You chalk that up to them being stupid instead of blind or losing their direction.

Do you realize how many people, after that one occasion of the market drivethrough said "Man, I have seen too many old people do that". Then, after that happened you hear about it all of the time.

What happened to the probably hundreds of times that young people did that?

Everybody has to make an issue out of something.


Why dont you just invalidate your own argument even more by making larger generalizations. I saw one on Fox News the other night that said that Iraq is a "bloodbath".

Its only a "bloodbath" because people hear about every fekking casualty every fekking day.

Do you think the germans or the japanese pacified overnight? Do you think that Japan or Germany were rebuilt in 5 months?


Your being a sheep lead by the media and morons who have an agenda. Wake up.


LK

cheapie

i would have to agree somewhat with canta. i have seen way too many 70+ drivers driving the wrong way, pulling out in front of me, etc. they should lower the age at which drivers have mandated driver testing again.

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rasetsu

People over 65 who have impaired driving abilities (whether they want to acknowledge them or not) can and should take public transportation. Most elderly people are retired and have all day to catch a bus or a train unlike other people who have work and school to attend at specific times. What else are they going to do with their time? If they're too frail to walk or wheel themselves to a bus or train station, there is something call the Access transit system here in LA that shows up at the front door steps of seniors to take them to hospital visits and what not all paid by our tax dollars so technically, all of us have "volunteered" to drive them around. Maybe some of these seniors should consider moving to a community that offers free or complimentary shuttle services to the doctor's office, grocery store, etc. if they have trouble locating public transportation. My grandparents live in a subsidized senior citizen community where such shuttle services are available.

The only reason why accident rates for the elderly are lower than teens is because the old people are CAUSING accidents without even knowing it while teens are getting into accidents. I don't see what's so wrong about generalizing when it's a fact and there's no better way to deal with it. Isn't it a generalization that drivers under 25 are more at risk and thus have higher insurance premiums? Heck yeah! I can find a number of people under 25 with squeaky clean driving records, but it's a fact that the population of those under 25 as a whole are more at risk. Insurance companies have began to increase the insurance premiums for elderly drivers as well because their accident rates are going up as there are more and more seniors on the road. When young drivers make mistakes, it's usually due to inexperience which can be fixed, but when an old person makes a mistake, it's mental and physical degradation due to age which (in most cases) can't be fixed.

Driving is a privilege, not a right.

LegendKiller

Its funny, the more you talk the more you prove my point.

If senior citizens were an at-risk group, then why aren't their premiums significantly higher? Higher than under 25's, or on on par?

SS' have some of hte lowest premiums in the demographics of society. Do you think this is by chance? Do you think that somehow the insurance companies f'd up with their actuarial calculations? If so, then they would be bleeding money.


Second, you make a massive generalization AGAIN, you state that SS' CAUSE the accidents. That is such a circular generalization it doesn't even make any sense. Premiums are based off of statistical information on accident rates, not who caused one. It is EXTREMELY difficult to cause an accident but not be in it, or not be charged with it.

Sure, you might change lanes without looking and veer somebody over who will hit somebody else. but then, you did not really cause the accident considering the person who hit the other one had a myriad of other options to choose from that would have avoided the accident.

I just believe people are looking for a scapegoat and are over generalizing the problem to significant proportions.

Ladogaboy

You can chalk that all up to an AARP conspiracy.

Seriously, though. You might consider it anecdotal evidence, and that might be true, but the fact is, senior citizens do lose muscle control as well as reaction times and other things. Not to mention, a higher percentage of them are on medication than the rest of the population.

My take on why their premiums are lower: insurance companies assume that those drivers that shouldn't be driving are already off the road and a majority of the accidents senior citizens are in/do cause are at lower rates of speed--ergo, they cause less damage. And, from the other spectrum, the reason the premiums for young drivers are so high is probably because a majority of their accidents involve high-speed collisions and fatalities. I could be wrong, but that's how I always interpreted the logic. Of course, if that fails, I'll fall back on my AARP assertion.

rasetsu

Well, I heard a report here in California that senior citizen insurance premiums have been raised to be on par with those under 25. Florida may be a little slower to react (in many ways) because of the high senior citizen population. Also, seniors will notice more if they're insurance rates get jacked up and they have the time and clout to voice their disapproval. Insurance companies don't want to anger their long time customers. When people under 25 have their rates hiked, they likely don't have time to argue about it or their parents pay for it anyways and they get a discount on their own insurance for having multiple drivers under their policy.

Seniors are a very powerful constituency group. They aren't affraid to express their view points (which is admirable) and it shows by the fact that they are the larget voting group. Heck, in CA, a small group of retired seniors managed to shut down a freeway expansion project for the 101 because they're the only people who had the time and dedication to go out to the city planning meeting every week to voice their opinions while the people who use the freeway are busy being stuck in traffic. It's all about economics and politics as to why senior insurance rates aren't as high as they should be across the country.