Declarations

Cloudy, Not Clear

“I think that people are saying the market will harden up a little bit, but everything is in such turmoil right now with the financial markets that the crystal ball is a little cloudy at this point.”

—Len Brevik, executive vice president of the Professional Insurance Agents, on his predictions for the insurance industry in 2009.

Defensive Driving

“As a society, we would like to think that when a driver recognizes that his or her functions related to vision or cognition are declining, they make that crucial decision [to stop driving]. My colleagues and I found it reassuring that in this group, that appeared to be the case.”

—Researcher Lisa Keay, PhD, commenting on the Salisbury Eye Evaluation and Driving Study that revealed that after a year of studying more than 1,200 licensed drivers ages 67 to 87 in Salisbury, Md., 1.5 percent had given up driving, and another 3.4 percent had restricted their driving. The most common predictors of stopping or decreasing driving were slow visual scanning, psychomotor speed and poor visuo-constructional skills, as well as reduced contrast sensitivity.