“…Elderly people although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.”
To be serious for a moment, they should implement mandatory retesting at age 65. I’m nearly hit by old people who clearly shouldn’t be behind the wheel any longer on a daily basis. In fact, i’ve been in 2 accidents in which elderly drivers have hit me and continued right on driving b/c they’re so oblivious to whats’ going on around them, that they didn’t even realize they hit me.
At some point there needs to be retesting to make certain these elderly drivers can safely operate a motor vehicle w/o killing other drivers.
This research is helpful and it touches on the root cause of many accidents – the decline in understanding and reacting quickly enough to what is happening on the periphery of the drivers’ vision. The root cause of that is not a visual sight issue, but a cognitive one. And a recent National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration study of older driver assessment programs concluded that testing brain performance was the most predictive in understanding crash risk. The medical and science literature is also clear that brain fitness and therefore driving safety can be improved at any age with the right mental exercises (just like physical fitness is for the body).
I am CEO of Posit Science, the leader in clinically-proven brain fitness software. We recently introduced DriveSharp, a program that can reduce crash risk by an average of 50% and is recommended by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. There is a free online demo of one of the training exercises and a free evaluation at http://www.drivesharpnow.com
I work at an area agency on aging and we teach driving wellness classes and sponsor CARFIT events. Carfit and Driving classes at Area agencies on aging, AARP mature Driving classes and CARFIT should incorporate this information. See CARFIT website for more information: http://www.car-fit.org.
“…Elderly people although slow and dangerous behind the wheel, can still serve a purpose.”
To be serious for a moment, they should implement mandatory retesting at age 65. I’m nearly hit by old people who clearly shouldn’t be behind the wheel any longer on a daily basis. In fact, i’ve been in 2 accidents in which elderly drivers have hit me and continued right on driving b/c they’re so oblivious to whats’ going on around them, that they didn’t even realize they hit me.
At some point there needs to be retesting to make certain these elderly drivers can safely operate a motor vehicle w/o killing other drivers.
This research is helpful and it touches on the root cause of many accidents – the decline in understanding and reacting quickly enough to what is happening on the periphery of the drivers’ vision. The root cause of that is not a visual sight issue, but a cognitive one. And a recent National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration study of older driver assessment programs concluded that testing brain performance was the most predictive in understanding crash risk. The medical and science literature is also clear that brain fitness and therefore driving safety can be improved at any age with the right mental exercises (just like physical fitness is for the body).
I am CEO of Posit Science, the leader in clinically-proven brain fitness software. We recently introduced DriveSharp, a program that can reduce crash risk by an average of 50% and is recommended by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. There is a free online demo of one of the training exercises and a free evaluation at http://www.drivesharpnow.com
I work at an area agency on aging and we teach driving wellness classes and sponsor CARFIT events. Carfit and Driving classes at Area agencies on aging, AARP mature Driving classes and CARFIT should incorporate this information. See CARFIT website for more information: http://www.car-fit.org.