Should Elderly Drivers be Retested
First of all we need to determine what the definition is of elderly people. Some will say that the general age of retirement, sixty-five, probably qualifies you as elderly. Others (those that are already 65?) may regard seventy as a more appropriate age - the threescore and ten point. A kid of five will probably identify a forty-year old as "elderly". Whatever the case, everybody at or around the age touted as "elderly" will probably cringe and have an argument why it should be increased.
So once we have established who is going to be classified as "elderly", what would be the purpose of retesting them for maintenance of their driver's licence? The only reason I can think of that can be justified is health. It is an inescapable fact that eyesight deteriorates with age, that reactions start to slow down, that hearing deteriorates and that strength lessens. Therefore one would have to test all of those faculties, including probably some that I have not thought of.
The problem is that once you have selected the aspects that have to be tested, you also have to have a minimum criterion against which the test should be conducted in order to pass or fail. Now it becomes a little more complicated.
Let's take eyesight. Should everybody have 20:20 eyesight in order to get a driver's licence? If they don't have to have it innately, but by some artificial means (glasses, contact lenses) you have to acknowledge that some people, and they occur in all age groups, can not ever have 20:20 vision even with the best of artificial aids. Do you then deny those people a licence? Or do you adjust the criteria? And if so, how far?
This process of determination will have to be repeated for every aspect of health and fitness that have been selected for testing. And then we haven't even touched on risk.
Anybody who drives a lot can tell stories of near-misses and incidents of having come THIS close to an accident. How many of those involved an elderly person? In my own experience, hardly ever. It is usually a young to middle-aged male, and usually the incident occurs because they drive too fast, try to cut in front of other traffic, or are just plain dangerous drivers, doing things that make your jaw drop in amazement (like blithely passing on the wrong side).
Surely, even though they may be in excellent health, the risk they pose on the road is far greater than that of an elderly person. So why not retest them as well? And how are you going to determine who they are? Who do we want to control, why and what for?
