The Challenges Faced by Older Adult Drivers
We start to age the moment we are born. We don’t really think about our aging process for about the first 40 years of our life. Much of that time we feel infallible and eternal. Then one day we discover something that we were always able to do without trouble doesn’t go as well. Our eyes seem to go first. That isn’t so bad because it happens to everyone and it seems socially acceptable. With each successive decade the aging process continues and we are faced with how to cleverly accommodate aging changes as well as accept our aging. Society is not kind to older adults so this makes the process of aging harder for many of us. As a person who is in this period of time and who also teaches gerontology nursing I have the fortune of finding out how my students feel about aging and the older adult. My students are of all ages and very diverse therefore I get to hear a broad range of feelings, and attitudes. I am going to share the major observation of older adults that they all talk about.
Every single student has a problem with the older driver who is not driving like the rest of the people on the road. Most of them state their concern over the safety of all those other drivers on the road. In some instances I have to agree with them. Don’t they realize how unsafe they are? What are they seeing when they drive? Probably a lot less then what they should or they are taking a very long time making sure they see what needs to be seen and this is done at a very slow speed. When the class discusses this topic another observation is how it seems that the older one gets the bigger the car gets. Is it the older adult’s way of protecting themselves if they do have an accident? A rather humorous observation is the older man with the baseball cap who has an extremely limited range of motion of his neck but has a heavy foot and an attitude that he owns the road and has the right of way in all situations. Many people lose height as they age this is obvious with the older woman who you only see from her eyes on up. There are men out there that are in the same situation. How are they touching the gas and brake pedals? I haven’t checked yet to see if there are cushions that help that situation. I am sure there are and if so they should do a better job advertising.
We are a society that has to drive to almost everything. Communities such as the suburbs don’t want shopping centers or stores near homes. That is part of the appeal of the suburbs. We are also a society that does not see the benefit of walking to some place. We want to get things done quickly because we are a busy bunch of people! We also don’t want to depend on anyone. People of all ages treasure their independence this is especially true of the older adult. . The older adult sees driving as a major part of their independence. The older adult does not want to be told what they can and cannot do by younger people who they have raised. They don’t want to be told that they cannot drive all day to different drug stores to pick up an item or two at each. After all they are saving money!
With that said fear of mine is will I know when I am driving like ‘them’? What will it take for me to realize that I should not be behind the wheel? If you can lead a busy active fulfilling life, walk, talk and care for yourself why would you think that you cannot drive? Having to realize that it may be your time to stop driving is probably one of the hardest decisions a person must make. We need to figure something out so that giving up driving does not mean a loss of independence. What will it take to keep that older adult who lives in the suburbs, where public transportation does not go, important and active and engaged in life?
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