The European Union wants elderly people (70+) to undergo medical tests from now on to prove that they are still capable of driving a car every five years. However, the proposal has been met with a lot of criticism.
Good Idea. It’s widely accepted that cognitive capabilities can decline rapidly with old age. It simply makes no sense that a person that needs 8 tries and 10 minutes to change the station on their TV is still allowed to operate a two ton death machine without any checks in place.
The important part here is to make it so that it ONLY “catches” declined driving capabilities and is not also biased in terms of social and financial status or maybe if you’re an immigrant or something.
Reaction speed in particular.
If you steer your 3 ton SUV around a corner and suddenly find yourself facing off a mother pushing her stroller across…or if you´re on the Autobahn and round the bend, there´s the tail end of a traffic jam…reaction speed is what makes the difference between “holy shit” and “that´s it”.
By the way, there ARE aspects of operating a motorvehicle on public roads that would warrant regular refreshers at all ages, like first aid or keeping up with the ever changing traffic laws. And I´d be totally up for that. But that´s another discussion.
Oh and ask me about mandatory basic child health and safety courses for soon to be parents. Yes, I have lots of opinions ;-)
Honestly seeing how people drive ~10 years after getting their licence I think we need a kind of test every 10 years, not necessarily because of declining cognitive capacity but just generally forgetting about safety
although it would be pretty expensive to check absolutely everyone
not necessarily because of declining cognitive capacity but just generally forgetting about safety
And because rules, regulations and the reality of traffic changes.
There’s this new move to make roads where bicycles are granted priority more prevalent, but the specific rules of how it works are completely unknown to most people who got their license more than 10 years ago. Same for reserved car sharing parking spots. Same for some rules around electric vehicles, etc. etc.
It would just be good to make sure people who are operating a vehicle are current on the rules of actually driving a car - rather than relying on “that’s how I learned it, back in the day!”
An online test that you have to pass to renew your license would work well enough.
That’s how Italy does it already
I agree with this except im too cynical to believe people just forget about safety. People learn to pass the test and then drive how ever the hell they like. Granted alot of people are safe but i see far too many people just completely disregarding anyone else on the road and their only goal is to get to the front of the line as fast as possible and screw everone else.
They can retake their test, they will drive safely and carefully that one day and then go right back to being selfish idiots.
I would maybe go as far as to say thst there is a requirement to have a black box installed in all cars that gets switched off/removed after a number of years of safe driving. And if you drive badly or unsafely then your insurance goes up every year until you prove you are safe.
Maybe it goes up by x amount £100 or like 10% or 20% a year until you stop driving badly but remains at the price it was when you start driving safe for 3 years before dropping back down to the price it would be without the increases you incurred. That would stop people from trying to cheat the system.
It may be extreme but if you are driving safely you have nothing to worry about.
Of course we would have to nail down exactly what counts as unsafe driving so it wasnt overly/unjustly critical.
I mean… maybe its a bad idea. But again. If its not you then you needn’t be worried.
Here in Germany your insurance fee goes down every year you don’t cause an accident. But if you cause an accident it will go up again.
Very good. As a german, I’d welcome this.
However, expect heavy pushback from the German automotive industry. They are for Germany what the NRA and weapons manufacturer lobby is to the US.
Does the German automotive industry also exercise immense power and influence in both politics and society?
Germany has more cars per capita than the US and Germany is the only country without a speedlimit on motorways. So yes, they definitely do
Not true. Numbers from 2020: USA 919 Germany 628
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_vehicles_per_capita?wprov=sfti1
Looks like you’re right, I heard this fact in a YouTube video or something and didn’t check against. I’m sorry, I don’t want to spread misinformation.
That’s a solid “Yes, definitely!”
No, but the pensioneers themselves do having nearly an absolute majority in elections.
If a german pensioneer can’t drive a german car with more than 250 kph on the german Autobahn from north to south, west to east: how can we have EINIGKEIT UND RECHT UND FREIHEIT?
/s
You are missing this: !!!1111
Why would there be any pushback from the industry? They don’t have to. Pensioneers basically have an absolute majority (I think the 50:50 cut in voters was at 60,something and raising last federal election) so they already control all policies.
Only every 5? JFC remind me to never go anywhere near European roads.
Sure… those stupid Europeans and their lacking road safety. Oh, wait…
Good, I completely agree with this. Maybe once they hit 80, every year.
Why 80 years old even needs to drive? Their reflexes are slow, their vision is bad, their hearing is catastrophic. Why just dont let someone drive them/use taxi/public transport?
I agree but for that we would need good and inexpensive public transport
This is quite a brilliant idea. Although we could argue that everyone of all ages should be somewhat tested every x years. The amount of people that are over confident and forget things on the road is quite scary.
I kind of agree with this, I do think that an exam should be done every so many years, but I don’t think that full on driving test should need to be done. At most maybe a minimal test like make sure you can still do intersections fine and make sure you still know how to use your blinker in Etc but honestly I don’t feel like a full-on test is going to be beneficial for anything, a timed exam with common sense questions such as who has the right away in this situation, or when is it appropriate to go through a yellow, basic stuff
In the case of the eu, this isn’t an actually a driving test; it is more so of a medical test so like vision and memory tests to verify that you still have situational awareness, which I think will do tremendously more then your standard driving test where you may not even hit a situation that requires a lot of situational awareness
In my opinion it should be doctor every 5 years, driving test every 10. And as you get significantely older both intervals get reduced.
Good.
Normalize checking peoples cognitive abilities.
Provided age is not the trigger given that no proof has been provided supporting the age limit.
I can sort of understand the downvotes, but can anyone link a study maybe?
Yes, please make it happen! There was a subreddit called /r/RentnerFahrenInDinge (pensioners driving into things) that was full of new articles of elderly people being completely clueless in traffic.
If they would do that we would finally get a strong lobby for decent public transport!
I wish we could test for cognitive ability for voting access over 70.
The german satire party DIE PARTEI wanted to implement a highest voting age. If you can’t vote the first 18 years of your life, you shouldn’t be able to vote the final 18 years.
I seriously hoped it would have been implemented The older folks seem to ruin germany more the older they get
Finally some EU law that makes sense.
This proposal can’t stand. Germany will destroy it! We’ll find a solution; we’re going to make it voluntarily.
Because we know about and appreciate our seniors’ wise awareness of their limits. And their love of cars, of course.
/s
There’s a pretty serious concern here about the mobility and independence of the elderly… but that can’t be put over and above public safety. I see either very anxious and hesitant, or completely off with the fairies and uncaring elderly drivers on a frequent basis.
They wouldn’t get anywhere near a licence if they had to demonstrate their competence even once more, let alone semi-regularly.
Mobility for the eldery IS important but IMHO there should be affordable, easy accessible options without the use of a personal vehicle. Otherwise it get’s harder and harder for the eldery to participate in social activities which are beneficiary to mental health and prevent early symptoms of Alzheimers disease.
Frankly this is one of those things I kinda hope self-driving cars will help fix, given that we’ll just never have decent public transport.
Over 65? Here’s a test every year. Can’t drive to a high standard? Licence invalidated, go get yourself a car that drives itself, which at this point should be going for a comparable price.
If you’re over 65 I don’t think actually driving is the only thing stopping you from getting around. Imagine your grandparents with a VCR and then imagine them using on of them “Google thingies” to control a car.
I’d expect it to be similar to setting up a phone for my grandma. Pre-load the addresses they’d usually get to, and have the car call someone in the family for help if anything goes out of the ordinary.
I don’t really see a problem with that side of things, tbh.
Not every old person has someone who would help them with that. May not be your experience, but it’s true nevertheless.
Nevermind that it’s not a solution for people who can’t get into a car (people in wheelchairs for example).
A self driving car then basically offers the same service as a taxi. And with a taxi you do not have to take care of the car (repairs, registration, etc).
A taxi would be, in principle, substantially more expensive.
And elderly people with zero support network are a separate problem, albeit a serious one. Also quite sad.
I do not agree that it is more expensive than owning a car “in principle”. Cars are very expensive. You have to buy and maintain them.
Wether or not a taxi is more expensive will depend heavily on the amount and length of trips you have to take.
Also, for me it is not entirely a separate issue. Car dependent societies will alway have issues for people that cannot drive a car (children, elderly, disabled people). The real solution ist building infrastructure that is inclusive for all. This will also improve support structures. Self driving cars don’t solve any of these issues.
I support this. Cognitive function obviously declines as you get older. And elderly people have been lucky enough to live their lives. What if an 80 year old goes out driving, is quite infirm or easily distracted, and kills a 20 year old driver? That 20 year old has the chance to live stolen from them, while the 80 year old already got to live their life.
In Germany he’ll get a few month license suspension and pay a fine of a couple hundred to a thousand euros.
Every other month there is news of an elderly drover killing someone under gross violation of traffic laws, e.g. driving on the wrong side of the road, accessing one way lanes from the other side, speeding, crossing red lights etc. Then the court rules that granny is seriously sorry, but sze explained that she needs the car, so out and about again. Doesnt matter if she already killed people in a traggic accident that was 100% her fault.
Is there evidence that elder people cause more accidents than younger? I only find opposite data, e.g. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-37292951
There is a difference why these accidents happen. Young people cause accidents because they are more often risky drivers. Older people more often cause accidents because their cognitive abilities decrease with age.
With driving tests you can reduce the number of accidents for the latter but not the former.
