Elderly Drivers

In the past week, on 3 occasions I've been nearly very badly injured by
inept elderly drivers. The problem is that on all 3 occasions they
simply did not see me. Even when I shouted loudly at them, they seemed
to be completely oblivious.

I live in an affluent area of London and so I guess there are probably
more old people around with nice cars and time on their hands than in
other areas.

However, it is incredibly irritating when people don't drive properly
regardless of age.

This is something that's going to become more of a problem and is
something the government is going to need to think about. Personally,
I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.


--
dannyfrankszzz

On 20 Sep, 12:17, dannyfrankszzz dannyfrankszzz.2x7...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:
In the past week, on 3 occasions I've been nearly very badly injured by
inept elderly drivers. The problem is that on all 3 occasions they
simply did not see me. Even when I shouted loudly at them, they seemed
to be completely oblivious.

I live in an affluent area of London and so I guess there are probably
more old people around with nice cars and time on their hands than in
other areas.

However, it is incredibly irritating when people don't drive properly
regardless of age.

This is something that's going to become more of a problem and is
something the government is going to need to think about. Personally,
I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.

--
dannyfrankszzz

If I were "king for a day" I would pass a law that from one year after
normal retirement age all drivers would need to pass an annual medical
and take an annual driving test to prove their continued competance.
Over the age of 70 the test would become more strict with incentives
to give up driving altogether. I would do this because I have:

1) Been hit in my car by a pensioner, also in a car, driving down the
middle of the road who then claimed to her insurance company that she
was stationary at the time of the incident.

2) Almost been knocked off the road into a deep pond on my bike by a
pensioner in a car who overtook me on a blind corner and then
instantly turned left across me.

3) Witnessed my girlfriend's parked car being written-off by a
pensioner in a car who tried to simply drive away only being stopped
by the fact one of her front wheels was now at a right angle to the
direction it should have pointed.

4) Had to convince my Grandfather to give up driving at night because
of his cataracts after the doctor's assessment had been " Are you
alright to drive? Yes? OK, then carry on"

Rant over,

David

On Sep 20, 12:39 pm, "
wrote:
If I were "king for a day" I would pass a law that from one year after
normal retirement age all drivers would need to pass an annual medical
and take an annual driving test to prove their continued competance.
Over the age of 70 the test would become more strict with incentives
to give up driving altogether. I would do this because I have:

snip


If *I* were "king for a day" I would do something similar, but I
wouldn't limit it to pensioners. Regular retesting of all would also
be a part of my scheme, with incentives not to drive at all.

But I'm not king... :-(

PhilD

--

said the following on 20/09/2007 12:39:

If I were "king for a day" I would pass a law that from one year after
normal retirement age all drivers would need to pass an annual medical
and take an annual driving test to prove their continued competance.
Over the age of 70 the test would become more strict with incentives
to give up driving altogether.

Personally, I would extend that to make *all* drivers have to retake
their test every 5 years (and I am a driver, so this would apply to me),
then going onto the annual test at retirement age.

4) Had to convince my Grandfather to give up driving at night because
of his cataracts after the doctor's assessment had been " Are you
alright to drive? Yes? OK, then carry on"

Eventually my grandmother has given up driving for much the same reason,
although in her case she should have given up 50 years ago! There's
something very wrong with a system that allows people with extremely
poor vision to continue driving with no more than a "Yes? OK, then carry on"

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.
dannyfrankszzz

Danny, will your 70 year rule apply to cyclists too?

On Sep 20, 7:17 am, dannyfrankszzz dannyfrankszzz.2x7...@no-
mx.forums.cyclingforums.com wrote:
In the past week, on 3 occasions I've been nearly very badly injured by
inept elderly drivers. The problem is that on all 3 occasions they
simply did not see me. Even when I shouted loudly at them, they seemed
to be completely oblivious.

I live in an affluent area of London and so I guess there are probably
more old people around with nice cars and time on their hands than in
other areas.

However, it is incredibly irritating when people don't drive properly
regardless of age.

This is something that's going to become more of a problem and is
something the government is going to need to think about. Personally,
I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.

--
dannyfrankszzz

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...912?hub=Health

On Sep 20, 8:26 am, Teredo wrote:
I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.
dannyfrankszzz

Danny, will your 70 year rule apply to cyclists too?

I'm not Danny but I don't see why it would. Few cycles weigh half a
tonne or more and travel at 100+ km/h.

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

On 20 Sep, 12:50, PhilD wrote:
On Sep 20, 12:39 pm, "

wrote:
If I were "king for a day" I would pass a law that from one year after
normal retirement age all drivers would need to pass an annual medical
and take an annual driving test to prove their continued competance.
Over the age of 70 the test would become more strict with incentives
to give up driving altogether. I would do this because I have:

snip

If *I* were "king for a day" I would do something similar, but I
wouldn't limit it to pensioners. Regular retesting of all would also
be a part of my scheme, with incentives not to drive at all.

But I'm not king... :-(

PhilD


This is only a constitutional monarchy, so you will need to be the
Prime Minister.

David Lloyd (at work)

Paul Boyd wrote:
said the following on 20/09/2007 12:39:

If I were "king for a day" I would pass a law that from one year after
normal retirement age all drivers would need to pass an annual medical
and take an annual driving test to prove their continued competance.
Over the age of 70 the test would become more strict with incentives
to give up driving altogether.

Personally, I would extend that to make *all* drivers have to retake
their test every 5 years (and I am a driver, so this would apply to me),
then going onto the annual test at retirement age.

4) Had to convince my Grandfather to give up driving at night because
of his cataracts after the doctor's assessment had been " Are you
alright to drive? Yes? OK, then carry on"

Eventually my grandmother has given up driving for much the same reason,
although in her case she should have given up 50 years ago! There's
something very wrong with a system that allows people with extremely
poor vision to continue driving with no more than a "Yes? OK, then carry
on"


There is something worse wrong with a system that gives out cars under
Motability to people who are registered disabled because their
disability is that they are blind in one eye and have tunnel vision in
the other.

dannyfrankszzz wrote:
In the past week, on 3 occasions I've been nearly very badly injured by
inept elderly drivers. The problem is that on all 3 occasions they
simply did not see me. Even when I shouted loudly at them, they seemed
to be completely oblivious.

I live in an affluent area of London and so I guess there are probably
more old people around with nice cars and time on their hands than in
other areas.

However, it is incredibly irritating when people don't drive properly
regardless of age.

This is something that's going to become more of a problem and is
something the government is going to need to think about. Personally,
I'd ban people over the age of 70 from driving.

Personally, I'd ban people under the age of 60 from posting rubbish. It
is probably the case that with increasing age comes an increasing risk
of attention deficit, but to set an arbitrary bar at age 70 is a
distasteful suggestion, to put it mildly. Try reading, for example, Age
related changes in drivers' crash risk and crash type; G. Anthony Ryan,
Matthew Legge and Diana Rosman, Road Accident Prevention Research Unit,
Department of Public Health, University of Western Australia, 1999

Drivers aged 70 and over are shown to have a relatively high involvement
in serious / fatal crashes, but in terms of overall numbers of crashes,
their involvement is very small compared to, say, drivers aged under 30
years.

The answer to inept driving is proper prosecution of all erring drivers
and a sentencing policy which acts as true deterrent to the sort of
behaviour we see daily on the roads from drivers of all age groups.
There is a current attitude in the UK that road traffic law is unlike
other areas of legislation and that breaking such laws is our
fundamental right. I watched a young woman only yesterday driving two
small children, presumably to school, with one hand clamping her mobile
phone to her ear. If she was even caught, how would she be punished?
An irritating fine and three penalty points she can wear with some sort
of perverse pride, as some sort of battle scars?

Elderly drivers need to consider their fitness to drive, of course, and
there are provisions in place, however inadequate at present, to address
this. But if we're going to ban drivers en masse(and I'm not saying I'd
be opposed to the idea) let's at least target the people who cause the
majority of the problems.


--
Brian G
www.wetwo.co.uk