But this table is not adjusted for the smaller number of over 75’d driving? So the accidents per km driven, then divided by age could show an entirely different picture?
That may be so if you want to look at it that way, but the greatest number of people who are killed on the roads is not down to the over 75s. The other age groups are mostly responsible, aren’t they?
But when you look at the graph above, with those over 75 being responsible for 9% of fatalities, and the other 91% of fatalities due to other lower age groups it appears on the surface to be unfair.
Of course, it’s necessary to reduce road accidents/fatalities and I’d like to see much more effort being made. Especially, for example, regarding so many motorcyclists I see bombing along as if speed limits don’t apply to them.
‘In refusing any change the government claimed that, although seniors were at a far greater risk of serious injury or death if they were involved in an accident, the evidence showed that they did not cause more accidents than other drivers.’
‘The powerful lobby for the silver generation in France has defended the existing arrangements, arguing that although older drivers showed a decrease in certain capacities with age, they generally adopted more cautious behaviour, with an awareness of their limits.’
‘As a result, any proposed new controls are likely to be fiercely resisted and in the absence of a local public transport infrastructure in rural France, it is unlikely to be a battle the government would want to fight or would be likely to win.’
We shall see…!
That’s good news. But I thought you were going to say you found those 50€ notes…
If I am not medically fit enough to drive safely… I hope it will be discovered before I have an accident and perhaps kill myself and/or someone else.
I don’t feel unfit… but am prepared to admit that age can/does have its affect… some of which are “hidden”…
if there’s something waiting to be found… let’s find it and deal with it !
thus, as I said… personally, I would not feel “picked-on”… I would feel grateful to confirm I am “fighting-fit” 
I now transport grandchildren and that is a big responsability when driving so I have no problems about fitness and safety issues. I don’t want to live with guilt until I die if I killed someone when it could have been avoided.
2 Likes
Not the greatest in absolute numbers perhaps, but I reckon per person an over 75 person causes more accidents than a younger one. Well over 50% of the near misses we have are due to some aged driver pulling straight out in front of us, or veering into our lane. And our local paper has many articles of them falling asleep and killing themselves.
And whilst not in that age bracket we are conscious that our reflexes are slower, and that we need to take breaks on long drives to keep concentration. Journey’s we used to do in a day we now do over 2 days.
1 Like
Blimey @Fleur are you doing a retro catchup, that post of mine was last year, many months before I lost those notes. 
And no, still no sign of them, and no sign either of the memory blank which stops me tracing exactly when and where they went missing. 
Thank goodness though, I never forget what a STOP sign looks like, and means. 
1 Like
Ooops! I don’t know how that happened. I must have got lost in the depths of SF and wandered back in time. The way it all works is still a bit of a mystery to me…
Seeing as we have blundered into memory loss territory I was musing to myself this morning that, although I still can’t remember the number of the mobile I have used for the last 5 years or so, I still remember the number of our first phone on arriving in Nottingham to live from Manchester in 1950.
Sandiacre 3013.
2 Likes
You haven’t tried ringing it have you @Stella? Would need quite a bit of detective work to add various local and regional additions to make it work.
Might be interesting to find out who answers though.
1 Like
Hmmm… 1950, I would have been sitting in Nan’s kitchen, listening to her as she answered the phone… (which was a shared-line in those days)
“Eau de Cologne 4711” … well, not actually that, but you get my drift…
I used to mimic her “parrot fashion”, playing with my toy telephone…
like you… the exchange and number are indelibly marked on my memory…
others have come and gone… that one lives on forever…
As years went by, numbers got longer and longer… ah well…
1 Like
And of course we had it drilled into us, didn’t we, in case we ever got lost? All we had to do was find a policeman.
In the 60’s, I went the other way, to Manchester from Nottingham. Our Co-op dividend number was 2464, or was it 3464? Even then I couldn’t always remember it when sent to do the shopping.
1 Like
I think I spotted you, couldn’t miss that avatar.
Derby, Ashbourne, Leek, Macclesfield, Stockport. Could still do it blindfold even now. Granny still lived there you see.
1 Like
while we’re completely “off piste”…
who can remember chanting their times-tables ???
We used to chant 'em while walking to school… us tiddlers started mumbling, trying to copy our elders… and gradually, as time went by… one rose up the ranks…
and I still find that sort of early-learning comes in useful, even all these years later.
3 Likes
Still do it now @Stella
But I am forced to do it with the alphabet, I realised some years back that I am alphabeticaly dyslexic. Looking anything up I have to start chanting from A. 
2 Likes
We all have “our little ways” and it matters not a jot…