Too Old To Drive?

Absolutely.

If that is how any other member of the public would be treated then it is right that he should be treated the same. Why should he be treated differently?

I’m very surprised you think this Stella I don’t see anything offensive about Peter’s post at all.

Surely there are more accidents involving under 25s because there are more of them on the road?

I wonder how you would all feel about a 97 year-old working in a business, being your dentist or doctor or driving a bus?

Surely extreme age does have verifiable physiological effects on speed of reaction, eyesight, hearing, suppleness etc.

Everyone seems a bit defensive of old people on the road, the ones I know are a bit of a liability, frankly.

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I mean they are wonderful for their age
But that is the thing isn’t it, for their age, they really aren’t like someone even of 60 to 70.

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It has been 20 years
 And my mind is not what it once was
 Thanks for correcting :blush:

In the UK they had a programme about older drivers. Really old, 90 plus. They each were given a practical assessment by qualified instructors/testers. Most of them were deemed perfectly fit and able to drive safely with the odd recommendation. I think one man was perhaps rather unsafe and advised to stop.
They had been encouraged to go on the programme by their families who wanted to be sure they should still be driving.
My father is 88 and drives within a 5 mile radius of his home. He wouldn’t want to drive any distance but he is a perfectly capable driver.
My sister is 58, passed her test first time in her 20’s, she is a dreadful driver, much worse than my dad. My other sister is overly careful and rides the clutch, which is dangerous in itself. She is also a nun and was most embarrassed just before Christmas a few years ago to be stopped and breathalysed by the police, they too were mightily embarrassed when they realised they had stopped a nun who was driving carefully rather than a drunk!
I think the most worrying factor with age is reaction time and this has to be taken into account.
People of all ages need to learn patience and consideration on the roads. That and not using phones.

I don’t think that it’s as simple as that. Young (male) drivers are responsible for an unrepresentative number of accidents.

You can have an accident with a collision.

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Yes - but young male anything are responsible for a disproportionate amount of all sorts of bad outcomes, aren’t they.
Accidental and deliberate risky behaviour of all sorts


All I did was quote the statistics.

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Apparently PP has been seen driving alone on a public road today not wearing a seat belt.

HI very one, interesting reading your comments, for myself an “accident” is that
an accident, non one goes out in their car and says
 a am going to crash today
 poor PP I do feel sorry for him as they may take this little bit of freedom away from him.
Just so glad there’s were no serious injuriĂ©s. . How kind and even normal that he contacted the injured to make sure they were ok.

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Yes, an accident - but there are risk factors, aren’t there, things which might contribute to an accident happening and to its having bad consequences.
I bet there is a very high rate of old people who are unsteady on their feet and fall over and that lots of them get broken bones, obviously you will say, old people fall over and break bones. Well that is exactly what I mean, eg if I am walking down the street my chances of falling over are much lower than someone 30 years older than I am. And even if I do fall over the principal injury will be to my amour-propre.

Argh edited as I have just realised PP is actually more than 40 years older than I am.

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An accident can be defined as an incident that happens without any obvious cause. In the case of road accidents most have an obvious cause.

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Re the “accidents will happen” standpoint :slight_smile:

I’m not an accident specialist but during my nursing career I can assure sceptics that an accident of some kind is a daily occurence in almost every ward of every hospital in the land, and the vast majority are unreported (although some might be characterised as ‘trivial’ or inconsequential by those disposed not to rock tbe boat). Accidents that have been witnessed by a second party have a marginally better chance of being recorded, but this not by any means guaranteed, as professional “back-covering” is as prevalent in nursing and medicine as in several other professional coteries.

Almost all hospital accidents (again my experience) occur in a context of extreme pressure to perform with inadequate resouces of personnel and time. Not infrequently complicated by lack of appropriate risk-mitigating equipment, poor maintance of equipment or general infrastructure, and an institutional ‘blind eye’ to corner-cutting practices. Health & Safety compliance is significantly based on ticking boxes, and many regard it as a sick joke or bureaucratic nannying.

I don’t think that many patients, relatives or the general public would be very happy with an “Accidents will happen” response to a the hospital death of or grave damage to a loved one, as is sometimes suggested as being appropriate to accidents on the roads.

It may be wrong to apportion blame in complex situations, but where appropriate and usually someone, or several actors, need to called to account for what happened, and face up to their responsibility.

That’s why they are a collision now in UK police parlance
We are confusing two important issues here Young people are more likely to have collisions because they MAY be reckless, take chances etc. Older people are far more likely to be cautious and careful but they MAY not be as quick to react,not as aware of surroundings etc so their collisions come from different circumstances

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Does caution and care come with age? :slight_smile:

Hence the use of ‘far more likely’

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I think so. I see the long-term consequences of what seemed to be trivial decisions of my own, so have more regard for decisions I make now I’m old. But I still make poor ones, and am better able to see that they are poor before giving effect to them. I’m also more alert to the quality of decisions younger people make, and the role that older people (not necessarily me) might have in influencing them.

I find that young people are now more mature and philosphically better grounded than earlier generations, maybe because they have more freedoms and a wider canvas at their disposal.