Mandatory regular (every 5-10 years) driving tests seem like a no-brainer regardless of age. Also seems like the driving tests should be more stringent.
The UK at least has a driving testing system with months-long backlogs. They're very slowly getting it under control, but they are doing so by providing around 150k tests per month.
There are something like 30 million license holders. Retesting just half of them every 10 years (and rescinding the licences if the rest) would require about doubling the testing throughput. And it would be political suicide - the so-called War on Motorists is a powerful media weapon. It's an obvious idea that would be very helpful, but I can't see it happening. Unless it's an online test affair, which at least could educate on some of the rule changes. I have confidence they could handily bungle that implementation, however.
At the very least, however, I think they should run some anti-lane hogging adverts and enforce that law more, and also make it a duty of heavy vehicles to slow down slightly to permit overtakes, since that's probably cheaper than the billions and billions they're evidently willing to spend on adding hundreds of miles of extra lanes to deal with the lower capacity of roads caused by bad driving.
We could ease into more driver testing by requiring retesting after certain types of incidents - vehicle goes off roadway for no apparent reason, collision in a manner suggesting impairment - but that might rely too much on the discretion of a responding law enforcement officer. Perhaps better to let insurance companies do a carrot/stick approach: discounts for periodic driver retraining/testings, required retesting after an older driver is at-fault in a claim. Disclaimer: am older driver by TFA standards.
Oh no, much more often. People above 70 can deteriorate really, really quickly. I’d say yearly tests which include doctors checkups and actually driving with them.
Anyone can deteriorate quickly. My sister (mid-40s) was in a hospital for 3.5 weeks before Christmas due to an infection that rapidly progressed into sepsis. Even now 2 months later she still needs to use a cane to walk around and is out of breath climbing a single flight of stairs. Bodies are remarkably fragile. From initial onset of symptoms to septic shock was less than 24 hours.
It is more a question of frequency. That is, the elderly deteriorate quickly more frequently than younger folks do. Younger folks can still deteriorate quickly under the right circumstances, but at a population level, that is a much lower frequency given that the average younger adult has more resilient immune system and greater muscle mass than someone in their later years.
Heck, I'm in reasonably good health, but if I get hit by a car crossing the road this evening, I could deteriorate quickly overnight due to injuries and be dead tomorrow. It's just less likely for me than it is for an elderly person that has poor vision and moves slowly while crossing the road as I am more likely to be able to spot a hazard and move out of the way.
Exactly. Lots of instable mental health conditions that make driving unsafe(mood disorders, schizophrenia, etc) can onset in people's 20s with almost no warning, as well.
A decent traumatic brain injury can happen at any time and most people never go to the doctor for those, too.
