Q. How can I tell if my elderly grandmother should stop driving?
A. Drivers over the age of 65 are involved in more car crashes per mile driven than any other age group except teenagers. Because older drivers are frailer, their fatality rates are 17 times higher than younger people. But there are many older drivers who believe they are safer drivers than younger people. The idea of giving up driving is a very painful subject, because it is seen as giving up freedom and independence.
According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, there are ways to tell if a older person should begin thinking about getting off the road. The Foundation suggests that you ride along with the driver and look for signs of risky behavior.
Here are 15 assessment questions to ask:
- Does the driver neglect to buckle up?
- Does the driver have a hard time working the pedals?
- Does the driver have difficulty merging on freeways, or turning onto busy streets?
- When merging or changing lanes, does the driver rely only on the mirrors, rather than turning fully to check the blind spots over his or her shoulder?
- Does the driver have trouble seeing other vehicles, cyclists, or pedestrians, especially at night?
- Does the driver seem to ignore or 'miss' stop signs and other traffic signals?
- Does the driver react too slowly to sirens and flashing lights of emergency vehicles?
- Does the driver weave, straddle lanes, drift into other lanes, or change lanes without signaling?
- Does the driver position the car improperly for turns (especially left turns), or try to turn from the wrong lane?
- Do other drivers honk or pass frequently, even when the traffic stream is moving relatively slowly?
- Does the driver tend to park extraordinarily far from his or her destination?
- Does the driver get lost or disoriented easily, even in familiar places?
- Do you find yourself giving directions or prompting the driver frequently?
- Has the driver been issued two or more traffic tickets or warnings in the past two years?
- Has the driver been involved in two or more collisions or 'near misses' in the past two years?
The AAA Foundation says that if you answered "yes" to
any of these assessment questions, you should be concerned about your older
driver, and help them take corrective action. The Foundation warns that older
people give the least credibility to their own family members who criticize
their driving, but are much more willing to listen to friends, a doctor, or
the Registry of Motor Vehicles staff.
The fact is, older drivers do have a physical disadvantage when driving. The
typical driver has to make 20 decisions per mile, and has less than half a second
to act to avoid a collision. Older drivers need more time to adjust to changing
light conditions, and take longer to recover from glare. Even though the issue
may be painful to discuss, if your elderly relative doesn't pass the 15 question
assessment test, then its time to start talking about where the road is leading.