Elderly Drivers: Should They Be Behind the Wheel at All?

All we were doing today was what we do every Tuesday; we were going to the market to do our shopping? Being at home right now - looking for work, like lots of folks -- gives you lots of time for togetherness and we use our time to do things together. Today we rolled our weekly shopping trip into our Thanksgiving shopping.

It really was a pretty good morning as I went to the bank to get some cash out, put gas in the tank and head home to pick up my wife to go shopping.

Shopping was a breeze; too, as we found everything we wanted, including just the right-sized bird for our small oven. It will give us some meals of leftovers, as well as our holiday meal.

We also picked up a few extra things. In fact, we found everything that was on our list for a change and we checked out and headed toward our car. One of the nice services that our grocery provides that the bagger who does your food, also helps you maneuver it to your car. It's a nice amenity that also helps to give those in the community who need some extra work - or work at all - some hours on their timecards. It's a nice feature. Today, it was a lifesaver as our bagger hollered:

"Watch out that guy over there is backing up and he's not looking!"

Sure enough, I walked to the front of the vehicle - a minivan - and I found a driver of somewhere between 85 and 100 behind the wheel. He was just backing up with his eyes straightforward. He wasn't even using the mirrors or turning his head. I guess he assumed that anyone who was in back of him was just an annoyance who deserved what he got.

I don't know how I did it - the driver was obviously deaf as a haddock - but I got through to him that there were people walking in back of his minivan as he kept on backing even as everyone was shouting at him to stop.

Now, I will say if looks could kill, I'd be fried right now because the old buzzard behind the wheel - who we were obviously inconveniencing because we had the temerity to get into his way - gave me a look that would cut through steel. And, even as he was stopping, he was starting to back again without even looking. It took a lot more yelling before the bozo stopped.

Thankfully, the sharp-eyed bagger had seen the old codger doing his version of how to backup in a parking lot and had warned us. But, this brings us back to the far bigger issue that is being debated here in Massachusetts right now.

When should you stop driving and leave it to someone else? If you're healthy and your reflexes are reasonable, as your eyesight and hearing should be, then there's no reason for you not to be driving well into your 70s. But, the way that old buzzard was driving today and his lack of reaction to me screaming at him from about 4 feet away, leads me to believe that he not only couldn't see too well, but he also had trouble hearing. It also leads me to believe that he thinks the world owes him the "right of way" at all times.

That's not how it works and it's not how it should work. He's the type of driver that would likely benefit from someone else doing it for him (I know all the arguments about independence and the need to be able to control one's life and I am all for the same arguments). But, as has been shown, in a string of accidents involving drivers 80 and over this year, these drivers can be dangerous.

One elderly driver cut down a little girl in front of her grandpa's eyes; another just bolted across three lanes of traffic before he had an accident that resulted in the death of another driver; still another elderly driver not only killed himself but other people. None of these drivers were young; all were in the late 80s or 90s. I think the youngest was about 80. How did these people get their licenses renewed? How did this idiot this morning get his license renewed? It's all a mystery to me.

It must by a mystery to our state legislature, too, because the bills they were debating hot and heavy about four months ago, aimed at controlling senior driving and providing for better and safer senior drivers have mysteriously disappeared. So, you end up with clowns like my deaf friend nearly running down my wife, a bagger, and myself.

What will it take to control this issue? Will it take the death of another little girl or the death of a couple? I don't know the answer. The only answer I do know is that there comes a time when you have to admit you can't do it anymore and that you have to rely on the help of others. It is there if you want or need it. All you have to do is ask.

It's a lot better than driving over someone in a parking lot.