Four Wheels and Two: Back to School for Older Drivers
It's not just young kids heading back to school this fall. Driver's Ed for older drivers is a growth industry these days, too.
These courses (more properly speaking, "interventions") are not so much about teaching folks how to drive as they are about helping elderly drivers learn to deal with and even compensate for some of the physical and mental declines that often come with aging.
That would include poor night vision, reflexes that aren't what they used to be, mobility issues caused by joint problems, arthritis and so on - as well as the effects of illnesses such as stroke or diabetes and Alzheimer's disease.
In Virginia, the state DMV has a referral service set up that puts elderly drivers (or their family members) in touch with specially trained older driver/rehabilitation experts. For a free ranging from $200 to $400, these experts offer comprehensive driver evaluation screening - along with remediation, where that's possible.
Occupational therapists can, for example, help a driver with limited use of his or her legs operate a car with hand controls. Or encourage an older driver who has difficulty seeing well at night to avoid driving after dusk. And - when necessary - they can suggest that maybe it's time to hang up the keys.
For information about what's available in your area, see http://www.driver-ed.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=110.
The Hartford Insurance Company, meanwhile, offers an Agreement on Driving that helps establish ahead of time and in writing when and under what conditions an older driver will agree to stop driving. Though the Agreement doesn't have the force of law, some families may find it a helpful tool should the need ever arise to confront an aging parent about their driving. It's available at www.thehartford.com/alzheimers/agreement.html.
The key element of any intercession is having a third party make the evaluation - and any recommendations. Few things are as potentially explosive or can get as ugly within a family as the recriminations that sometimes take place when an adult child tells an aging mom or dad that maybe their driving's not so great anymore.
Hearing the news from someone on the outside who is objective and dispassionate can reduce the drama and make the elderly driver more receptive to any recommendations.
And in the years ahead, the need for such interventions is sure to increase. By 2029, it is estimated that one in four Americans will be age 65 or older.
Though teenagers and young drivers remain the highest-risk group overall in terms of accident and fatality statistics, America's gray-hairs (and blue heads) are a close second. The fatality rate for drivers age 85 and older, for example, is nine times higher than for drivers ages 25-69. Motor vehicle-related injuries are also the leading cause of death among those in the 65-74 age group.
While accidents involving older drivers tend to result more from passive actions such as inadvertence, failure to notice changing conditions and slowed reactions than from things as excessive speed or willfully reckless driving - which are much more common among younger drivers - the end result is often the same. A timely intervention might just save a life.
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