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 To stir up a hornets nest, just mention the possibility of curbs on the driving rights of older Americans. I just found out. A small e-mail blizzard hit after my-mid August column about fatal accidents caused by physically ailing seniors.
Its not us, its them, wrote one 77-year-old reader, who said shed never had an accident: Have you EVER seen young people changing three lanes, going like a bat out of hell and paying no attention to their impact on careful drivers?
Alcohol and youth are a more lethal combo, wrote another 77-year-old, William Poulton of Sarasota, Fla. Poulton, who got his license in 1940, claims 2.2 million accident-free miles behind the wheel. A car has become part of a person. ... If I find myself slipping I will surrender my license, but if Florida takes me off the road without an affliction, I will move to a state that may be more liberal. I just bought a new minivan and plan to buy another in a few years.
Poulton could have an interesting conversation with Lorna Schofield, a grandmother from Mountlake Terrace, Washington, north of Seattle. I had to smile at the idea of a graying nation facing isolation from use of the Beloved Car, she wrote. I have never driven a car. Each day I walk at least five miles, often more... to the grocery store, a one-mile round trip, the post office at four miles, and the doctors office is a six-mile round trip.
But, added Schofield, people all around me in my neighborhood are driving to the grocery store, less than a half-mile away. Its nuts! Theres so much more at stake than some old geezer running into others: Look at the monumental pollution and health toll from all this stupid driving.
Schofield may be right, but Poultons driving ways reflect majority America today. So: how could and should we reduce our immense highway death toll42,815 last year?
A fair answer says: clamp down on both teenage and elderly driving. That was the point of Ed Tennyson, a well over 70 Virginia driver: Before anyone punishes seniors for being too old, it is urgent and equitable to bear down on the youngest drivers who have accidents almost on purpose because they are so reckless ... driving many wasted useless miles just for fun and death.
Tennyson did balance his argument, saying seniors must take more responsibilityIf they cant see well enough to drive, or have seizures, if they pass out frequently, if they have poor muscle control they must be educated and policed into not driving. Drivings not a right. No one has the right to risk others.
The e-mails drove me to check out fatal crash statistics by age group, calculated by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The graph, measuring vehicle driver deaths per 100,000 drivers, looks as Charles Thompson of McAllen, Texas, e-mailed me a lot like a longhorn steer. It shows 27 deaths per 100,000 drivers in the 16-19 age range, then plunges inward sharply reaching a less alarming plateau of 9 to 11 per year for people 30 to 75. Then it starts to rise sharply again, peaking at 26 deaths per 100,000 drivers in the 85-plus age group.
So whats to be doneon the one hand to restrain driving by teenagers with their surging hormones, on the other those elderly people whose physical reactions may be failing?
Regular physical exams, especially after age 75, seem justified. Plus self-disciplinealready exercised by those elders wise enough to avoid busy freeways and arterials and stick to neighborhood streets.
Another idea, from Robert Fratkin of Washington, D.C.: Seniors should be encouraged to move back into small-town America. Many of these towns have sizable housing availability in close proximity to the town square, local bank and stores, and lack the bustle that makes driving and walking dangerous to themselves and others, he wrote.
Fratkin believes such towns offer more warmth and concern for neighbors than big metro areasor, Id add, spread-out Sunbelt retirement complexes.
As for teenagers, urban planner Mark Hinshaw of Seattle proposes upping the minimum driving age to 18. Keeping 16- and 17-year-old hands off the wheel would spare thousands of lives each year, he suggests; increased walking or biking to school instead of driving also would help combat the countrys obesity epidemic.
What about the seas of asphalt so many school districts installed to accommodate student drivers? Hinshaw suggests especially for communities where the cost of living is high converting the land to residences for teachers. Instead of subsidizing the driving habits of teenagers, school districts could assist in the availability of affordable housing.
Its unique idea. To solve our lifelong over-reliance on our personal four-wheeled chariots, well need a lot more.
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