Before anyone starts with the “old people are
bad drivers” nonsense, just know that the Insurance Institute for Highway
Safeway begs to disagree.
I have been a
licensed driver for almost 50 years. With the exception of a few speeding
tickets, I have never been found in violation of a motor vehicle law. I am in
excellent health, take few medications and wear glasses only when I read. But
now, for the sole reason that I’m turning 70, the state of California wants to
rethink its permission to let me drive.
As a resident of
California, I must appear in person at the state Department of Motor Vehicles,
where I will be given a vision test, have my hearing and mental acuity judged
by what I’m sure is a highly skilled DMV clerk, and be given a written exam to
test my knowledge of the state’s motor vehicle laws.
Making broad, sweeping and often inaccurate generalizations
about people based on their age is ageism, pure and simple.
I am dutifully
studying a 107-page DMV manual right now, albeit scratching my head over why it
doesn’t even mention my car’s parking assist beep or rear cameras when it talks
about how to back out of places. Oh right, the manual hasn’t been updated this
century yet.
But I have a bigger
problem than the manual being out-of-date and the state thinking it’s a good
use of my time to study it. I want to know how testing me just because I am
turning 70 is even remotely fair. Failure to see someone as an individual and
making broad, sweeping and often inaccurate generalizations about people based
on their age is ageism, pure and simple.
Why shouldn’t the
trigger point for a re-evaluation of your driving ability be something
applicable to all drivers of all ages — like if you were involved in an
accident, or got your second speeding ticket in a month?
And before anyone
starts with the “old people are bad drivers” nonsense, just know that the
Insurance Institute for Highway Safeway — the nonprofit expert record-keeper of
such things — begs to disagree. It says it isn’t older drivers who crash their
cars at an alarming rate; nope, it’s young drivers. (While drivers age 70 and
older do have higher crash rates per mile traveled than middle-aged drivers,
the IIHS found the rates were not as high as those of young drivers.)
I have two young
adult drivers on my insurance policy and can attest that it is them — not me —
causing my premiums to skyrocket.
California, of
course, isn’t alone in its ageist blindness when it comes to drivers. Driving
laws vary by state and
as such, lack uniformity as they relate to aging drivers. In Texas, they don’t
require a vision check until a driver reaches age 79 and they continue to issue
licenses good for eight years until the driver’s 85th birthday, after
which it must be renewed every two years.
I’m not honestly
challenging that as we age, vision can become impaired and reflexes may slow.
But I’m also cognitive of this reality: Older drivers tend to self-regulate.
When it becomes uncomfortable to drive at night, we stop doing it. When the
freeways become terrifying, we just don’t use them anymore.
Retirement generally
gives us the flex time to avoid the crowds, and so we do. Plus ride-sharing
services aren’t just for the young. Even now, we Uber out to dinner and back,
which also allows us to enjoy wine with our meal.
But I do want to keep
driving and I will need my license to do that. And so I am aware that the
consequences of not passing my birthday test are steep: The DMV can refuse to renew
my license, order me not to drive at night, to stay off the
freeways, and forbid me to drive in congested areas.
And because Big
Brother likes to have his way with older people, anyone — an adult child, a
neighbor, the woman who yelled at me for taking what she thought was her
rightful parking spot at the mall on Black Friday — can report me at any time
and have the DMV investigate my driving. Um, is it too late to say “sorry”?
Ann Brenoff was a
staff writer and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, where she won a
shared Pulitzer for coverage of the Northridge Earthquake. Most recently, she
was a senior writer and columnist for HuffPost based in Los Angeles.
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