Column: A driving test for license renewal? Responses range from absolutely to 'Leave us seniors alone!'

Columnist

Oct. 5, 2024 3 AM PT

Once again, it has become clear that the letters D, M and V are like magic beans. Toss them into the public square, and the harvest begins immediately.

Earlier this week, I asked if a behind-the-wheel driving test should be required to renew your license after the age of 70, now that written tests have been tossed by the DMV. Hundreds of Californians weighed in, brandishing exclamation points like spears.

“There are bad drivers in every age group, so they should leave us seniors alone!” Vincent Daverso wrote.

Kesa Kivel was in Daverso’s camp, and issued me a warning.

“Don’t you dare advocate for this!!” she wrote, arguing that the DMV wouldn’t be able to handle the extra workload, and that testing isn’t needed. “We elders are smart!! I have friends who choose not to drive at night due to vision problems, who do not need a bureaucracy dictating this restraint. Please, respect your elders!”

GOLDEN STATE with a rising/setting sun in the middle

California is about to be hit by an aging population wave, and Steve Lopez is riding it. His column focuses on the blessings and burdens of advancing age — and how some folks are challenging the stigma associated with older adults.

Read his other columns

But while readers are adamant, they are also roughly equally divided.

“I live in a 55-plus community and let me guarantee you there are folks that should not be driving,” Dave Anderson said. “Some are just scary as heck as they back their car out of the garage scraping the sides, not realizing what they have done!”

Mary Rouse thinks it’s frightening that her most recent license renewal could keep her behind the wheel until 2028. “For Pete’s sake, I’ll be 94 on that day!” Rouse said. “By then I may be demented, I may be bedridden, I may (probably will) be dead — but still permitted to drive in the state of California.”

We are a famously permissive state in many ways, but I’m pretty sure you can’t legally drive while dead.

I believe the so-called knowledge test, no longer required for most older drivers as of Sept. 30, was a useless tool for determining driving ability — the roads are full of moronic and dangerous drivers who passed the test but should have their cars impounded and their licenses revoked. And I’m convinced an actual driving test would be a better determinant of capability, which is why I asked the question — for the sake of conversation.

One of the primary objections from readers opposed to a driving test is their insistence that older drivers are safer than many groupings of younger drivers, statistically speaking. So, why make them jump an extra hurdle?

That claim is largely true, and it has been for years, even as millions more retirees are on the road because of the cresting boomer wave. Teen drivers lead the way when it comes to fatal and injury crashes, while older drivers are becoming even safer on the road than in past years, thanks in part to improved health and more safety features on vehicles.

None of which is surprising. When you see people driving like maniacs, it’s generally not folks in my age group on their way to bridge, or golf, or to pick up the grandkids from school.

I love how reader Joanie James laid that out, breaking down the various categories of reckless drivers. You’ve got what she called your lane jumpers, lane-change blockers, texters, makeup artists, tailgaters, road-ragers and people who think the “Fast & Furious” movies are driver training videos.

“Can’t recall when I saw a 70-plus driver getting cuffed after a car chase,” James said.

She didn’t mention driving under the influence, but that’s another menace. I recently steered clear and fell back when I saw a young guy weaving wildly along the Arroyo Parkway. I then watched the knucklehead plow into a wall on the shoulder, bolt from the car, run through traffic and leap over the center divider.

That’s not something your average grandpa is going to do. In fact, older drivers are getting better behind the wheel, according to Aimee Cox of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit advocacy group for safer driving. Cox said that between 1995 and 2017, crash rates (per mile driven) went down by 35% in the 70-74 age group, 50% in the 75-79 group and 55% for drivers 80 and older.

“The youngest drivers, 16 to 19, are at the highest risk of crashing, then it decreases through 65 to 70, and then it starts to slowly increase again,” said Cox. “Drivers 80 and older are at increased risk of crashing than drivers in middle age or in their 70s.”

That is no doubt because vision, hearing and reflexes fade as we age, and there’s a greater likelihood of cognitive decline, as well. Cox said prescription drugs can also be a factor in driving impairment.

One problem in determining an age at which testing should begin is that we all age differently. You can be a good driver at 88 and a lousy one at 68. But as the stats show, it gets riskier and riskier the older you get, and I heard from plenty of readers who said their parents are a threat behind the wheel but insist everything is fine, just like my father did in his final years.

“My father-in-law really shouldn’t be driving, and we cannot convince him to give up his license,” Gary said.

“My father, who just turned 90, made the typical old man mistake of hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes in his 1985 Cadillac,” Mike wrote. “Luckily, he only totaled the car and no one was hurt. Coincidentally, he was required to take an actual driving test to renew his license. He failed the test, much to my relief, since I dreaded having to take the keys away.”

Gayle Smith, 90, said she quit driving at 89 and uses Uber now, with no regrets.

“I became more and more aware of the multitude of driving issues which had never troubled me in my younger years,” Smith said. “I feared that my responses were not nearly as good as they once were, and even though my driving, near the end, was much limited, there were still plenty of chances to have something horrendous happen.”

Most states don’t require written tests for driver’s license renewal, although vision tests for older drivers are common. Only one state, Illinois, requires a behind-the-wheel test for license renewal beginning at 75, and a lot of older drivers don’t like it.

“We get calls constantly about it,” said Ryan Gruenenfelder, director of advocacy and outreach for AARP Illinois.

Legislation to eliminate the driving test died in the Illinois Legislature earlier this year but Gruenenfelder told me another attempt to repeal it is likely.

I totally get the resistance to surrendering keys. It’s like giving up your freedom. But I asked Gruenenfelder what advice he had for those who struggle to get their parents to permanently park their cars when it’s obviously time to do so. He recommended AARP’s “Let’s Have a Conversation” online seminar, which offers strategies on how to make that happen.

In California, the DMV has a system for anyone who wants to report an unsafe driver, including a loved one, and you can request confidentiality. The Request for Driver Reexamination is available online, and my family was about to use it in the case of my father before his health deteriorated and driving was no longer physically possible for him.

It’s seems unlikely that California would consider legislation to require a driving test after a certain age, because it would be unpopular despite the roughly 50-50 split in my informal poll, and older drivers go to the polls.

Maybe the best bet is for the DMV to continue allowing good drivers to keep driving regardless of age, but to be more proactive in exercising its right to require behind-the-wheel driving tests for problem drivers of all ages. The DMV says it “considers several factors” in determining whether a driving test is needed, including records of moving violations and collisions.

Reader Margaret Locarnini, for one, will be relieved to hear it’s unlikely that written tests will be required after 70. Unless she moves to Illinois.

“Just thinking about a driving test makes me break out in hives,” Locarnini said.

And she’s celebrating the end of written tests:

“Let us rejoice and be glad.”

She forgot something.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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