Do you think people should take the driver's test again after a certain age?

Yes! Yes! A thousand times yes! I think people should be retested starting at age 65 or maybe 70.

(options about at what age people should have to retake would have been nice)

I can see the attraction here but I would prefer to eliminate driver's licenses altogether.

I view driving as a privilege, not a right, so yes. I can't quite decide on the age though.

My mother-in-law is nearly 87 & I sometimes come across her driving around town & she absolutely terrifies me. I would like to know if she is still sharp enough to drive or what. Of course, my friend's 26-year-old niece has about 4 serious wrecks a year & I think she needs to be retested.

Yes - I 'test myself' every winter by driving in a snowy parking lot to practice skids. I belong to 'Good Drivers' newsletters and am constantly learning. I think this would be a valuable thing for all drivers, who perhaps become complacent. Perhaps every 10 years.

lisashea: you belong to everything and do everything and know about everything. How many hours are there in your day.

Anon: I'm baffled by your comment. Many of my friends both belong and test themselves quite more frequently than I do - I'm hardly "great" for doing the minor testing I do. Many of my friends take courses every year, which I don't. Also, there are many, many things I am awful at. I openly admit to those. I apologize if admitting to the things I do try at seems like anything other than simply admitting a truth.

The fatality page is here with a searchable database, Jen. It's taking too long to respond to me at home (poor connection) for me to get your answers tho.

OK, it finally responded. 1997 single-vehicle. Young drivers seem to be involved in more accidents than older drivers.

<16: 186
16-20: 3,527
21-24: 2,478
...
55-64: 1,264
65-69: 492
>69: 1,240

I think we should let robots do all the driving.

I wish there was a feasible way to test all drivers more often throughout their driving lifetimes, and also to provide on-going education. I don't think the benefit of saving a few measly lives is worth the cost of creating that bureaucracy though.

phi, but wouldn't that violate rule #n of the robot code?

I think that re-testing should be done periodically regardless of age.
**jen: Yes, you're right. Accident rates drop precipitously after you get past the under-24 group of drivers. I have not seen statistics that show years of driving experience vs. accident rate as opposed to driver age vs. accident rate. Has anyone out there seen such?
**lisashea: Your statistics show nothing unless you also include how much driving those groups do. I could swear I've said this before.

I'm proud to say I've never been in an accident OR had a ticket! :)

i think the robots should test the older people...

Phi: Well, we're getting there, but there was a news story recently about a guy driving at night with computer navigation in, I believe, Germany, who drove into a river because the computer neglected to mention that that was a ferry crossing, and he would have to wait. I read that and thought "Okay, I'm less eager for computer-controlled vehicles now."

steve/phi - isn't that kind of the obvious problem with computer-controlled vehicles? Given all the variables of driving, how could they possibly be safe? Where a person has lots of really wonder senses, a computer is only likely to have a few crappy ones (computer "vision" systems have a long way to go before they are as good as human vision systems IMHO). I can't see how anyone can be taking this computer controlled vehicle dream seriously.

i know in new jersey, where i came from, they randomly test eyesight after a certain age which i thought was a good idea.

Jettles> In Ohio and North Carolina your eyes are tested every time you go to get your license renewed. But I don't think that is enough.

Pandora>> Knock on wood. :)

I just read an article in - Prevention, I think (no snickering about my blaise taste in reading material - my mom bought me the sub) that said that age was secondary to years on the road. It's actually new drivers that are the most likely to have serious accidents.

But I have to say, that I think a lot of older drivers are the cause of smaller, less serious accidents or unaffected catalysts for accidents between other drivers. Whenever I see someone dinging another car in the local Stop & Shop parking lot, for instance, it seems like it's more likely to be an older person. And I have seen a lot of older drivers stop short or half way through a traffic light switch and screw up the cars behind them.

The 75 year old man who lives across the street from my parents lost control of his car in a department store parking lot a few years back. The car drove backwards straight into the store. His girlfriend, who was about the same age, was in the passenger seat and died from a massive heart attack.

I think we all learn bad habits as we drive for a while, but anyone can be on their best behavior (use blinkers, etc.) for a few minutes of a test. I do think vision tests are important, however.

Um, don't we? I'm pretty sure my dad has had to go through something more rigorous than a simple renewal in NY after he turned 70-something.

I do know that one cannot rent a car internationally after about 70 (or before 25), which is kind of a pain, but understandable.

I wonder how much attitudes will change when the boomers all turn 70.

also a reaction time test

You should have to re-do the road test every 5 years, or something like that

I think older people should definitely get retested every 5 years after the age of 50. Is this discriminatory? I'm sure they'll think so, but science proves that your ability to drive is degraded by problems that come with age (response time, peripheral vision, vision in general, hearing, and so forth). The onset of these degradations happens at different ages for different people, but it happens, and testing for it would save many lives on the road each year.

Younger drivers do tend to have the most accidents, and many states have instituted a graduated drivers license program. This program restricts when and how the youngest drivers can drive, until they've proven their safe driving ability. Then their privileges are expanded. I believe we should have a graduated license program for elders too, so that if they prove their driving skills with good tests and no accidents they retain all their privileges, but may lose some or all of them as their abilities founder and fail.

I think people should have to retake the driver's test, but I don't think it should be based on age. You should have to retake it every 5 years or so.

If we had to retest whenever a license was renewed, that would be OK, though I'd want to think more about when licenses should be renewed. It's not an elderly thing for me, though. For example, I got my license and then didn't drive for 4-5 years... if someone required me to retest when I bought my first car I'd consider that reasonable.

I think that everyone should have to retake the test every ten years or so regardless of age.

although this will raise arguments. after a certain point, when your reflexes are deteriorating (or the rest of you), you should be retested. some people are not capable of driving safely after a certain point.
hmmm.. a test at 50, a test at 60, a test at 65 and then every 2 to three years after that (basically, when you renew your license).

I think everyone should go through driver re-certification, pilots have to do this, and can't fly if they don't pass (all pilots, not just comercial ones). I think we'd all be better drivers if we had to think about it regularly.

Most importantly, everyone should get tested again 12 months after getting the first license. There's just way too much to learn that you can only learn from experience. Plus, drivers' ed and the testing procedure is a total joke, one doesn't teach nearly enough, the other doesn't test nearly enough.

I can predict one problem with everyone with a driver's license getting retested periodically. There would be so many people needing to take the test, it would become a joke to pass... they'd be passing people left and right just to get them through the door. On the flip side, it would create a lot of new jobs.

My driving instructor didn't do anything for me... I learned to drive from my mother... The instructor just sat in the passenger seat and ate McDonald's while I tried to drive. She even verbally abused me a couple times, believe it or not. The actual test in Ohio is pretty straightforward. Even if you don't drive good normally, you could slide through the cracks if you know the basic rules to driving. I really liked Hillybilly's idea about the reaction time test though.

Not after a certain age, but perhaps periodically throughout adulthood - maybe every five or ten years? The other day I was out on my inline skates and witnessed two such egregious instances of bad driving (not by old people) that I was grumbling to myself that they ought to make the driving tests harder.

If it were practicable, I'd be all for regular driving tests (including verbal) for all ages.

It's one of those things where age is an indicator, but not the definitive factor. My great-grandfather was fine into his 90's, my grandmother has Alzheimer's and hasn't been behind a wheel in several years, and in that time there were situations where she wanted to but had to be prevented from driving. A driving test would've helped.

I don't think there's any point to periodic testing of non-old people. I'm not expecting my own skills to deteriorate until my body does.

On computer controlled driving-- computer controlled cars already exist, and they can handle highway driving fine. But as a vision researcher I heard lecture recently said, we can't trust computers to drive until they can tell the difference between a dog and a child. It needs to know when swerving off the road is worth it.

I wouldn't worry too much about driving off a pier though. No one's about to install a computer driver that relies on a map.

Seth, it was in an AP wire story from a week or so ago. I think it made the New York Times today.

Seth... I'd be just as likely to swerve off the road for a dog as I would for a child... regardless of it's form, it's still a life

they, what if there's an oncoming car in the other lane?

That has nothing to do with it... I'd try just as hard to avoid a dog as I would a child... I feel more comfortable playing god with my life than with another living being's. I also think the parent should be tortured and killed for allowing their child to be in such a position.

Periodically, say, every five to ten years.

ABSOLUTELY...I see people driving who look older than god(uh....if god actually existed)
It scares me to think they might not see or hear me......since they can't see over the bloody steering wheel!!!