Driving Tests for over 70s

[Dustydog]

There's a national campaign afoot seeking to make it compulsory for all drivers reaching 70 years to retake the driving test :woohoo:

 

[SteveW77]

They have enough trouble fitting all the new tests in.without making an ever increasing number of 70 yr olds resit a test.
A sledge hammer to crack a nut in my opinion.

 

[camel]

If this does come in then it should be a Driving assessment and not a test, this is the norm in the transport industry with a lot of the big companies assessing their drivers every couple of years, you would not need to go through the test centres but any driving instructor that holds the testers qualification, but who pays!!,

 

[Martin24]

My grandfather has just decided of his own accord to hang up the driving gloves. I last witnessed his driving last summer and he was as on the ball as I am. Oh he just decided 90 was a good time to give up.

 

[emmerson]

Better perhaps to raise the driving age to 20, thereby also cutting the number of cars on the roads.
Won't happen though. It would upset too many young voters.

 

[camel]

It's no good the powers that be saying that everyone over seventy should pass a test I doubt very much someone would pass a driving test six month after passing their original test, in fact the driving age for driving a LGV is now eighteen,

 

[Dodger524]

The insurance industry indicates that it is he younger drivers who need retesting judging by the premiums charged.

 

[carper2]

According to the news this morning, this has come aout when a man over 70 killed a woman in an accident. This must mean that anyone who kills someone in an accident must have to be retestedirrelevent of age. perhaps everyone should be retested every 3 years. somehow i dont think it will happen.

Les

 

[DrZhivago]

There's a national campaign afoot seeking to make it compulsory for all drivers reaching 70 years to retake the driving test

Could we have a link to something about that?

 

[carper2]

Have a look here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39617575
Les

 

[Gabsgrandad]

And of course younger drivers never have accidents?

 

[NigelHutson]

I spent fifteen years as a Police Traffic Officer, and then ten as a Collision Investigator, and my personal experience is that you can't really point the finger at any one age group. I realise that this goes against insurance companies statistics, but I speak as I find. Bearing in mind that the last ten years was spent investigating fatal and very serious incidents, if I had to pin my colours to the mast, then probably the 30-45 age range were involved in the most. Again, my personal thoughts are that we should all be re-assessed every so many years. We are all capable of learning something new. I do not regard myself as a good, bad or indifferent driver, (that is for others to judge), but I'd like to think that I am competent. Could someone who regards themselves as being good be complacent and therefore verging on being dangerous? Plus, having licences to drive many categories and certificates coming out of your ears doesn't make you good; it just means that you achieved a certain level at one particular time. The challenge is maintaining those standards, and that is something that all ages could do if they took driving seriously.

 

[emmerson]

Spot on Nigel! The only thing I would take issue with is that on our valley road, which seems to suffer from more accidents than it should, these accidents involve, almost always, the younger generation.
In fact we had one just last week where a young boy attempted to overtake two cars where there was no room. Result is two middle aged, innocent people are critically ill.
Not many elderly or middle-age people of my experience drive Corsa and their ilk, with loud exhaust and fully tuned number plates! I repeat my earlier post - raise the driving age to twenty, but by all means give us over seventies a driving assessment every five years.

 

[emmerson]

Forgot to say that there is also nowadays a huge group of people who are simply car USERS rather than DRIVERS.
There is a very subtle difference.

 

[Mel]

Please God that someone checks out my driving when I am 70. I am staring at 60 and I know my reaction times, capacity to rapidly process and eyesight now are not as good as when I was 40. Yes, young drivers are rated by insurance companies as more likely to have an accident but anyone who thinks that they are as cognitively quick as 70 as they were 30 years previously is deluding themselves.
Mel

 

[Jaydug]

[/quote] Could we have a link to something about that?[/quote]

It's in the news because some guy whose wife was knocked down and killed by an elderly person has started a petition for the Government to debate the matter. Apparently he's collected almost 100,000 signatures which is required for a debate to be considered.

 

[NigelHutson]

Emerson,

Thank you for your reply, especially with regards to drivers and users. I quite agree.

Mel,

The Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM) do conduct Mature Driver Assessments specifically for the reasons that you mention. You don't have to be a member, and you can do it at your leisure with an examiner. It is not a test, but purely getting an opinion on your standard of driving, and done in a relaxed manner. I don't think the costs are that much either.

Nigel

 

[DrZhivago]

I am staring at 60 and I know my reaction times, capacity to rapidly process and eyesight now are not as good as when I was 40. Yes, young drivers are rated by insurance companies as more likely to have an accident

Younger people certainly have better reaction times, but that is negated if they exploit those quicker reactions by cutting things finer. I have never driven close to the knuckle, when younger or older. I do things like steer further out from the pavement if I see children on it (or even adults, depending where they are), subject to traffic conditions of course; but I notice most people don't. When on a winding country road I imagine a horse out of control around the next corner; but I notice most people don't. I can always stop within the distance I can see clear without emergency braking, but (from the skid marks that are all along the country road I live on) many people don't.

But don't imagine me as a "slow" driver in everyone's way; I press on steadily according to conditions. I get frustrated by dithering drivers who seem to spend time fiddling with their phones when traffic lights go green (denying several others the chance to move on) and by those drivers who go through motorway single lane sections with enough space in front of them to have fitted five more cars in - when there is a mile or two of stationary traffic behind.

I am all in favour of re-assessments for drivers of all ages.

 

[Martin24]

I have to re apply every 3 years for my licence and jolly good that I do however, I do wonder if I didn't have SWMBO keeping an eye on me, whether I ought to be assessed every 3-5 years rather than just filling in a form to say no changes or whatever.

Don't really know what the answer is.

 

[DrZhivago]

All this talk of re-testing got me worried so I looked for an on-line mock theory test. After all, it is years since I took my test. This one seems official :-

http://www.safedrivingforlife.info/take-official-free-practice-driving-theory-test/car-practice-theory-tests/car-practice-test-one.
I need not have worried; many of the questions are phrased in such a way that they sound like the Fawlty Towers Mastermind Quiz, specialist subject : The Bleedin' Obvious.

It is multiple choice - always easier than real life - but the main thing was that the correct answer to many questions was simply the one that was obviously the least aggressive. By following that rule, someone who had never even seen a car could get them right.

For example, one question was what to do if a van overtook you, cutting you up. Here are the choices :-

1) Accelerate to get closer to the red van

2) Give a long blast on the horn

3) Flash your headlights several times

4) Drop back to leave the correct separation distance

Isn't that word "correct" [my emphasis] in (4) a bit of a give-away? Is there really anyone who could think that any of (1)-(3) could really be right (even if some drivers do it on the road anyway)?

I did not know one answer (stopping distances) but guessed and got right anyway. Another I got wrong because I misread the question (missed a "not"). Another asked what a white arrow on a blue circular background meant : er .... Keep Left? Turn Left? No matter, they weren't options, but One-way Street was. Oh, and I didn't know how old you must be to supervise a learner, but I am old enough anyway :lol:

Reminds me: my test examiner years ago asked me (verbally) what "a sign with three arrows" meant. Er ... er .. er .. I was visualising the two-way traffic crossing triangle but with three arrows. "A roundabout" he told me. I had known what a roundabout sign looked like from the age of 5, but he failed me anyway.

 

[Martin24]

why do we need to treat someone with a bleeding arm as part of the driving test? 50 out 50, thanks for the link.

 

[colin-yorkshire]

why do we need to treat someone with a bleeding arm as part of the driving test? 50 out 50, thanks for the link.

also 50 out of 50 and that's after being up 18hrs. and they say you get slower with age.
really annoys me all this talk of older drivers being more of a risk just because they have more experience. average mileage 10k a year 50 years that's enough to wear out 5 new cars. no accidents. no convictions not even a parking ticket.
older drivers take more care. take less risks. and are old enough to remember what safe driving really is.
unlike the kid in short pants with a licence so new the ink is still wet. under taking a line of cars at twice the limit just so they can cut in at the end of the queue in front of some old guy who is too sensible to run him off the road because he wouldn't give way. yeah test all the old folks and leave the roads clear for the Sunday grand prix drivers who treat every set of lights like the starting grid at brands hatch.
yeah very sensible that idea is.

 

[NigelHutson]

Sadly, we generalise too much. There are good, average and awful drivers in all age ranges. Some youngsters do draw attention to themselves by making the "modifications" to their cars that they do, and granted, a few will take risks that the rest of us would never dream of, but the same applies to Mr Rep in his company Audi/BMW at times. At the other end of the age range, we do see the more mature person who causes problems by dithering and bumbling along completely lost in their own little world. Conversely, a little while ago I conducted a driver assessment with a chap who'd recently turned 80. He told me that the week before he'd run up Snowdon for the last time as he decided to give up running when he turned 80! As for his driving (a 5.0-litre, supercharged Range Rover Sport), he'd put many to shame, and was VERY safe. I remember my son when he turned 17. He said that one of his ambitions was to be a better driver than me. I told him to get on with it, and encouraged any training that he could get. Whilst he wouldn't be able to have the Police training that I had (but believe me, there are some who pass those courses, but don't maintain standards and I personally wouldn't give them a dog licence (for those who remember those!), let alone a driving licence), he has taken various tests, and he is one of the few people that I feel totally comfortable as a passenger with (I'm an awful passenger). And that isn't commenting upon my own driving, it's purely that I'm a bad passenger!

The driving licence renewal post 70 is a farce really, as it's pretty much a self-assessment as to health rather than having any practical driving assessment. However, as I said before, I would not single out any age group, but would have assessments for everyone.

As for reactions, in the driving world, studies (Johannson?) have shown that the average reaction times are between one and two seconds. What might surprise you is that between the ages of 17 and 25 the average reaction time is nearer two seconds (inexperience), 25-55, it comes down to one second, and then 55 and over, back up to two seconds (because we start slowing down). Forget the Highway Code nonsense of 0.7 seconds, as that's done in laboratory conditions anticipating a change of a light colour with nothing else to concentrate on.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Nigel, and thank you for your insight from your past professional perspective.

I think the topic of reaction times is quite interesting. I have no doubt that reaction times to genuine surprise events does increase with age, but I hypothesise that's only part of the story.

There are studies that show reaction times do slow as we get older, but with the limited research I have carried out since seeing this topic, there is no clear differentiation between the signal speed in the nerve fibre and the processing time in the brain, and I suspect those two factors should be considered differently.

It's not clear how much age affects the speed of nerve signals, but our brains do seem to take longer to resolve a reaction as we get older. But is this just due to age related degeneration, or could there be another reason for it?

As we grow older the sum total of our personal experiences grows, Whist we may not consciously remember all the details of ever experience, we do retain a range of information. There is no point in holding that information unless its going to be used, and perhaps when an unexpected stimulus arises our brains look at more possibilities before producing a reaction.

Having a greatest scope of experience may mean that the reaction is slowed but the reaction when it comes may be more appropriate for the circumstances. Where as a youngsters lesser experience may produce a quicker reaction, but the outcome may not be as proportioned or appropriate.

But there is another consideration, and that is training. Take two same age teenagers playing football. both may react to receiving the ball, but the one that has trained is more likely to divert the ball advantageously. Training is known to set up cognitive sub routines in the brain, which means some reactions can become more instinctive.

I suspect that driving has many similar parallels, and an experienced driver will have developed more instinctive type reactions. But on top of that more experienced drivers (and that usually means older drivers) are more likely to read the road conditions ahead more accurately and subconsciously processing the chances of certain unexpected events arising and so may be better prepared to deal with what might appear to be a surprise event.

 

[WoodlandsCamper]

Going slightly off course (excuse the pun) have you noticed how many people indicate, obviously without checking traffic around them? The mirror-signal-manoeuvre is shortened to signal-manoeuvre in many cases. Having taken an advanced driving test on two separate occasions (30 years apart) we were told that one only needs to signal if it is beneficial to other road users, else it's pointless, but you still need the 'mirror' part. We live in a short cul-de-sac and I am amused how many neighbours indicate (out of habit) to pull into their drive, obviously not checking for any other traffic first.