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It seems like absolute common sense that as abilities degrade as you age you should have to retest for drivers licenses periodically. Perhaps with greatly incre

by wycy 7y ago

It seems like absolute common sense that as abilities degrade as you age you should have to retest for drivers licenses periodically. Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age. However, any politician who proposed or approved such an idea would be immediately voted out of office, because old people are very reliable voters. So it's not going to happen.

pavel_lishin 7y ago
There's no way to pass such a law without it seeming agist - because it would be. It seems to me, probably naively, that the easiest way around this would be to require yearly tests for everyone. You're driving a huge honking piece of metal at 60+ miles an hour down the street; a yearly verification of your ability to do so doesn't seem excessive.
- bspammer 7y ago
  Cognitive decline happens to everyone the longer they live, if that's ageism then I'm afraid it's also reality. Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. Hopefully, self-driving cars will eventually render these discussions redundant. But that still seems to be decades away at this rate.
  - pavel_lishin 7y ago
    > Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. I reiterate that we're driving huge pieces of metal at nearly a hundred miles per hour. Let's stop sacrificing people's lives for the privilege, and start sacrificing time and money.
    - cgriswald 7y ago
      I propose greater enforcement of existing traffic laws (instead of just speed and DUI); and a heavier hand when it comes to revocation. This would target those who need to be retested the most regardless of age and the burden of doing so can be put on them through fees.
    - magduf 7y ago
      Every society has to make some kind of sacrifice of compromise in usage of resources. Testing everyone yearly is a massive waste of time and resources and money, and won't achieve any benefit, whereas testing old people will. I don't care if that's "ageist". It's a biological fact that older people suffer from cognitive decline, slowed reaction times, etc. Is it also "sexist" to claim that only women are able to get pregnant?
- guitarbill 7y ago
  And yet we don't let people drive or drink alcohol until a certain, arbitrary age...
- briandear 7y ago
  I think every two years would work, just like the FAA requires Flight Reviews every two years. For those driving bigger vehicles like commercial trucks, they can have an annual “proficiency check.” If getting a car license were more like getting a pilot license, we’d all be a lot safer.
  - anticensor 7y ago
    Then you look for a Bundeswagen rating course after your Rugby car breaks down. (brands are deliberately kept fictional) And you find out Bundeswagen model Z is not a so common type rating, and look for yet another successor of Rugby model B.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Ageist is one of the isms with an annoying literal legal doublespeak worthy double standard - it is only ageist if you are an elder. If you aren't then it is "reasonable assumption of your capability". It isn't unreasonable but it is clearly a matter of power given the uneven application. Guess who has an interest in not being restricted now or in the future? Those who pass the laws and judge them.
dsego 7y ago
My old (first) croatian driver's license issued back in early 2000s had an expiry date in 2040-something I think, basically until retirement. The new one is only 10 years, so I have to renew it. I only got the new one because it's a plastic card that fits in my wallet (unlike the old booklet).
- wycy 7y ago
  My license expires after just 6 years I believe, but it can be renewed without retesting or anything, so unfortunately expiry doesn't solve the problem (at least in the US).
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    I believe mine expires every five years, but the first time I renewed it I did it through the mail. The last time, I only had to retake the eye test (at ten years). And the DMV made me wait a long time, with the eye test at every window clearly visible (and I think the same one, but I could be remembering incorrectly). I can see fine, but it would have been trivial to memorize it. Even if you can't see it while waiting, take a picture on your phone and zoom in. Memorize the lines you can't see. Plus, I'm not sure the employee was even listening to me as I rattled off the letters. In my old state they had a machine you looked into. I had a harder time with that one, I'm guessing due to my mild astigmatism. But no chance to memorize it, because you don't see it until your face is in the machine; and all the lines were the same size, so you could have gotten any of them.
    - mikestew 7y ago
      When my wife renewed her Washington license via mail, her eye test was checking a box on the mail-in form that effectively said, “yeah, my eyes are fine.”
jmull 7y ago
> Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age. We should do this based on facts, not anecdotes. This data suggests we should first be concerned with the training and testing of new drivers. https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/ https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuri... According to this, people 60-69 are the best drivers. 70+ are decent across the categories ("All crashes", "Injury crashes" and "Fatal crashes") except those 80+ kill themselves at an exceptional rate (but not passengers or others for some reason).

by wycy 7y ago

pavel_lishin 7y ago

There's no way to pass such a law without it seeming agist - because it would be. It seems to me, probably naively, that the easiest way around this would be to require yearly tests for everyone. You're driving a huge honking piece of metal at 60+ miles an hour down the street; a yearly verification of your ability to do so doesn't seem excessive.

bspammer 7y ago
Cognitive decline happens to everyone the longer they live, if that's ageism then I'm afraid it's also reality. Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. Hopefully, self-driving cars will eventually render these discussions redundant. But that still seems to be decades away at this rate.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  > Testing everyone yearly would be prohibitively expensive. I reiterate that we're driving huge pieces of metal at nearly a hundred miles per hour. Let's stop sacrificing people's lives for the privilege, and start sacrificing time and money.
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    I propose greater enforcement of existing traffic laws (instead of just speed and DUI); and a heavier hand when it comes to revocation. This would target those who need to be retested the most regardless of age and the burden of doing so can be put on them through fees.
  - magduf 7y ago
    Every society has to make some kind of sacrifice of compromise in usage of resources. Testing everyone yearly is a massive waste of time and resources and money, and won't achieve any benefit, whereas testing old people will. I don't care if that's "ageist". It's a biological fact that older people suffer from cognitive decline, slowed reaction times, etc. Is it also "sexist" to claim that only women are able to get pregnant?
guitarbill 7y ago
And yet we don't let people drive or drink alcohol until a certain, arbitrary age...
briandear 7y ago
I think every two years would work, just like the FAA requires Flight Reviews every two years. For those driving bigger vehicles like commercial trucks, they can have an annual “proficiency check.” If getting a car license were more like getting a pilot license, we’d all be a lot safer.
- anticensor 7y ago
  Then you look for a Bundeswagen rating course after your Rugby car breaks down. (brands are deliberately kept fictional) And you find out Bundeswagen model Z is not a so common type rating, and look for yet another successor of Rugby model B.
Nasrudith 7y ago
Ageist is one of the isms with an annoying literal legal doublespeak worthy double standard - it is only ageist if you are an elder. If you aren't then it is "reasonable assumption of your capability". It isn't unreasonable but it is clearly a matter of power given the uneven application. Guess who has an interest in not being restricted now or in the future? Those who pass the laws and judge them.

dsego 7y ago

My old (first) croatian driver's license issued back in early 2000s had an expiry date in 2040-something I think, basically until retirement. The new one is only 10 years, so I have to renew it. I only got the new one because it's a plastic card that fits in my wallet (unlike the old booklet).

wycy 7y ago
My license expires after just 6 years I believe, but it can be renewed without retesting or anything, so unfortunately expiry doesn't solve the problem (at least in the US).
- cgriswald 7y ago
  I believe mine expires every five years, but the first time I renewed it I did it through the mail. The last time, I only had to retake the eye test (at ten years). And the DMV made me wait a long time, with the eye test at every window clearly visible (and I think the same one, but I could be remembering incorrectly). I can see fine, but it would have been trivial to memorize it. Even if you can't see it while waiting, take a picture on your phone and zoom in. Memorize the lines you can't see. Plus, I'm not sure the employee was even listening to me as I rattled off the letters. In my old state they had a machine you looked into. I had a harder time with that one, I'm guessing due to my mild astigmatism. But no chance to memorize it, because you don't see it until your face is in the machine; and all the lines were the same size, so you could have gotten any of them.
  - mikestew 7y ago
    When my wife renewed her Washington license via mail, her eye test was checking a box on the mail-in form that effectively said, “yeah, my eyes are fine.”

jmull 7y ago

> Perhaps with greatly increasing periodicity with increasing age. We should do this based on facts, not anecdotes. This data suggests we should first be concerned with the training and testing of new drivers. https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/ https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuri... According to this, people 60-69 are the best drivers. 70+ are decent across the categories ("All crashes", "Injury crashes" and "Fatal crashes") except those 80+ kill themselves at an exceptional rate (but not passengers or others for some reason).