9 ms·

British drivers over 70 to face eye tests every three years

220 points by bookofjoe 9mo ago

madduci 9mo ago
In Italy (and EU perhaps?) is every year from 70 onwards
bookofjoe 9mo ago
https://archive.ph/yjDN0 https://archive.ph/yjDN0
calpaterson 9mo ago
Unfortunately what is needed are tests of driving ability. Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. Politically very difficult to take people's licences away though, especially when it's permanent, not their fault and it makes their life a lot worse.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- FigurativeVoid 9mo ago
  Especially in the US. In countries with more robust public transport, you can get away with not having a car. That's basically impossible in the US.
  - jnovek 9mo ago
    I’m an American and my vision, fully corrected, is right at the legal borderline to get a license without restrictions. I’ve never “failed” a vision exam at the DMV; one time the clerk even said, “good enough”. (Don’t worry, I never drive, I only keep my license up to date for serious emergencies).
    - AustinDev 9mo ago
      A serious emergency isn't going to be helped by someone with very little driving experience. I don't follow your reasoning. If it was a serious emergency who would care if you had a license?
      - margalabargala 9mo ago
        People think about things differently. It may be that for OP, "but I don't have a license" would cause a second thought and waste time in an emergency. They may be self aware enough to head that off.
      - zdragnar 9mo ago
        A police officer would. The penalty for an accident might be negligent driving. The penalty for an accident without a license is, at minimum, driving without a license. You're also not likely to be covered by insurance without one either, even if you're not at fault.
        xboxnolifes 9mo ago
        Sure, if you assume the one time they end up driving leads to an accident, which is a crazy assumption. There are bad drivers out there right now, driving every day that rarely or never get into an accident.
        zdragnar 9mo ago
        Take a person who has marginally acceptable eyesight, who never drives, put them in an emergency situation where they need to drive and you've got a recipe for much higher odds of having an accident. Given that getting a license is an option, and it conveniently doubles as a photo ID, and there's really not a reason to not get one.
    - orochimaaru 9mo ago
      You also need a drivers license that doubles up as a real id if you want to travel by air. So the issuance of a DL isn't just for driving. I'm not sure if they give regular state id's as real id.
  - pjmlp 9mo ago
    As European, that has lived across multiple countries, that only applies to the lucky ones able to afford living close to the city center. Also healthy enough to be able to walk stairs, as very few places care about people with disabilities, or carrying stuff that is a pain to transport across stairways. People visit the touristic centre of the main cities and assume we all enjoy nice public transport systems.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      UK transport is much worse than the continent. London is fairly well served but elsewhere not so much, especially not the countryside. The trains are very expensive (even with an old person's railcard) and the buses are often irregular or non-existent in large areas of the countryside.
      - pjmlp 9mo ago
        I am aware, having spent some time in Bristol and Cardiff, in various occasions. That situation is very comparable to many places in the continent, some of them even worse. Also here that are many small towns and villages that an hourly bus is already something, and naturally there aren't stops scattered all over the place, or worse, offer no protection from weather.
      - tialaramex 9mo ago
        Well there's a big gap between something like London, a very dense city, and actual countryside. There's also a big variation in will. Where I grew up (Metroland, just beyond the end of the Metropolitan "underground" Line) the services are (other than the afore-mentioned London underground) abysmal because providing services costs money & people there want lower taxes. But where my mother lives today, near Bingley, there are enough buses that I get confused as to which one goes closest to her house when I visit. The difference in London is also in large part because London was allowed to retain a unified transport system when Tories dismantled other systems because ideologically their position is the Invisible Hand of the Free Market will fix everything.
    - snovymgodym 9mo ago
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    UK public transport is not good, especially when you get out of the major cities. Better than the US, but worse than Continental Europe. The buses turn up when they feel like it, and there are problems with antisocial behaviour on a lot of them, including assault.
    - pmyteh 9mo ago
      This depends a lot on where you are. I've lived in York, Darlington, Leeds, London, Oxford, and Liverpool for decent periods and used buses in all of them regularly. Only Darlington was really unpleasant for buses - they were often every half an hour and if one came early and you missed it you would be left in the cold for ages without information. Oxford was great (though cycling was even better); Leeds, Liverpool, and York were perfectly fine, with regular and reliable services; London's are famously efficient. Antisocial behaviour isn't honestly that common in my experience, though I'm sure that varies by location. Had some aggro in London once, and again on a London night bus. The football special to the LNER stadium in York was properly boisterous, and quite threatening to the poor away-supporting family on the lower deck, but that at least carried a copper to make sure nothing stupid happened. Other than that, I've only ever really seen loud schoolchildren - who can be annoying but have never caused difficulty for anyone outside their group. I've honestly seen worse behaviour on the tube (and been the object of it on Cross Country Trains).
      - nephihaha 9mo ago
        Unfortunately, I've encountered antisocial behaviour on many occasions on buses. Had one guy sit opposite me and proceed to insult me about my clothes. I went over to the driver to complain (I had said nothing and this point) and the driver threatened to throw me off. Also had people hit me on buses and trains. And witnessed someone sexually harassing another passenger — he stood rubbing his crotch in front of her and asked her to "finish me off". Football fans are often bad. Especially on trains. I hate getting a train full of them.
        pmyteh 9mo ago
        Ugh, that's grim. Football fans are a bit odd. If you spend a lot of time in football crowds you get much more adept at telling when things are going to kick off and when people are only being obnoxiously loud. Both are annoying but only the first is actually dangerous. But the second can definitely make people feel unsafe. And given that you can't easily get off a train if you feel threatened it's a big problem. When I was younger I got assaulted on the street five times, and it was always in improbable places and for no obvious reason. Some people are just shitty, some of the time.
  - SoftTalker 9mo ago
    Not impossible, with uber/lyft being available. And yes public transit is not good everywhere in the US, but in high density cities it generally is.
  - kakacik 9mo ago
    Nope, even best countries in the world with great public transport like Switzerland have tons of remote places basically unreachable by public transport, or bus that goes 2x a day on some days of the week. Guess what, mostly old folks live there and all this applies there. Its just not financially feasible to cover everybody. Proper full self driving should fix this, nothing less I am afraid.
    - CPLX 9mo ago
      > basically unreachable by public transport, or bus that goes 2x a day on some days of the week. This sentence is hilarious from an American perspective. There are central business districts of major US cities that are less connected to public transit than the most remote rock at the end of a steep canyon in Switzerland. A bus that ran 1x a day on any day of any week would be a drastic improvement for nearly all of the US.
      - kakacik 9mo ago
        Its not mutually exclusive - most of the world thats not in stone age has better public transport than US, I guess everybody knows that and its not by accident but for good (well bad but logical) reasons. That some PT is still not covering somebody's full needs for long term living is understandable too I presume, especially if its few days gaps in service.
    - boelboel 9mo ago
      Proper self driving is furthest away from being able to handle these cities as well, don't see these driving in Sicily before 2040. Many of these older people don't even know how to use a smartphone so even a 'perfect solution' will take some effort.I still have to help my grandpa with landline calls because he never had one himself (I live in one of the most developed countries in the world).
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
  - cebert 9mo ago
    I know it doesn’t work everywhere, but I’m happy there are services like Uber and Lyft when I get older. I could see myself using those services a lot when I am no longer able to drive.
    - FigurativeVoid 9mo ago
      I wonder if communities will move away from things like buses to public autonomous cars. If you could run a fleet of $30k Waymo’s, that would be nice
- flkiwi 9mo ago
  Well the obvious solution is take away the vote for over-65s! /s … maybe
  - HPsquared 9mo ago
    It's not like voting does anything, anyway. Once elected, they do what they want.
    - zdc1 9mo ago
      The purpose of a system is what it does. There's lots of literature on what the best, or at least better, voting systems (hello preference voting) and decision making approaches are. Getting them implemented is another story.
      - jstanley 9mo ago
        Conversely, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
        TimorousBestie 9mo ago
        Scott aggressively missing the point of Beer’s maxim is not a counter-argument. Making a specific point would be more persuasive than a mere link.
        jstanley 9mo ago
        I don't have a view on the main thrust of the comment, but "the purpose of a system is what it does" is very obviously wrong (as detailed in the linked blog post) and that is what I was responding to.
        zdc1 9mo ago
        I believe we say "the purpose of a system is what it does" is to also poke at the fact that there are mechanisms and design decisions (tradeoffs) at play that lead to certain results, and that if we want to change outcomes, we need to change the system. Votes matter more in some systems than others. Preference voting allows for smaller parties to more easily gain seats while first-past-the-post supports two-party systems. In the UK and AU, the prime minister must hold a seat, and so can be removed from parliament through (a subset of) citizen votes removing them from their seat, even if the majority party stays in power. In the US, the President (who can issue executive orders) is elected by an electoral college--none of whom are directly elected by citizen votes. Maybe it's not a big conspiracy, but these systems are doing what they are known to do, and will do so unless they are changed. Of course there are systems in place to change these systems, which are also quite hard to utilise. And strangely (or not), no one is rushing to improve voter power and representation. So there's some interesting questions there around what changes can be made that would best improve representation, and what could be blocking those changes from being made.
- graemep 9mo ago
  > Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. Evidence? I thought over-70s were on average safer than young drivers
  - GJR 9mo ago
    UK statistics here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-younger-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... The issue is that the rate of accidents rapidly increases after 70 and the easiest detectable indicator is deteriorating eyesight.
    - joeig 9mo ago
      I opened the link and didn’t expected a report about younger drivers. This link is about older drivers: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-older-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
    - notahacker 9mo ago
      Yep. In practice, you've probably got a group of over 70s who are much safer drivers than the average 17-24 year old and some with declining eyesight who are worse. The test proposes to distinguish between the two
      - graemep 9mo ago
        I am not objecting to the test. I am disagreeing with the sweeping statement. I think testing eyesight is important. In fact you need to make a declaration about your eyesight when you first get a license and when you renew after 70. There is no real enforcement of the former either (they just ask you to read a number plate at a distance IIRC).
      - pwg 9mo ago
- jstummbillig 9mo ago
  This is good, no? The intent is obvious, it's likely improving the current situation, and I don't see any reason not to applaud it as an low-barrier incremental improvement.
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  Of course it makes their lives worse. In a lot of parts of the UK, the public transport is barely fit for purpose, irregular, non-existent (in much of the countryside) or dangerous (in the city). I speak from personal experience. I've been harassed and assaulted on British buses and trains on more than one occasion. Once had to phone the police to get rid of someone who started to follow me home, after he had hit me getting out of a train in a small branch station. It's like the Wild West. In one village I visited, there was only one bus there a day, and a bus back on a different day. How are old people supposed to function with that? As usual this is set up as a tax farming scheme for the government to make money. They will make tonnes of money off forcing people to reapply for an overpriced licence every three years.
  - andyjohnson0 9mo ago
    > As usual this is set up as a tax farming scheme for the government to make money. They will make tonnes of money off forcing people to reapply for an overpriced licence every three years. This is zero-evidence bullshit. On and after the age of 70, all UK drivers have to renew their licence every three years anyway - it's been like that since 1976. This new change just adds a requirement to get an eye test (which the government doesn't "make money" from) as well, rather than self-certifying.
    - tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
      In fact the government pays for eye tests once you are over sixty.
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      Starmer was talking about getting over 55s to get a new licence every five years a few months ago. He hasn't managed to push that through. Of course, you would have to pay more money to them every time you get one. British TV licences are overpriced as are British passports, but you have to have one or the other as ID. I have one just now, but no car. The public transport is awful. Most of the price of petrol in the UK is government duty and VAT, then there is the extortionate road tax etc. The British exchequer rakes it in off motorists but fails to help provide safe and reliable alternatives.
- boelboel 9mo ago
  I wouldn't say over 70 year olds, average 70 year old is fine. Problem gets a lot worse at 75 or 80. Most these people don't drive nearly as much as younger people anyway. My grandma is 90 and drives 5 miles to the grocery store, a slow road. I don't think she'd pass a driving test but she drives during the day when barely anyone is on the road, chances of serious injury are nil. Is it worth it to spend large amounts of money on testing these people, taking their license away if they fail? Getting rid of their car will force them to replace it with someone else driving or cycling which could be a problem in many places. Worst case scenario they'll need to go in a retirement home.
  - nandomrumber 9mo ago
    Maybe less of an issue if they’re given taxi vouchers to the value of about the typical amount of driving they would have done?
    - boelboel 9mo ago
      There's not many taxis in most places, I come from a town of 400 people it'd be a very uneconomical solution. I'm not saying it's great for them to drive, I just doubt there's a way to fix it in these sort of places. My grandma cycles to the small store for most of her groceries everyday, it's only the big store she drives to bi-weekly. Honestly the cycling is probably more dangerous, and there's some elderly in my town who're pushing 100 cycling daily.
      - treve 9mo ago
        Public services don't need to be 'economical'
    - steveBK123 9mo ago
      Across the western world, elderly benefits increasingly outstrip the growth young workers paying taxes for their benefits are able to eke out. I do not think they need free taxis as well. For UK in particular look up triple lock pension.
- tedggh 9mo ago
  The worst age group behind the wheel is by far 16-25. The middle age group is the safest and the gap is actually moderate compared to 70-75.
  - calpaterson 9mo ago
    You're taking about statistical averages but I'm talking about a significant minority of over-70s who are wildly dangerous. Most of them only stop driving when they cause an accident. Sometimes its a serious one. There are already some measures for young people, like the 6 point thing. Maybe there could be more. Doesn't change the facts about dangerous OAP drivers
    - bumby 9mo ago
      “I'm talking about a significant minority of [under 25 year olds] who are wildly dangerous.” (Edit mine) Don’t you think that statement is also true?
      - LEDThereBeLight 9mo ago
        16 year olds get better at driving.
        bumby 9mo ago
        They also get less likely to commit crime, but that’s not how we gauge risk. We don’t generally say “that teenager’s crime risk is going down so they are less risky than that geriatric whose crime risk is fairly constant.” Risk probability is usually the area under a hazard rate curve. Over a long enough interval, that reduction in risk would be important. So what is the appropriate time interval for these risk assessments?
    - 7thpower 9mo ago
      > Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. > You're taking about statistical averages but I'm talking about a significant minority of over-70s who are wildly dangerous. You sure about that?
- kakacik 9mo ago
  In Switzerland we do it all. After 75 there is requirement for periodic health check by doctor which consists of various mental checks and eyesight. I would put it at 70, everybody degrades with age at different pace, some lose it even before 50 (ie sclerosis or parkinson) but cca 70 is an age I can see clear mental decline in every person I ever interacted closely. Wife is a GP and she regularly faces this at her work. I begged her numerous times to take away those licenses without mercy if the person is unfit, no amount of pleading, begging, crying of threats should change that. And they do it all, oh so much - to the point she is giving up this revenue stream, too much emotional burden (from somebody who sometimes has to tell patients they have ie cancer). Why so harsh - we live in more rural place with tons of old folks. They are properly dangerous behind the wheel - they can't handle any sudden situation, heavy traffic is a challenge at best, they need to drive at absolute minimum speed at bright daylight to handle situations. Its tough, they live their whole lives in the middle of nowhere, too stubborn to sell and move someplace more reasonable and without a car they can't easily take care of themselves in their remote places (but its 2026 we have ubers, taxis and home deliveries, and once further down the road good social housings for elderly). Often, they know old but still working doctors who turn the blind eye because they are old buddies and then its sometimes sad news. When they handle 1.5 tonne of steel that accelerates fast and easily kills others, very easily it stops being primarily about them but about rest of society. When you see them barely managing driving around local primary school, its either them or us/our kids
- guerrilla 9mo ago
  > Politically very difficult to take people's licences away though, especially when it's permanent, not their fault and it makes their life a lot worse. It shouldn't be permanent. If they can improve, then why not? Maybe illness causes their poor driving and they find a treatment for that illness.
  - calpaterson 9mo ago
    > If they can improve, then why not? I'm talking about removing licences due to cognitive decline. It's not a temporary condition
    - gus_massa 9mo ago
      It can be for "3 months" (with a low expectation that after 3 months they improve enough to get the licence again).
    - the_real_cher 9mo ago
      It's a vague definition though. All cognitive decline is not equal. If they're able to drive they should be allowed to
    - cjbgkagh 9mo ago
      Theoretically it can be, though usually not, so the question is what should be the law to cover the general case. It wouldn’t be such a problem if it were easy for them to get around without driving. Either self driving cars, subsidized Ubers, public transit, walkable cities, home delivery, etc. My opinion is that in the general case people over 70 shouldn’t be driving and I say this as someone who has 4 spritly grandparents in their 90s. I really don’t like how dangerous roads are, a fact that we accept because we did not really have good alternatives, now that we do we should implement them.
      - Wistar 9mo ago
        Paul Newman won his last race at Lime Rock in Sept. 2007 driving a 900-horsepower Corvette when he was 82.
- hyperman1 9mo ago
  In my experience, the 70+ are bad at driving in ways that do lighter accidents. Typically: Drive 50 km/h everywhere, even if the road is 30 or 70. General weird behaviour. Swerving slowly left right left forever. They do cause a lot of cursing, but they are signalling hard enough they're bad at driving and other drivers leave huge margins, overly grant right of way, don't cross the road, etc...
- oncallthrow 9mo ago
  Fairly regularly an 80-something will end up driving down the wrong carriageway of a motorway or dual carriageway. Fairly regularly this results in deaths.
- afavour 9mo ago
  It is unfortunate that things like this become politically impossible because older people are one of the most reliable voting groups out there. I will always be bitter that older voters chose Brexit by a large margin, in opposition to the younger voters who will actually be around to feel its long term effects. Not taking that into account in voting feels wrong but there’s no politically palatable way of addressing it.
  - Der_Einzige 9mo ago
    Make voting be based on military eligibility. This is something Starship Troopers was sort of correct about. You can't be drafted in war time emergencies? You can't vote (also yes I do want women to be draftable)
    - landl0rd 9mo ago
      You're right about military eligibility, but also that you shouldn't make calls for a nation which you will never see. Doubly so if one does not have children. No skin in the game, no alignment of incentives, no moral right to choose. Even moreso when you consider basically the whole generation relies on leeching off the young and have continued to capture an ever-increasing proportion of public spending across the western world despite owning an outsized proportion of both real estate and wealth overall.
    - Waterluvian 9mo ago
      > This is something Starship Troopers was sort of correct about. It might also suggest further reflection is warranted.
      - lokar 9mo ago
        Another in a long line of tech people not understanding science fiction
        iwontberude 9mo ago
        Or policy. We have an embarrassing chap in these comments advocating for the equivalent of Jim Crow voting laws.
ptribble 9mo ago
Why pick on the over-70s though? Most drivers in the UK either can't see or don't bother looking, so we should be demanding higher standards of all drivers.
- II2II 9mo ago
  They won't test everyone on a regular basis due to the cost and because it would be politically unpopular. Heck, I saw someone in their 30's go ballistic about losing their license after having two seizures while driving (both of which resulted in collisions). Enforcement is another issue. I don't even bother reporting being hit by cars anymore because the police refuse to do anything about it. That is after an incident and with a plate number. Enforcement of people driving without a license would be next to impossible unless there is an incident. As for "don't bother looking", well, you cannot really test for that since it is usually the result of some form of distracted driving or carelessness. Both of which are unlikely to show up when someone knows they are being assessed.
noodlesUK 9mo ago
Older people in the UK already have free bus passes and various other substantial concessions regarding public transport. Cars are dangerous, and if you can't see clearly, you're obviously not fit to drive. It's true that there will be negative impacts on people who will fail the eye tests, and we should be compassionate, but ultimately those people aren't safe behind the wheel, and put other peoples lives at risk, not just their own. The practical details of implementing this are important - is the eye test done at an ordinary optician/optometrist's shop? How are the results going to be submitted to DVLA, etc.? What protections will be in place to prevent people from shopping around for a dodgy optician (as people often do with cars and MOTs)? I think this is a reasonable and practical step in the right direction. I accept that given the shortage of driving examiners it would be impossible to require re-testing of existing drivers in the foreseeable future, but as the article says, people already get eye tests frequently and often for free, so this is something that can be done without too much additional infrastructure. A personal anecdote: my grandfather is in his 90s and is not at all fit to drive due to cataracts and various other issues, but he still does "short journeys" because it's convenient and he feels that it's necessary. The UK has plenty of public transport options and places where people can live with amenities close by (though this is not at all universal). Most British towns and cities are very different from their US counterparts in this respect. My grandfather moved house relatively recently --in full knowledge that the house he chose would benefit from car ownership, and in full knowledge about his age. The only thing that will stop him and others like him from putting people in danger is taking away his licence. He has been told by doctors, opticians and family members that he's not safe to drive, but in the absence of any enforcement he persists. I hope that this policy comes in before he or someone else gets hurt.
- graemep 9mo ago
  > Older people in the UK already have free bus passes and various other substantial concessions regarding public transport. Which is fine if you live somewhere where there is public transport.
  - tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
    You have to be pretty remote to have no public transport in the UK.
lacunary 9mo ago
driving in downtown Austin this morning, the waymo swarm is real. the US may not have robust public transit but why can't we subsidize ride shares for seniors who lose their ability to drive safely?
- fibonachos 9mo ago
  I’m still a couple decades off from “senior”, but I have already reached a point where most day to day driving feels like a chore. If/When Waymo finally arrives in my smallish Bay Area city I can see myself using it a quite a bit. Hopefully self-driving cars are ubiquitous by the time I reach “shouldn’t be driving” age.
- antonymoose 9mo ago
  When I lived in Charleston the transit system had both subsidized ride share and ADA-compliant ride services (literally a government taxi service) for seniors and the disabled. So it certainly can be done.
zerealshadowban 9mo ago
My mother completely stopped driving in her early 70s... thank god for the Swiss medical driving fitness test! (now at 75 instead of 70?) she was perfectly fine with it, online food order+delivery had become available, and her immediate neighbors were loving people helping her whenever I+siblings were not easily available.
GJR 9mo ago
To inform the thread, UK accident statistics from 2024 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-younger-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
- globular-toast 9mo ago
  The shift from male to female is fascinating. In younger drivers accidents are disproportionately male, I guess due to high testosterone buffoonery but in older drivers it's disproportionately female. My personal observation is that older male drivers are much more slow and less confident whereas females tend to be overly confident and driving way too fast, especially the ones in huge cars. According to this women become more dangerous than male 17-24 year old drivers only when they reach 80+ whereas for men they only become more dangerous than female 17-24 year old drivers at 86+. I actually think more should be done about younger drivers than older.
  - Someone 9mo ago
    > The shift from male to female is fascinating. In younger drivers accidents are disproportionately male, I guess due to high testosterone buffoonery but in older drivers it's disproportionately female. When you correct for population size, I think you’ll see that difference largely, if not completely, goes away. There are more women than men in the UK from age 50 upwards (https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2025/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2025/)
    - globular-toast 9mo ago
      The statistic is per distance driven.
  - markstos 9mo ago
    One reason there are more females in accidents at the oldest ages is because the males are dead. In the UK, the average life expectancy for a female is 82.9 vs 77.9 for men, a 5-year gap.
Neil44 9mo ago
I think everyone should do a re-test every 10 years then maybe 5 years after 70.
- IshKebab 9mo ago
  There aren't enough driving testers for people to take a test once in their lives, let alone 8 times. It would also be totally pointless between 20 and 60 at the very least. The vast majority of people don't have any cognitive decline before then.
  - globular-toast 9mo ago
    There could be, it's just that we don't value testing highly enough and we're happy to see people killed and seriously injured by these things.
  - dontwannahearit 9mo ago
    You also have the problem that the pass rate for tests has changed massively in the years since most 50 year olds took their tests in the UK. Anecdotally, it is not at all uncommon for young drivers to fail the test 3+ times (at least amoung the youngsters I know). 30 years ago it was rare to have to take the test more than 2x before passing. That and the scandal of test slots being bought up months in advance by what are essentially touts, as well as the lack of testers you noted, make it unworkable.
  - matsemann 9mo ago
    People forget or don't keep up to date on rules. Some kind of retaking the theoretical parts would at least be nice. For instance the UK has a new highway code (I've heard), and most countries it's quite different to drive now than lets say 20 years ago. For instance the amount of cyclists and the rules around that I feel drivers in Norway have a bad grasp on. And heck, when I got my license I lived in a remote town, 3 hours away from the nearest street light. Lots of things I got away with not learning, and whatever I memorized for the theoretical test 20 years ago is mostly forgotten. I think many people think they "know" the rules, but really don't
amluto 9mo ago
> Drivers in the UK must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres away, according to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). I would like to see better tests. I have a pet theory that visual perception deficiencies along the lines of simultanagnosia are considerably more common among older people than is generally recognized, and people with these conditions may be able to easily read letters and numbers at a distance but be unable to drive safely due to inability to reliably detect obstacles. Visual screening is fairly easy and every bit as quick, but it needs different tests. Something along the lines of an Ishihara plate but with colors that are perceptible even to color blind people might work. Or a visually busy image with instructions to identify one or two particular objects in the scene.
pacifi30 9mo ago
Waymo is the answer to all our problems
agumonkey 9mo ago
I wonder if there are non optical visual tests, like cognitive ability to perceive multiple details at once.
reenorap 9mo ago
It sould be every year. Over 70 shouldn’t drive in my opinion. I’m in my 50s and still believe this.
kazinator 9mo ago
Let's examine this: > Nearly one in four car drivers killed in 2024 were aged 70 or older, according to government figures. So, somewhat less than 25%. Let's guess 23% or whatever. What are the age demographics? According to 2024 stats, 19.7% of the UK was aged 65 or older. 17% in the 0-14 age range. Thus 65-year-olds and older make up 23.7% of the population older than 14. It seems, roughly, as if the proportion of 70-year-olds and older might be more or less in line with their representation in the driving age population. It's not the statistics we need, but close enough to defeat the alarmist idea of OMG, a whopping quarter (almost) fatalities are 70+; get the old buggers off the roads!
- matsemann 9mo ago
  That's not a good counter. I think you need to look at how many of that demographic actually drives, not how big the demographic is. Or maybe kilometers driven per accident.
  - kazinator 9mo ago
    That onus is on the article: convince me that almost a quarter of the facilities being 70+ means something (s not explained by statistics but follows age).
TheChaplain 9mo ago
Gonna suck to lose your license when you live in outer places like Roadhead, Carlisle. :(
- testing22321 9mo ago
  Would you rather people who can’t see well enough continue to drive?
phendrenad2 9mo ago
[flagged]
bobowzki 9mo ago
How about testing people in a driving simulator?
nottorp 9mo ago
Hmm? Where I live you have to renew your license (basically pass a few medical exams) every 10 years since the day you get your first license. Why wait until 70?
rootusrootus 9mo ago
What I’m getting from this discussion is that maybe we should just make this universal, rather than picking an arbitrary age. Too onerous, perhaps, but under-70s definitely can experience serious decline in eyesight.
matsemann 9mo ago
Does any country have a good system? In Norway it used to be your doctor taking away your license. But that didn't turn out too well. People need to be able to tell their doctor about their issues without fear of "retaliation", and doing it would of course damage the relationship going forward. So I'm all for doing it, too many old people that shouldn't be on the road, but unsure how.
beAbU 9mo ago
In South Africa, all drivers are subject to an eye retest every 5 years, regardless of age. What the UK is doing seems pretty sane IMO.
- paulryanrogers 9mo ago
  US has token eye exams at the BMV. I've never seen or heard anyone fail. During such a test that I could barely read anything, and afterwards realized I could not read most roadsigns--having relied too much on map apps. A visit to the eye doctor confirmed I shouldn't be driving, so I ordered glasses that same day. Reporting unsafe drivers in my state is not anonymous. And at one point I had to tell a family member that if I found out they were still driving that I'd report them. (They had 3 accidents in 2 years, claiming it's all the computers in the cars.)
  - jpc0 9mo ago
    Some more context on the South African system, although before it was done at our equivalent to the DMV it now gets done by an optometrist.
    - beAbU 9mo ago
      I think you can still do it at the 'DMV', this was possible last time I renewed my license about 3 years ago (I don't live in SA anymore tho). But the eye test machines often broken, so the advice was always to get the test done at an optometrist and they fill out a special form that you take with you when renewing your license.
      - jpc0 9mo ago
        For context now you need to make a booking at a specific department and must take an eye test with
  - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
    When i first got my driver's license in the US I almost failed my eye exam. They gave me 3 chances and I just barely passed on the third. This led to me finally getting glasses.
Bender 9mo ago
How about stall this in courts until: - Self driving vehicles are truly vs theoretically safer than humans or at least the average 70 year old. - Self driving vehicles can be attained or reliably rented for an itsy bitsy teenie weenie fraction of a seniors monthly stipend or pension or disability. Reliably meaning no waiting line or shortages of rental self driving cars or vans.
markstos 9mo ago
A friend of mine who was cycling in his 60s got hit by a driver in his 80s, taking his regular route to church, but apparently not very observantly. The cyclist was thankfully able to recover.
tzs 9mo ago
> Drivers in the UK must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres away, according to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Unless I've botched the math and/or what the internet tells me about the size of the characters on a UK number plate is wrong this seems to be a bit overboard. The internet is telling me that the characters are 79mm tall and 50mm wide (except for '1' and 'I') with a 14mm stroke. My eyes right now are about 250mm from my monitor. Something that is 79mm tall and 20m away would have the same angular size as something 250mm away that is 79mm / 20m x 250mm = 0.9875mm tall. If I set the size to 75% in Chrome that is the size of the numbers on this page in the timestamps and the submission points and comment counts. It is about 1/2 the size of the numbers in the text box that I'm writing this comment in. I've just taken a photo of that and will include a link to it to show how small that is [1]. In that I'm holding a ruler next to the left side of the text. The "180" up where it says "180 points" is what you have to be able to read to pass the test. (If you can't see the photo because Imgur blocks your country just grab a ruler, hold it vertically 25cm in front of you, and the apparent size of the space between the mm marks is the size character you need to read). I have no idea what road signs and markings are like in the UK, but in the US in ~50 years of driving I don't think I've ever needed to read anything anywhere near that small. [1] https://imgur.com/a/NGuPdfF https://imgur.com/a/NGuPdfF
- Natfan 9mo ago
  if you're expecting a response from someone in the UK, use something other than imgur.com
- shmeeed 9mo ago
  I'm sorry to say your conclusion doesn't hold. I'm not sure where exactly you went wrong, without trying to do the math my best guess would be that you just can't properly simulate a far-sight task in a near-sight environment like that. Our eyes don't work that way. But if you go outside and do a real world test, you'll (hopefully) find that a number plate should be readable from much further away than 20 meters. If you don't, please go and see an optometrist! I'm serious. 20 m is actually a very lenient requirement IMO. In my country, one should be able to read a number plate from about 35 m easily, and with good eyesight, 65 m and more shouldn't be a problem.
tsoukase 9mo ago
As a neurologist that certifies driving ability in 80+ yo people, I would say vision is only one factor. Motor dexterity, fresh reflexes and mental capacity are equally or more important but they are not quantified.
rickydroll 9mo ago
In addition to eye tests every few years for all drivers, we should also address other impediments to safe driving, such as blue high-intensity headlights and glare from other sources, including many streetlights and security lighting. Proper nighttime lighting goes a long way to improving road safety for all drivers.

220 points by bookofjoe 9mo ago

madduci 9mo ago

In Italy (and EU perhaps?) is every year from 70 onwards

bookofjoe 9mo ago

https://archive.ph/yjDN0 https://archive.ph/yjDN0

calpaterson 9mo ago

Unfortunately what is needed are tests of driving ability. Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. Politically very difficult to take people's licences away though, especially when it's permanent, not their fault and it makes their life a lot worse.

deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
FigurativeVoid 9mo ago
Especially in the US. In countries with more robust public transport, you can get away with not having a car. That's basically impossible in the US.
- jnovek 9mo ago
  I’m an American and my vision, fully corrected, is right at the legal borderline to get a license without restrictions. I’ve never “failed” a vision exam at the DMV; one time the clerk even said, “good enough”. (Don’t worry, I never drive, I only keep my license up to date for serious emergencies).
  - AustinDev 9mo ago
    A serious emergency isn't going to be helped by someone with very little driving experience. I don't follow your reasoning. If it was a serious emergency who would care if you had a license?
    - margalabargala 9mo ago
      People think about things differently. It may be that for OP, "but I don't have a license" would cause a second thought and waste time in an emergency. They may be self aware enough to head that off.
    - zdragnar 9mo ago
      A police officer would. The penalty for an accident might be negligent driving. The penalty for an accident without a license is, at minimum, driving without a license. You're also not likely to be covered by insurance without one either, even if you're not at fault.
      - xboxnolifes 9mo ago
        Sure, if you assume the one time they end up driving leads to an accident, which is a crazy assumption. There are bad drivers out there right now, driving every day that rarely or never get into an accident.
        zdragnar 9mo ago
        Take a person who has marginally acceptable eyesight, who never drives, put them in an emergency situation where they need to drive and you've got a recipe for much higher odds of having an accident. Given that getting a license is an option, and it conveniently doubles as a photo ID, and there's really not a reason to not get one.
  - orochimaaru 9mo ago
    You also need a drivers license that doubles up as a real id if you want to travel by air. So the issuance of a DL isn't just for driving. I'm not sure if they give regular state id's as real id.
- pjmlp 9mo ago
  As European, that has lived across multiple countries, that only applies to the lucky ones able to afford living close to the city center. Also healthy enough to be able to walk stairs, as very few places care about people with disabilities, or carrying stuff that is a pain to transport across stairways. People visit the touristic centre of the main cities and assume we all enjoy nice public transport systems.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    UK transport is much worse than the continent. London is fairly well served but elsewhere not so much, especially not the countryside. The trains are very expensive (even with an old person's railcard) and the buses are often irregular or non-existent in large areas of the countryside.
    - pjmlp 9mo ago
      I am aware, having spent some time in Bristol and Cardiff, in various occasions. That situation is very comparable to many places in the continent, some of them even worse. Also here that are many small towns and villages that an hourly bus is already something, and naturally there aren't stops scattered all over the place, or worse, offer no protection from weather.
    - tialaramex 9mo ago
      Well there's a big gap between something like London, a very dense city, and actual countryside. There's also a big variation in will. Where I grew up (Metroland, just beyond the end of the Metropolitan "underground" Line) the services are (other than the afore-mentioned London underground) abysmal because providing services costs money & people there want lower taxes. But where my mother lives today, near Bingley, there are enough buses that I get confused as to which one goes closest to her house when I visit. The difference in London is also in large part because London was allowed to retain a unified transport system when Tories dismantled other systems because ideologically their position is the Invisible Hand of the Free Market will fix everything.
  - snovymgodym 9mo ago
- nephihaha 9mo ago
  UK public transport is not good, especially when you get out of the major cities. Better than the US, but worse than Continental Europe. The buses turn up when they feel like it, and there are problems with antisocial behaviour on a lot of them, including assault.
  - pmyteh 9mo ago
    This depends a lot on where you are. I've lived in York, Darlington, Leeds, London, Oxford, and Liverpool for decent periods and used buses in all of them regularly. Only Darlington was really unpleasant for buses - they were often every half an hour and if one came early and you missed it you would be left in the cold for ages without information. Oxford was great (though cycling was even better); Leeds, Liverpool, and York were perfectly fine, with regular and reliable services; London's are famously efficient. Antisocial behaviour isn't honestly that common in my experience, though I'm sure that varies by location. Had some aggro in London once, and again on a London night bus. The football special to the LNER stadium in York was properly boisterous, and quite threatening to the poor away-supporting family on the lower deck, but that at least carried a copper to make sure nothing stupid happened. Other than that, I've only ever really seen loud schoolchildren - who can be annoying but have never caused difficulty for anyone outside their group. I've honestly seen worse behaviour on the tube (and been the object of it on Cross Country Trains).
    - nephihaha 9mo ago
      Unfortunately, I've encountered antisocial behaviour on many occasions on buses. Had one guy sit opposite me and proceed to insult me about my clothes. I went over to the driver to complain (I had said nothing and this point) and the driver threatened to throw me off. Also had people hit me on buses and trains. And witnessed someone sexually harassing another passenger — he stood rubbing his crotch in front of her and asked her to "finish me off". Football fans are often bad. Especially on trains. I hate getting a train full of them.
      - pmyteh 9mo ago
        Ugh, that's grim. Football fans are a bit odd. If you spend a lot of time in football crowds you get much more adept at telling when things are going to kick off and when people are only being obnoxiously loud. Both are annoying but only the first is actually dangerous. But the second can definitely make people feel unsafe. And given that you can't easily get off a train if you feel threatened it's a big problem. When I was younger I got assaulted on the street five times, and it was always in improbable places and for no obvious reason. Some people are just shitty, some of the time.
- SoftTalker 9mo ago
  Not impossible, with uber/lyft being available. And yes public transit is not good everywhere in the US, but in high density cities it generally is.
- kakacik 9mo ago
  Nope, even best countries in the world with great public transport like Switzerland have tons of remote places basically unreachable by public transport, or bus that goes 2x a day on some days of the week. Guess what, mostly old folks live there and all this applies there. Its just not financially feasible to cover everybody. Proper full self driving should fix this, nothing less I am afraid.
  - CPLX 9mo ago
    > basically unreachable by public transport, or bus that goes 2x a day on some days of the week. This sentence is hilarious from an American perspective. There are central business districts of major US cities that are less connected to public transit than the most remote rock at the end of a steep canyon in Switzerland. A bus that ran 1x a day on any day of any week would be a drastic improvement for nearly all of the US.
    - kakacik 9mo ago
      Its not mutually exclusive - most of the world thats not in stone age has better public transport than US, I guess everybody knows that and its not by accident but for good (well bad but logical) reasons. That some PT is still not covering somebody's full needs for long term living is understandable too I presume, especially if its few days gaps in service.
  - boelboel 9mo ago
    Proper self driving is furthest away from being able to handle these cities as well, don't see these driving in Sicily before 2040. Many of these older people don't even know how to use a smartphone so even a 'perfect solution' will take some effort.I still have to help my grandpa with landline calls because he never had one himself (I live in one of the most developed countries in the world).
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
- cebert 9mo ago
  I know it doesn’t work everywhere, but I’m happy there are services like Uber and Lyft when I get older. I could see myself using those services a lot when I am no longer able to drive.
  - FigurativeVoid 9mo ago
    I wonder if communities will move away from things like buses to public autonomous cars. If you could run a fleet of $30k Waymo’s, that would be nice
flkiwi 9mo ago
Well the obvious solution is take away the vote for over-65s! /s … maybe
- HPsquared 9mo ago
  It's not like voting does anything, anyway. Once elected, they do what they want.
  - zdc1 9mo ago
    The purpose of a system is what it does. There's lots of literature on what the best, or at least better, voting systems (hello preference voting) and decision making approaches are. Getting them implemented is another story.
    - jstanley 9mo ago
      Conversely, https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpose-of https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/come-on-obviously-the-purpo...
      - TimorousBestie 9mo ago
        Scott aggressively missing the point of Beer’s maxim is not a counter-argument. Making a specific point would be more persuasive than a mere link.
        jstanley 9mo ago
        I don't have a view on the main thrust of the comment, but "the purpose of a system is what it does" is very obviously wrong (as detailed in the linked blog post) and that is what I was responding to.
        zdc1 9mo ago
        I believe we say "the purpose of a system is what it does" is to also poke at the fact that there are mechanisms and design decisions (tradeoffs) at play that lead to certain results, and that if we want to change outcomes, we need to change the system. Votes matter more in some systems than others. Preference voting allows for smaller parties to more easily gain seats while first-past-the-post supports two-party systems. In the UK and AU, the prime minister must hold a seat, and so can be removed from parliament through (a subset of) citizen votes removing them from their seat, even if the majority party stays in power. In the US, the President (who can issue executive orders) is elected by an electoral college--none of whom are directly elected by citizen votes. Maybe it's not a big conspiracy, but these systems are doing what they are known to do, and will do so unless they are changed. Of course there are systems in place to change these systems, which are also quite hard to utilise. And strangely (or not), no one is rushing to improve voter power and representation. So there's some interesting questions there around what changes can be made that would best improve representation, and what could be blocking those changes from being made.
graemep 9mo ago
> Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. Evidence? I thought over-70s were on average safer than young drivers
- GJR 9mo ago
  UK statistics here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-younger-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua... The issue is that the rate of accidents rapidly increases after 70 and the easiest detectable indicator is deteriorating eyesight.
  - joeig 9mo ago
    I opened the link and didn’t expected a report about younger drivers. This link is about older drivers: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-older-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...
  - notahacker 9mo ago
    Yep. In practice, you've probably got a group of over 70s who are much safer drivers than the average 17-24 year old and some with declining eyesight who are worse. The test proposes to distinguish between the two
    - graemep 9mo ago
      I am not objecting to the test. I am disagreeing with the sweeping statement. I think testing eyesight is important. In fact you need to make a declaration about your eyesight when you first get a license and when you renew after 70. There is no real enforcement of the former either (they just ask you to read a number plate at a distance IIRC).
    - pwg 9mo ago
jstummbillig 9mo ago
This is good, no? The intent is obvious, it's likely improving the current situation, and I don't see any reason not to applaud it as an low-barrier incremental improvement.
nephihaha 9mo ago
Of course it makes their lives worse. In a lot of parts of the UK, the public transport is barely fit for purpose, irregular, non-existent (in much of the countryside) or dangerous (in the city). I speak from personal experience. I've been harassed and assaulted on British buses and trains on more than one occasion. Once had to phone the police to get rid of someone who started to follow me home, after he had hit me getting out of a train in a small branch station. It's like the Wild West. In one village I visited, there was only one bus there a day, and a bus back on a different day. How are old people supposed to function with that? As usual this is set up as a tax farming scheme for the government to make money. They will make tonnes of money off forcing people to reapply for an overpriced licence every three years.
- andyjohnson0 9mo ago
  > As usual this is set up as a tax farming scheme for the government to make money. They will make tonnes of money off forcing people to reapply for an overpriced licence every three years. This is zero-evidence bullshit. On and after the age of 70, all UK drivers have to renew their licence every three years anyway - it's been like that since 1976. This new change just adds a requirement to get an eye test (which the government doesn't "make money" from) as well, rather than self-certifying.
  - tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
    In fact the government pays for eye tests once you are over sixty.
  - nephihaha 9mo ago
    Starmer was talking about getting over 55s to get a new licence every five years a few months ago. He hasn't managed to push that through. Of course, you would have to pay more money to them every time you get one. British TV licences are overpriced as are British passports, but you have to have one or the other as ID. I have one just now, but no car. The public transport is awful. Most of the price of petrol in the UK is government duty and VAT, then there is the extortionate road tax etc. The British exchequer rakes it in off motorists but fails to help provide safe and reliable alternatives.
boelboel 9mo ago
I wouldn't say over 70 year olds, average 70 year old is fine. Problem gets a lot worse at 75 or 80. Most these people don't drive nearly as much as younger people anyway. My grandma is 90 and drives 5 miles to the grocery store, a slow road. I don't think she'd pass a driving test but she drives during the day when barely anyone is on the road, chances of serious injury are nil. Is it worth it to spend large amounts of money on testing these people, taking their license away if they fail? Getting rid of their car will force them to replace it with someone else driving or cycling which could be a problem in many places. Worst case scenario they'll need to go in a retirement home.
- nandomrumber 9mo ago
  Maybe less of an issue if they’re given taxi vouchers to the value of about the typical amount of driving they would have done?
  - boelboel 9mo ago
    There's not many taxis in most places, I come from a town of 400 people it'd be a very uneconomical solution. I'm not saying it's great for them to drive, I just doubt there's a way to fix it in these sort of places. My grandma cycles to the small store for most of her groceries everyday, it's only the big store she drives to bi-weekly. Honestly the cycling is probably more dangerous, and there's some elderly in my town who're pushing 100 cycling daily.
    - treve 9mo ago
      Public services don't need to be 'economical'
  - steveBK123 9mo ago
    Across the western world, elderly benefits increasingly outstrip the growth young workers paying taxes for their benefits are able to eke out. I do not think they need free taxis as well. For UK in particular look up triple lock pension.
tedggh 9mo ago
The worst age group behind the wheel is by far 16-25. The middle age group is the safest and the gap is actually moderate compared to 70-75.
- calpaterson 9mo ago
  You're taking about statistical averages but I'm talking about a significant minority of over-70s who are wildly dangerous. Most of them only stop driving when they cause an accident. Sometimes its a serious one. There are already some measures for young people, like the 6 point thing. Maybe there could be more. Doesn't change the facts about dangerous OAP drivers
  - bumby 9mo ago
    “I'm talking about a significant minority of [under 25 year olds] who are wildly dangerous.” (Edit mine) Don’t you think that statement is also true?
    - LEDThereBeLight 9mo ago
      16 year olds get better at driving.
      - bumby 9mo ago
        They also get less likely to commit crime, but that’s not how we gauge risk. We don’t generally say “that teenager’s crime risk is going down so they are less risky than that geriatric whose crime risk is fairly constant.” Risk probability is usually the area under a hazard rate curve. Over a long enough interval, that reduction in risk would be important. So what is the appropriate time interval for these risk assessments?
  - 7thpower 9mo ago
    > Most over-70s are significantly worse than the average driver and some are so dangerous they shouldn't be on the road at all. > You're taking about statistical averages but I'm talking about a significant minority of over-70s who are wildly dangerous. You sure about that?
kakacik 9mo ago
In Switzerland we do it all. After 75 there is requirement for periodic health check by doctor which consists of various mental checks and eyesight. I would put it at 70, everybody degrades with age at different pace, some lose it even before 50 (ie sclerosis or parkinson) but cca 70 is an age I can see clear mental decline in every person I ever interacted closely. Wife is a GP and she regularly faces this at her work. I begged her numerous times to take away those licenses without mercy if the person is unfit, no amount of pleading, begging, crying of threats should change that. And they do it all, oh so much - to the point she is giving up this revenue stream, too much emotional burden (from somebody who sometimes has to tell patients they have ie cancer). Why so harsh - we live in more rural place with tons of old folks. They are properly dangerous behind the wheel - they can't handle any sudden situation, heavy traffic is a challenge at best, they need to drive at absolute minimum speed at bright daylight to handle situations. Its tough, they live their whole lives in the middle of nowhere, too stubborn to sell and move someplace more reasonable and without a car they can't easily take care of themselves in their remote places (but its 2026 we have ubers, taxis and home deliveries, and once further down the road good social housings for elderly). Often, they know old but still working doctors who turn the blind eye because they are old buddies and then its sometimes sad news. When they handle 1.5 tonne of steel that accelerates fast and easily kills others, very easily it stops being primarily about them but about rest of society. When you see them barely managing driving around local primary school, its either them or us/our kids
guerrilla 9mo ago
> Politically very difficult to take people's licences away though, especially when it's permanent, not their fault and it makes their life a lot worse. It shouldn't be permanent. If they can improve, then why not? Maybe illness causes their poor driving and they find a treatment for that illness.
- calpaterson 9mo ago
  > If they can improve, then why not? I'm talking about removing licences due to cognitive decline. It's not a temporary condition
  - gus_massa 9mo ago
    It can be for "3 months" (with a low expectation that after 3 months they improve enough to get the licence again).
  - the_real_cher 9mo ago
    It's a vague definition though. All cognitive decline is not equal. If they're able to drive they should be allowed to
  - cjbgkagh 9mo ago
    Theoretically it can be, though usually not, so the question is what should be the law to cover the general case. It wouldn’t be such a problem if it were easy for them to get around without driving. Either self driving cars, subsidized Ubers, public transit, walkable cities, home delivery, etc. My opinion is that in the general case people over 70 shouldn’t be driving and I say this as someone who has 4 spritly grandparents in their 90s. I really don’t like how dangerous roads are, a fact that we accept because we did not really have good alternatives, now that we do we should implement them.
    - Wistar 9mo ago
      Paul Newman won his last race at Lime Rock in Sept. 2007 driving a 900-horsepower Corvette when he was 82.
hyperman1 9mo ago
In my experience, the 70+ are bad at driving in ways that do lighter accidents. Typically: Drive 50 km/h everywhere, even if the road is 30 or 70. General weird behaviour. Swerving slowly left right left forever. They do cause a lot of cursing, but they are signalling hard enough they're bad at driving and other drivers leave huge margins, overly grant right of way, don't cross the road, etc...
oncallthrow 9mo ago
Fairly regularly an 80-something will end up driving down the wrong carriageway of a motorway or dual carriageway. Fairly regularly this results in deaths.
afavour 9mo ago
It is unfortunate that things like this become politically impossible because older people are one of the most reliable voting groups out there. I will always be bitter that older voters chose Brexit by a large margin, in opposition to the younger voters who will actually be around to feel its long term effects. Not taking that into account in voting feels wrong but there’s no politically palatable way of addressing it.
- Der_Einzige 9mo ago
  Make voting be based on military eligibility. This is something Starship Troopers was sort of correct about. You can't be drafted in war time emergencies? You can't vote (also yes I do want women to be draftable)
  - landl0rd 9mo ago
    You're right about military eligibility, but also that you shouldn't make calls for a nation which you will never see. Doubly so if one does not have children. No skin in the game, no alignment of incentives, no moral right to choose. Even moreso when you consider basically the whole generation relies on leeching off the young and have continued to capture an ever-increasing proportion of public spending across the western world despite owning an outsized proportion of both real estate and wealth overall.
  - Waterluvian 9mo ago
    > This is something Starship Troopers was sort of correct about. It might also suggest further reflection is warranted.
    - lokar 9mo ago
      Another in a long line of tech people not understanding science fiction
      - iwontberude 9mo ago
        Or policy. We have an embarrassing chap in these comments advocating for the equivalent of Jim Crow voting laws.

ptribble 9mo ago

Why pick on the over-70s though? Most drivers in the UK either can't see or don't bother looking, so we should be demanding higher standards of all drivers.

II2II 9mo ago
They won't test everyone on a regular basis due to the cost and because it would be politically unpopular. Heck, I saw someone in their 30's go ballistic about losing their license after having two seizures while driving (both of which resulted in collisions). Enforcement is another issue. I don't even bother reporting being hit by cars anymore because the police refuse to do anything about it. That is after an incident and with a plate number. Enforcement of people driving without a license would be next to impossible unless there is an incident. As for "don't bother looking", well, you cannot really test for that since it is usually the result of some form of distracted driving or carelessness. Both of which are unlikely to show up when someone knows they are being assessed.

noodlesUK 9mo ago

Older people in the UK already have free bus passes and various other substantial concessions regarding public transport. Cars are dangerous, and if you can't see clearly, you're obviously not fit to drive. It's true that there will be negative impacts on people who will fail the eye tests, and we should be compassionate, but ultimately those people aren't safe behind the wheel, and put other peoples lives at risk, not just their own. The practical details of implementing this are important - is the eye test done at an ordinary optician/optometrist's shop? How are the results going to be submitted to DVLA, etc.? What protections will be in place to prevent people from shopping around for a dodgy optician (as people often do with cars and MOTs)? I think this is a reasonable and practical step in the right direction. I accept that given the shortage of driving examiners it would be impossible to require re-testing of existing drivers in the foreseeable future, but as the article says, people already get eye tests frequently and often for free, so this is something that can be done without too much additional infrastructure. A personal anecdote: my grandfather is in his 90s and is not at all fit to drive due to cataracts and various other issues, but he still does "short journeys" because it's convenient and he feels that it's necessary. The UK has plenty of public transport options and places where people can live with amenities close by (though this is not at all universal). Most British towns and cities are very different from their US counterparts in this respect. My grandfather moved house relatively recently --in full knowledge that the house he chose would benefit from car ownership, and in full knowledge about his age. The only thing that will stop him and others like him from putting people in danger is taking away his licence. He has been told by doctors, opticians and family members that he's not safe to drive, but in the absence of any enforcement he persists. I hope that this policy comes in before he or someone else gets hurt.

graemep 9mo ago
> Older people in the UK already have free bus passes and various other substantial concessions regarding public transport. Which is fine if you live somewhere where there is public transport.
- tonyedgecombe 9mo ago
  You have to be pretty remote to have no public transport in the UK.

lacunary 9mo ago

driving in downtown Austin this morning, the waymo swarm is real. the US may not have robust public transit but why can't we subsidize ride shares for seniors who lose their ability to drive safely?

fibonachos 9mo ago
I’m still a couple decades off from “senior”, but I have already reached a point where most day to day driving feels like a chore. If/When Waymo finally arrives in my smallish Bay Area city I can see myself using it a quite a bit. Hopefully self-driving cars are ubiquitous by the time I reach “shouldn’t be driving” age.
antonymoose 9mo ago
When I lived in Charleston the transit system had both subsidized ride share and ADA-compliant ride services (literally a government taxi service) for seniors and the disabled. So it certainly can be done.

zerealshadowban 9mo ago

My mother completely stopped driving in her early 70s... thank god for the Swiss medical driving fitness test! (now at 75 instead of 70?) she was perfectly fine with it, online food order+delivery had become available, and her immediate neighbors were loving people helping her whenever I+siblings were not easily available.

GJR 9mo ago

To inform the thread, UK accident statistics from 2024 here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-older-and-younger-driver-factsheets-2024/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-younger-driver-factsheet-2024 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casua...

globular-toast 9mo ago
The shift from male to female is fascinating. In younger drivers accidents are disproportionately male, I guess due to high testosterone buffoonery but in older drivers it's disproportionately female. My personal observation is that older male drivers are much more slow and less confident whereas females tend to be overly confident and driving way too fast, especially the ones in huge cars. According to this women become more dangerous than male 17-24 year old drivers only when they reach 80+ whereas for men they only become more dangerous than female 17-24 year old drivers at 86+. I actually think more should be done about younger drivers than older.
- Someone 9mo ago
  > The shift from male to female is fascinating. In younger drivers accidents are disproportionately male, I guess due to high testosterone buffoonery but in older drivers it's disproportionately female. When you correct for population size, I think you’ll see that difference largely, if not completely, goes away. There are more women than men in the UK from age 50 upwards (https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2025/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-kingdom/2025/)
  - globular-toast 9mo ago
    The statistic is per distance driven.
- markstos 9mo ago
  One reason there are more females in accidents at the oldest ages is because the males are dead. In the UK, the average life expectancy for a female is 82.9 vs 77.9 for men, a 5-year gap.

Neil44 9mo ago

I think everyone should do a re-test every 10 years then maybe 5 years after 70.

IshKebab 9mo ago
There aren't enough driving testers for people to take a test once in their lives, let alone 8 times. It would also be totally pointless between 20 and 60 at the very least. The vast majority of people don't have any cognitive decline before then.
- globular-toast 9mo ago
  There could be, it's just that we don't value testing highly enough and we're happy to see people killed and seriously injured by these things.
- dontwannahearit 9mo ago
  You also have the problem that the pass rate for tests has changed massively in the years since most 50 year olds took their tests in the UK. Anecdotally, it is not at all uncommon for young drivers to fail the test 3+ times (at least amoung the youngsters I know). 30 years ago it was rare to have to take the test more than 2x before passing. That and the scandal of test slots being bought up months in advance by what are essentially touts, as well as the lack of testers you noted, make it unworkable.
- matsemann 9mo ago
  People forget or don't keep up to date on rules. Some kind of retaking the theoretical parts would at least be nice. For instance the UK has a new highway code (I've heard), and most countries it's quite different to drive now than lets say 20 years ago. For instance the amount of cyclists and the rules around that I feel drivers in Norway have a bad grasp on. And heck, when I got my license I lived in a remote town, 3 hours away from the nearest street light. Lots of things I got away with not learning, and whatever I memorized for the theoretical test 20 years ago is mostly forgotten. I think many people think they "know" the rules, but really don't

amluto 9mo ago

> Drivers in the UK must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres away, according to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). I would like to see better tests. I have a pet theory that visual perception deficiencies along the lines of simultanagnosia are considerably more common among older people than is generally recognized, and people with these conditions may be able to easily read letters and numbers at a distance but be unable to drive safely due to inability to reliably detect obstacles. Visual screening is fairly easy and every bit as quick, but it needs different tests. Something along the lines of an Ishihara plate but with colors that are perceptible even to color blind people might work. Or a visually busy image with instructions to identify one or two particular objects in the scene.

pacifi30 9mo ago

Waymo is the answer to all our problems

agumonkey 9mo ago

I wonder if there are non optical visual tests, like cognitive ability to perceive multiple details at once.

reenorap 9mo ago

It sould be every year. Over 70 shouldn’t drive in my opinion. I’m in my 50s and still believe this.

kazinator 9mo ago

Let's examine this: > Nearly one in four car drivers killed in 2024 were aged 70 or older, according to government figures. So, somewhat less than 25%. Let's guess 23% or whatever. What are the age demographics? According to 2024 stats, 19.7% of the UK was aged 65 or older. 17% in the 0-14 age range. Thus 65-year-olds and older make up 23.7% of the population older than 14. It seems, roughly, as if the proportion of 70-year-olds and older might be more or less in line with their representation in the driving age population. It's not the statistics we need, but close enough to defeat the alarmist idea of OMG, a whopping quarter (almost) fatalities are 70+; get the old buggers off the roads!

matsemann 9mo ago
That's not a good counter. I think you need to look at how many of that demographic actually drives, not how big the demographic is. Or maybe kilometers driven per accident.
- kazinator 9mo ago
  That onus is on the article: convince me that almost a quarter of the facilities being 70+ means something (s not explained by statistics but follows age).

TheChaplain 9mo ago

Gonna suck to lose your license when you live in outer places like Roadhead, Carlisle. :(

testing22321 9mo ago
Would you rather people who can’t see well enough continue to drive?

phendrenad2 9mo ago

[flagged]

bobowzki 9mo ago

How about testing people in a driving simulator?

nottorp 9mo ago

Hmm? Where I live you have to renew your license (basically pass a few medical exams) every 10 years since the day you get your first license. Why wait until 70?

rootusrootus 9mo ago

What I’m getting from this discussion is that maybe we should just make this universal, rather than picking an arbitrary age. Too onerous, perhaps, but under-70s definitely can experience serious decline in eyesight.

matsemann 9mo ago

Does any country have a good system? In Norway it used to be your doctor taking away your license. But that didn't turn out too well. People need to be able to tell their doctor about their issues without fear of "retaliation", and doing it would of course damage the relationship going forward. So I'm all for doing it, too many old people that shouldn't be on the road, but unsure how.

beAbU 9mo ago

In South Africa, all drivers are subject to an eye retest every 5 years, regardless of age. What the UK is doing seems pretty sane IMO.

paulryanrogers 9mo ago
US has token eye exams at the BMV. I've never seen or heard anyone fail. During such a test that I could barely read anything, and afterwards realized I could not read most roadsigns--having relied too much on map apps. A visit to the eye doctor confirmed I shouldn't be driving, so I ordered glasses that same day. Reporting unsafe drivers in my state is not anonymous. And at one point I had to tell a family member that if I found out they were still driving that I'd report them. (They had 3 accidents in 2 years, claiming it's all the computers in the cars.)
- jpc0 9mo ago
  Some more context on the South African system, although before it was done at our equivalent to the DMV it now gets done by an optometrist.
  - beAbU 9mo ago
    I think you can still do it at the 'DMV', this was possible last time I renewed my license about 3 years ago (I don't live in SA anymore tho). But the eye test machines often broken, so the advice was always to get the test done at an optometrist and they fill out a special form that you take with you when renewing your license.
    - jpc0 9mo ago
      For context now you need to make a booking at a specific department and must take an eye test with
- xboxnolifes 9mo ago
  When i first got my driver's license in the US I almost failed my eye exam. They gave me 3 chances and I just barely passed on the third. This led to me finally getting glasses.

Bender 9mo ago

How about stall this in courts until: - Self driving vehicles are truly vs theoretically safer than humans or at least the average 70 year old. - Self driving vehicles can be attained or reliably rented for an itsy bitsy teenie weenie fraction of a seniors monthly stipend or pension or disability. Reliably meaning no waiting line or shortages of rental self driving cars or vans.

markstos 9mo ago

A friend of mine who was cycling in his 60s got hit by a driver in his 80s, taking his regular route to church, but apparently not very observantly. The cyclist was thankfully able to recover.

tzs 9mo ago

> Drivers in the UK must be able to read a number plate from 20 metres away, according to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA). Unless I've botched the math and/or what the internet tells me about the size of the characters on a UK number plate is wrong this seems to be a bit overboard. The internet is telling me that the characters are 79mm tall and 50mm wide (except for '1' and 'I') with a 14mm stroke. My eyes right now are about 250mm from my monitor. Something that is 79mm tall and 20m away would have the same angular size as something 250mm away that is 79mm / 20m x 250mm = 0.9875mm tall. If I set the size to 75% in Chrome that is the size of the numbers on this page in the timestamps and the submission points and comment counts. It is about 1/2 the size of the numbers in the text box that I'm writing this comment in. I've just taken a photo of that and will include a link to it to show how small that is [1]. In that I'm holding a ruler next to the left side of the text. The "180" up where it says "180 points" is what you have to be able to read to pass the test. (If you can't see the photo because Imgur blocks your country just grab a ruler, hold it vertically 25cm in front of you, and the apparent size of the space between the mm marks is the size character you need to read). I have no idea what road signs and markings are like in the UK, but in the US in ~50 years of driving I don't think I've ever needed to read anything anywhere near that small. [1] https://imgur.com/a/NGuPdfF https://imgur.com/a/NGuPdfF

Natfan 9mo ago
if you're expecting a response from someone in the UK, use something other than imgur.com
shmeeed 9mo ago
I'm sorry to say your conclusion doesn't hold. I'm not sure where exactly you went wrong, without trying to do the math my best guess would be that you just can't properly simulate a far-sight task in a near-sight environment like that. Our eyes don't work that way. But if you go outside and do a real world test, you'll (hopefully) find that a number plate should be readable from much further away than 20 meters. If you don't, please go and see an optometrist! I'm serious. 20 m is actually a very lenient requirement IMO. In my country, one should be able to read a number plate from about 35 m easily, and with good eyesight, 65 m and more shouldn't be a problem.

tsoukase 9mo ago

As a neurologist that certifies driving ability in 80+ yo people, I would say vision is only one factor. Motor dexterity, fresh reflexes and mental capacity are equally or more important but they are not quantified.

rickydroll 9mo ago

In addition to eye tests every few years for all drivers, we should also address other impediments to safe driving, such as blue high-intensity headlights and glare from other sources, including many streetlights and security lighting. Proper nighttime lighting goes a long way to improving road safety for all drivers.