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Only minor injuries! The video says it all.

why would someone 80 years old drive a car? In other countries, you have to take a physical and mental exam every 5 years in order to drive, then after age of 45 every 3 years, and after 60 every year. You can drive till you drop IF you are healthy, physically and mentally. here in the US, you take a vision test one (but you can be NUTS, no one check if you are mentally sane), yet you get the driver's license. Then no one cares, there are people legally blind out there driving on highways.

space-time wrote "...why would someone 80 years old drive a car?" My 92 year old father-in-law lives on his own on his farm in the middle of farm country in Minnesota. He just got his license renewed. To get around - that's why.

Quote
space-time
why would someone 80 years old drive a car? In other countries, you have to take a physical and mental exam every 5 years in order to drive, then after age of 45 every 3 years, and after 60 every year. You can drive till you drop IF you are healthy, physically and mentally. here in the US, you take a vision test one (but you can be NUTS, no one check if you are mentally sane), yet you get the driver's license. Then no one cares, there are people legally blind out there driving on highways.

Because so many folks believe that driving is a right, not a privilege in this country.
California is FINALLY changing its testing standards.
We had that 88 year old man killed over a dozen folks in Santa Monica.
I don't know if Yeoman is kidding or not, really sad if he/she is not.

BGnR

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"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

You don't have to be ancient to step on the gas by mistake.
You can also be a Hollywood teen-ish actress.

I'd rather be a passenger in Yeoman's 92 y/o FIL car than his great grand-daughter's, for the first 6 months after she gets her license.

Thruth be told being a passenger in a centarians'car is probably a lot safer than half of the younger fools on the road today.
Especially the idiots that don't know what this sign means:


nor this one:

Most senior citizen drivers I know don't use a cell phone while driving because they don't own one.

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Quote
billb
I'd rather be a passenger in Yeoman's 92 y/o FIL car than his great grand-daughter's, for the first 6 months after she gets her license.
...

I don't care who's INSIDE the car. I care about the ones OUTSIDE his car. A 92 year old shouldn't drive, unless he/she is in EXCEPTIONAL health, like I said, physically and metally.

I think they should retest everyone at every renewel. Driving is a privelege, not a right. Just because you knew the rules in 1952 when you got your liscense doesn't mean you still know them, or that they haven't changed, nor that you can still physically drive safely.

In those other countries someone will haul that senior where they need to go. At least in Europe.

why would someone 80 years old drive a car?

Not a student of human nature, are you.

Most people lose objectivity with respect to their driving, as they age. (Some never had it, at any age, but I digress...)

Driving is a demonstration of independence. Taking away someone's keys is taking away that independence, their liberty. By the time almost ANYbody gets to be 70+, they tend to forget that driving is a privilege. (And again, some folk have always thought it was their right, but I digress...)

Few people want to admit that they now have to rely on others for very basic, simple tasks such as driving to the store.

I say that there should be a maximum driving age- 65. The end. NObody should be allowed to drive after that age. We just send them to Renewal.

If we can declare a minimum driving age, we can and should declare a maximum driving age. Teach people early on that one day, a day they can *plan* on, they will have to give up their keys.

A driver's license should cost, say, $500 a year. This would help cover yearly written and driving testing costs. And of course, would reveal that some drivers will have to surrender the car keys long before age 65.

Various categories of vehicles would demand escalating fees. Bigger heavier vehicles would be $1000 and up.

Fines for traffic violations should triple. Violation of the HOV lane in CA will exceed $580 or so in CA starting 1 July. About time.

First time DUIs go to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200, do not get diversion in lieu of jail. Past due, started 1 January.

The additional moneys from fees and fines would help pay for Draconian traffic enforcement. We could actually get better drivers, out of fear, if not out of respect for others.

More and more arrests are made for people "driving while suspended" instead of just writing tickets. Good to see that.

I believe there should be object lessons that teach people the difference between privilege and right.

And education costs money.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

BGR asks if I'm kidding, and thinks it's sad if I'm not. Well, I'm not kidding. And not to be defensive let me say thats what he wants and needs, having lived on his farm all his life. He's mentally sharp, he uses a cell phone when working outside clearing brush, digging a new well, putting up Xmas lights on the second story eves, plowing the drive after heavy snow, installing a new back axle on his tractor. Yes, really, no kidding. He doesn't want anything else, and as far as his d/l, his eyes were tested, and I'd rather be on the road with him in rural Minnesota than with aggressive tailgaters on they're cell phones here in Florida. If he wasn't licensed to drive he 'd have to live in an apartment somewhere in town, and that would really be sad.

Quote
RAMd®d
why would someone 80 years old drive a car?

When you are 65 and still in possession of all your faculties, and in good health, I think you will have a change of opinion about this.

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And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
Western Massachusetts

well, it was Florida

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Quod suus via crustulum saxum

blooz, when you show a quote, have the courtesy to get the attributes correct.

You probably glossed over my post, or you would have read my response to the remark made by space-time (and attributed to me) and realized that the 65 remark was sarcasm.

I *am* a fan of having a finite age to *end* driving, just as we have a finite age to begin driving. I will not change my opinion about that, as I am one of those who is absolutely aware of the fact that driving is a privilege, not a right. I actually understand that where for so many others it's just lip service.

As people age, their reflexes deteriorate, as does hearing and eyesight, not to mention concentration. This is a generalization, similar to, but far more accurate than those made here about SUVs and soccer moms, etc.

The problem of elderly drivers becoming dangerous is currently being treated like DUI was years ago- it's no big deal unless you kill somebody important, or a lot of somebodies. And even then, once the 15 seconds of ire are up, it again becomes no big deal.

Just as there is a beginning, there has to be an end, and I prefer it to be sooner rather than some innocent party getting hurt or killed.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.

RAMd, I know that driving is a privilege not a right. but why is that? Seriously, I'd like to know the legalities of this. Does this apply to riding a horse on public roads? I don't think setting a finite age to revoke a persons privilege to drive is a good answer. Perhaps this is appropriate for, say, a bus driver, but why should this be a unilateral limitation for all drivers. Slightly off topic, I know for a fact of cases where commercial aircraft certification and pilot verification is performed by persons not elibible to fly passengers because of age limitations. Why do you think that is? It's because age affects people in different ways. And while on the subject of concentration, I presume you're in favour of making it illegal to use your cell phone while driving, even if hands-free, and not granting d/l to anyone who is partially deaf, or has lost the sight from one eye, or suffers from depression, or is easily frightened, or can't handle stress, or has taken cold medication, or....where do you draw the line and on what basis?

I presume you're in favour of making it illegal...

You are the second person to presume what I think or am "in favor of..." And I'll repeat- please don't as you're not any good at it.

As to drawing the line, it's done *constantly*, though it may have escaped your attention.

Aging *does* affect some people differently than others, but there are accurate generalizations, and there are exceptions to the rules.

There are probably 13-15 yo's who have more driving experience than some young adults, yet the minimum age is 16 for a CDL. Voting age is 18, used to be 21, drinking age in CA (and maybe the US proper) is 21. There are many, many lines drawn.

No matter where they are drawn, someone will always be pissed.

And a new flash- though there is some loss of depth perception when having "lost the sight from one eye", one *good* eye is still superior to two bad ones. I included hearing as a general victim of aging, but am aware that many drivers who are hearing impaired operate motor vehicles safely.

You may not agree with me; that's irrelevant. But please don't be stupid enough to use stupid, absurd extrapolations and attribute to or represent them as any part of my belief system.

---

I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.