2007.05.02: May 2, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Cameroon: Journalism: Speaking Out: Fathers: The Capital Times: Margaret Krome writes: Giving up the car keys with advancing age is smart, but also troubling
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2007.05.02: May 2, 2007: Headlines: Figures: COS - Cameroon: Journalism: Speaking Out: Fathers: The Capital Times: Margaret Krome writes: Giving up the car keys with advancing age is smart, but also troubling
Margaret Krome writes: Giving up the car keys with advancing age is smart, but also troubling
My siblings and I have struggled with whether to wait respectfully for my dad to stop driving on his own and risk his harming himself, our mother, and others, or to press the issue more forcefully. Ours is a culture that prizes individual freedom and mobility so much that you need a car just to go grocery shopping or mail letters. It's no surprise that my proud and independent father wasn't impressed when I shared cheery stories of friends who see taxi cabs, ride sharing, and public transportation as liberating. Ours is still a car culture, and until that changes, it's pretty hard to hand over the keys. Journalist Margaret Krome served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Cameroon.
Margaret Krome writes: Giving up the car keys with advancing age is smart, but also troubling
Giving up keys with age smart, but also troubling
Margaret Krome — 5/02/2007 8:27 am
Last week was rough on my father. His doctor had asked him to take a driving test, and to my father's incalculable dismay, whether due to diminished vision, alertness or a combination of factors, he failed it.
Ever since I heard the news, I've felt wildly mixed emotions. Loving my father, I grieve his loss of independence. I ache that he sees this as a signal that he's over the hill at age 87. And, although I haven't told him so, prompted by that same wellspring of love, I'm hugely relieved that he stopped driving without having hurt himself or someone else.
Not all older drivers are dangerous. In fact, both my parents have clean driving records, and the parking garage at their retirement center is continually abuzz with residents driving their cars everywhere they've always gone. Increasingly, elderly driving training classes are available to keep them that way longer.
But risks do increase with age. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that drivers 85 and older are 11 times more likely to die in a crash than drivers age 40 to 49.
One estimate is that drivers make around 15 major decisions for each kilometer they drive. Presumably, this means stopping, starting, avoiding other vehicles, slowing for pedestrians and signaling turns, not deciding where to eat with whomever one's talking to on a cell phone. In fact, elderly drivers don't tend to be guilty of the oblivious driving of airheads or cause aggression-related accidents like stressed-out CEO wannabes.
Rather, the problem tends to be interactive effects of deteriorating vision and hearing, poor reaction times, fatigue, the effects of medications, or other ailments that can impair older drivers' ability to respond physically or mentally to traffic dynamics. As a result, they sometimes don't deal well with complex traffic situations, so multiple-vehicle crashes at intersections increase with age. Similarly, elderly drivers are more likely to get traffic citations for failing to yield, turning improperly, and running stop signs and red lights.
In my dad's case, I turned white on a highway trip in December when he went over 90 miles per hour on a traffic-heavy country road between traffic lights, to avoid interstate driving that unnerved him. He was affronted that I was appalled, but I entered a new moral sphere from that moment until last Friday.
My siblings and I have struggled with whether to wait respectfully for my dad to stop driving on his own and risk his harming himself, our mother, and others, or to press the issue more forcefully. Ours is a culture that prizes individual freedom and mobility so much that you need a car just to go grocery shopping or mail letters. It's no surprise that my proud and independent father wasn't impressed when I shared cheery stories of friends who see taxi cabs, ride sharing, and public transportation as liberating. Ours is still a car culture, and until that changes, it's pretty hard to hand over the keys.
My father's state of Virginia nearly forced the issue, by requiring vision tests for drivers over age 70. However, it doesn't require testing for reaction times or other infirmities. Several states have accelerated license renewal for older drivers, and a few require renewing in person. On the other hand, Nevada, Maryland and Minnesota prohibit testing drivers based solely on age.
My cousin took a proactive and brave step years ago by entering into an agreement with her children that when the time comes, she will yield to their decision that she should stop driving if they agree to impose that limitation only when it becomes clearly necessary. I admire this trusting agreement and may well imitate it as I age.
In the meantime, I wish for my dad's sake that we had better transportation options for nondriving old folks and that he didn't face his last years being carless in a car-governed world.
Margaret Krome of Madison writes a semimonthly column for The Capital Times.
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Story Source: The Capital Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; COS - Cameroon; Journalism; Speaking Out; Fathers
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