Driving Tests for Everyone, Regularly
Posted by Glenn on July 19, 2006 - 2:46pm in The Oil Drum: Local
Topic: Policy/Politics
Tags: accidents, automobile, oil, peak oil [list all tags]
Written and practical driving tests every 5 years for all licenced automobile drivers regardless of age. Examinations will also be required within one month of any traffic incident* that results in a personal injury.
This idea is loosely based on yesterday's NY Times opinion piece by Andrew Haas, who was hit by an elderly driver while riding his bike and severely injured.
In the year since the accident, I have learned to walk again. The Ironman, however, is well beyond my ability. I cannot run down the block without serious pain, especially in my pelvis. Professionally, I missed almost a year of work, which forced me to restart my orthopedic surgery practice from scratch. I have a long way to go before I regain even a semblance of my former life.But the driver who hit me has scarcely been inconvenienced. He was charged with failure to yield and issued a $128 fine. He is permitted to drive without restrictions and without any assessment of his competence. In all probability, he has had no legally mandated driver training since he received his driver's license more than half a century ago.
And this type of incident happens everyday. Here was his original proposal:
Given their great, and frequently proven, capacity to do harm, drivers should be required to take a continuing driver education course every 10 years.Special emphasis should be placed on elderly drivers. Motor-vehicle injuries are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among 65- to 74-year-olds and are the second leading cause, after falls, among 75- to 84-year-olds. Older drivers have a higher fatality rate per mile driven than any age group except drivers under 25. The American Medical Association estimates that as the population of the United States ages, drivers aged 65 and older will eventually account for 25 percent of all fatal crashes.
What I liked even better than his opinion piece, were the letters to the editor that all concurred with his basic premise.
This was typical:
Anyone who feels confident in his driving ability should be willing to put it to the test.Perhaps organizations like AARP could help by advocating similar requirements.
I would suggest that older drivers, most of whom I expect are reasonable people, could lobby their states and organizations to adopt licensing laws that would make tragedies like Dr. Haas's accident much less likely.
Robert Gelman
Ann Arbor, Mich., July 17, 2006
But this was the one that caught my eye and prompted this post:
I agree that people -- all people -- should be certified every five years. In fact, I would recommend recertification more often -- every two years.But recertification is only part of the problem. The lack of public transportation is of greater importance.
Our society is willing to put billions into improving highways and streets, but it is loath to put money into improved public transportation.
Adequate public transportation would reduce the number of elderly drivers. As it stands now, an automobile is a necessity if one wants to go to the doctor's or the grocery store.
Harry E. Berndt
Webster Groves, Mo., July 17, 2006
We have created a society in which most people outside major urban centers like New York, Chicago, Boston (and yes Alan, New Orleans) do not have adaquate alternative transportation options for obtaining basic needs like food and medicine. This is because our many of our nation's communities are not walkable to grocery stores or pharmacies.
Removing unfit, unsafe and reckless drivers from the road might be the easiest way to dramatically increase demand for mass transit while also encouaging carpooling and more village centered planning and re-zoning.
*Because of rampant misuse in the media of the word "accident" when they report on anything related to injuries or deaths from cars hitting pedestrians, cyclists or other cars, I have decided to conciously start using the more neutral word "incident" which does not let the motorist off casually by labeling it an unavoidable mistake.
While it would be good to have grave penalties for drivers after they've killed, we also need serious penalties for those who engage in dangerous behavior, and who therefore, statistically, will eventually kill someone. In my mind, a minimum of a month's gross salary and a one-month license revocation would be appropriate for a first offense.
Things won't improve until we get serious about this.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/7/18/114410/016
FWIW, the stat given is that the U.S. suffers 72 fatalities per billion kilometers while biking, versus 6 fatalities per billion kilometers in cars.
Given the generally shorter mileage covered each year on a bike, that seems like good odds ... even car vs. bike.
(as always your neighborhood matters more than the national stats.)
I only need to renew my license every 10 yrs! People respond to cash demands, so make em pay up to drive.
The no part first - the people who drive are just humans, with all the flaws we all know too well. In my opinion, Germans are not better drivers, except for the points which follow in the yes section.
Yes, they are better, but for different reasons -
- A significant percentage of Germans don't have driver licenses - among this percentage are most likely to be people who shouldn't be driving anyways.
- Germans receive all kinds of training, in grade school, about how to ride a bicycle safely in traffic - though not quite as extensive as American high school driver's ed, it does have both a class room and a range component, maybe 5 hours or so of each, taught by the police (there are police officers whose sole job it is to teach these classes).
- It costs a lot of money (easily above $2,000) to get a license, and the driving test itself is 45 minutes to an hour long - and yes, people fail it quite regularly, and you have to wait a month before retaking it. The written test is multiple choice - and German multiple choice is interesting - all answers listed can be false, all can be true, or any combination in between - it isn't possible to pick the most likely one as a simple test beating strategy.
- Your license is a privilege that the state will happily take away - 3 months for running a red light, for example. Getting your license back takes considerable time and money.
- In the case listed above, the driver would have been charged with a felony (causing injury, basically), and their insurance (or themselves) would be responsible for all costs - for example, all lost income from his medical practice.
I have never actually seen a flipped car on the autobahn (a few times on other roads) - but some of the scrap metal produced is spectacular, until you think about what the people inside probably ended up as.Actually, since I grew up and drive with a more or less American attitude, I generally let my wife drive in a German town or city - here, people on foot or bicycles are actually part of the traffic mix, and they actually act as if the car drivers will act that way. Partially because if the car drivers don't, they will be hunted down as dangerous criminals - which they are, of course. Since there basically is no reason to drive here (who cares if you need to get to work after you killed a child on a bicycle), losing your license is a matter of a few minutes for a police officer at the side of the road, and not a major court proceeding (I have read/been told - no personal experience there).
By the way, riding a motorcycle is not a problem - it is a different set of skills in most ways, along with the lack of blind spots and smaller size.
How many of the so-called "bike accidents" are actually caused by cars? Also, how many happen when people are mountain or sport biking?
It seems to me that the "per billion kilometers" numbers are just WAGs even though some people may believe them to be actually descriptive of reality.
Also, I think there are a number of other questions to ask, as I've already noted.
Safe biking is possible -- I do it all the time. Of course, I drive a pedalable "Hummer." (OrganicEngines SUV)
Safe driving is never, ever possible.
Every time we turn the key to start a fossil fuel burner, we are killing people and other creatures and poisoning the planet.
If that is not the antithesis of safety, than what is?
Also: every time one starts a fossil fuel burning engine, it is the moral and aesthetic equivalent of french kissing Dick Cheney....and then GW....and then Kenny Lay....and then... well, you get the picture!
I'd be interested in other estimates, but it sounds a little different when we say they are from the "American Journal of Public Health" than just "Grist." ;-)
My insight and tactics:
- be paranoid.
- Be much more totally paranoic, because they are out to get you.
- Realize that half of the drivers are impaired by drugs, alcohol, cell phones or are undergoing car-jacking, and a few are having fatal heart attacks as they realize they just killed that little kid who ran out in the road and is looking at her body and not your bike.
- Study bicycle riding from expert survivors.
- Ride motorcycles and experience even more malice and evil and danger from cars.
For some reason, big trucks are often kind to bicyclists.Some school-bus drivers are very bad, but most are good.
16. Be assertive when it comes to your safety. Don't do anything dangerous for others' convenience.
I learnt this the stupid way about a week ago when I tried to jump with my bike over a gardening hose laid across my path, so as not to piss off the gardener standing nearby. I fell very quickly, onto concrete, and hit my knee pretty hard. Nothing broken, fortunately, but I will be unable to fully load my right leg for a few weeks.
Had I just ridden over the damn thing the worst thing that could have happened was hearing a few curses from the gardening dude. On the other hand, I could have stopped the bike, picked it up, stepped over the hose and hopped on the bike again. That would have been both safe and considerate. Next time I'll do it... NOT :-)
- Read Effective Cycling by John Forester.
- Take a League of American Bicyclists Road I course.
- Obey the laws. Particularly the parts about never biking against traffic and using headlights in the dark and during precipitation.
- Avoid biking when and where drunks might be present.
- Be extra careful in intersections.
- When possible, live in a community where there are lots of other cyclists.
I've found that most large truck drivers are decent about passing safely because they have extra training and experience, know how big their truck is, and know that they may lose their job if they get complaints.I would really hate to be on a bicycle on National Idiots Day.
The big trucks are a lot more courteous, curiously enough. It might just be that passing a bicycle is a lot more dangerous a proposition for them because they have to take up much more road, accelerate and stop more slowly, and have worse visibility. I generally pay them back by getting off the road when I can, and generally try to do so when I can hear them approaching.
Though you take a substantial speed hit, riding a mountain bike, with fat - hybrid type tires, seems to substantially increase your likelyhood to survive. When I ride my skinny tired bike, I have to avoid patches of gravel and going off the road is practically not an option. But with the fat tires on the mountain bike, taking an excursion off road is about as hair raising a proposition as cereal in the morning.
I find it curious that you didn't include:
- - if you have a train of cars building behind you, pull over and let them go
- - if riding with a partner, ride one in front of the other rather than side by side
- - don't take up the whole road
Extending courtesy to the drivers behind you is also quite important. Even I have wanted to run people over for riding side by side and down the middle of the road, and it makes it more dangerous for all involved when passing.Maybe the drivers license should be renewed each year not every five.
It relieves the kids of their responsibility (liability, some day) for thier elderly parents' driving. (And the parents for their kids).
With DUI, we are pretty much headed in that direction anyways so as the trend continues you could get your wish! States stiffen DUI penalties all the time as well as other penalties for lesser "movers".
"You'll have to peel my cold, dead hands from the steering wheel."
Quick! Everybody off the sidewalk!
I've bicycled on ice for many miles without a fall, though I do intend to get studded tires for next winter. I bike through forests (on my 1985 Schwinn heavy steel cruiser with over 25,000 miles on it).
Probably I will not live forever, but my guess is that my risks of dying from a heart attack are roughly ten thousand times greater than dying in a bicycle accident.
When I get too old to bicycle, I'm going to get an adult tricycle.
The public transit alternative makes no sense in rural areas. Where it has been tried it has been figured it would be cheaper to give the users their own car and pay a neighbor to drive.
Bicycle motors are especially easy to convert to ethanol because they are so small and simple and have few moving parts, a single carb, etc.
I've been thinking about this for years, working on the theory that what I worry about probably will not happen.
Ever wonder why electric engines last longer than the piston counterpart? It's the moving parts count. An electric engine has two bearings (normally replacable ball bearings) but the piston engine has pistons rubbing on cylinders (ring job) journal-and-sleeve bearings galore (replace the babbit in the sleeves) and so on. And all moving parts need lubrication. Laptop lids are machined so bloody close that they WILL fail just after the warranty.
In the US Navy I worked (and practically lived in) the engineroom of the ship. Lots of those damn moving parts. Navy people are awful careful about lubricating those things, to keep the ship reliable. And I will say this. I will NOT step onto a ship with one engine lest some moving part fails. With a twin engine ship you have the chance to pull up somewhere on the remaining engine. This is from my expierences with those damn moving parts. I had orders to a single-engine ship at one point but decided to stay on the twin-engine ship I already knew becuse of this knowledge of how moving parts fail. I would not want to be stuck in the middle of the Atlantic aboard a broke-dick ship.
A ship on an ocean (or a plane in the air) is not like when a car breaks down. When a car breaks down, it's an inconvience, but a broke-dick ship (or plane) is life or death. The plane case is merely faster in an ocean. But a broke-dick ship can kill you just as good. For those who don't know, watch that flick Titanic. A definite worst-case but it illustrates the life/death bit. Not good.
There is another thingy with design. You want to make your ship (or plane) such that you can steer it somewhat on the remaining engines. That is some redundancy in design. This adds reliabiltity. This way, if an engine fails you can steer but also if the rudder fails you can play with the two engines to steer as you "drive". If both an engine AND the rudder go out you are f@#$ed. But the design lessens the danger of getting f@#$ed.
It would be easy to make a trawler fashing boat with two trolling motors, a GPS gizmo, and a laptop. But if an engine fails and you have no rudder to manually "drive" your boat you will go in circles and waste batteries. Again, not good. A 4-engine boat like that would be better if you go sans rudder to automate its "driving" (presumably to set the autopilot to "drive" as you get schnockered).
Cars mean independence, power, and remind people of when they were young. Never forget that every single American driver has gone through the ritual of teenage Driver's Ed and got a car to drive to high school each day. Even if that's not really true, it's the American ideal. We're a car nation full of car worshipers. And the elderly in particular value their independence, for which the American idol is the car.
I think the proposal in the post makes sense and needs to be put forward. But I do think proponents need to be prepared for incredibly strong, irrational opposition. It would probably be easiest in denser towns and cities, but then what's the point, if we can't control drivers coming from elsewhere with fewer requirements for licenses?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172983,00.html
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Ten_people_injured_as_elderly_driver_hits_crowd_at_Australian_show
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/07/17/MN249526.DTL
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/07-06/07-09-06/04state-region.htm
This idea's been around for a while,
http://www.cnn.com/US/9906/28/dangerous.drivers/
but never goes anywhere.
Politically, you can hide, for example, an anti-corporate agenda, behind "safety", because people really want to bash those wicked corporations that tell them they have to get up and go to work in the morning, etc. etc., and after all, bashing them seems cost-free. But do you really think you can hide this much transparent social engineering (forcing people into "villages", etc.) behind "safety"? If your system really disqualifies enough drivers to "reduce traffic congestion" noticeably, you've got an entire army of furious citizens. After all, the ones driving at the highly congested rush hours are mostly the young and middle aged working folks, not the retirees.
So if it were that easy, wouldn't it have happened already? But at prices like $500,000,000 per mile for the LA Red Line, and $<countless billions> bonded over five decades for the nonetheless-unbuilt Second Avenue Subway, how could we ever afford all this "mass transit"?
BTW some of the drivers I worry about the most are the hotshots who wait at an intersection, gaze over to the left waiting for an opening in the traffic, and floor the pedal when the opening comes without checking anywhere else. (NYC doesn't have right turn on red but it happens at stop signs too.) If you can take care of this sort of stuff by catching people when they are on their best behavior in a driving test, how come so many relatively young, recently qualified drivers do it when they're in a giant hurry out in real life?
Oh, and I had heard that for budgetary reasons, NYC eliminated on-the-road testing even for new drivers, years ago. Is that true?
First, we tried working with his doctor. The doctor told him to give up driving, he ignored the advice. Houston, his home for all of his adult life doesn't have very good public transportation, but, mostly he did not wish to stop driving.
Finally we took advantage of a program through the State and snitched him off to the Department of Public Safety. They then sent him a notice to come in for an examination or his license would be suspended. They do this without giving a reason, so we were off the hook as tattle-tales.
His license was suspended.
One day I went over and borrowed his car and never brought it back. Kind of chickenshit, but there you are. It worked although he still complains.
Talking around with friends I have discovered that this is a very common problem. No one wants to admit they have become older and should limit any activity. I don't know that any periodic review would pass at this point, or that it would address the changed circumstances that sometimes have a quick onset.
As a physician, I see your predicament regularly. It is very difficult to get elderly patients to give up driving. It's no so much that 80 year old necessarily share the so-called american love affair with the automobile, it's that they realize their independence will suffer greatly. this of course is a function of our worthless public transportation systems. I've often said that an otherwise perfectly normal adult who could run a marathon but cannot drive due to epilepsy is in a sense more handicapped in our society than someone with paraplegia who can drive with hand controls. The problem for the elderly is made even worse bc/ we tend to build nursing home and retirement communities out in the middle of nowhere. There's often a little man made lake and a small garden for walking. Half-baked "activities" occur in the small amount of space the home devotes to "recreation". I've always thought retirement and nursing homes should be in town where elderly people can walk (or go by scooter/ wheelchair) to parks, restaurants, shops, etc. and still be a part of regular society. I suspect it is in large part our fear of aging and death that drives us to warehouse the elderly out of sight. This is a tragedy.
Our hospital has an impaired drivers program run by occupational therapists. If anyone has a brain injury, stroke or even if its just mild cognitive impairment and poor eyesight, they can be referred to this service. They spend hours on a computer simulator before going out on the road with the therapist. Usually even the most stubborn person will realize they cannot drive after the 7th or 8th time they digitally kill themselves on the simulator.
I'm sure you feel a certain sense of guilt by removing the car from your father, but you shouldn't, you absolutely did the right thing. You've made things safer for your father and the rest of us. Many of my patients just have the keys stolen from them by family members. No one yet has tried to hot wire their vehicle.
Plus experience with drunk driving points out that removal of a person's driver's license does not necessarily stop them from driving. Only either jail time or confiscation of the vehicle will do that. Most elderly people who feel they should no longer drive would love to have a way of getting around to shop that did not involve the automobile, but if one is too infirm to drive one certainly has no business on a bicycle! This is one more reason that we need to do a major overhaul on our transportation system to provide easy and efficient mass transit for more of our population. Otherwise those elderly who have had their license revoked will probably just drive without one when they need to go somewhere. Most usually drive in daylight and not at rush hour however.