Older drivers face confusing array of license laws

LAURAN NEERGAARD

AP Med­ical Writer

WASHINGTON — Jerry Wise­man notices it’s harder to turn and check his car’s blind spots at age 69 than it was at 50. So the Illi­nois man and his wife took a refresher dri­ving course, hunt­ing tips to stay safe behind the wheel for many more years — a good idea con­sid­er­ing their state has arguably the nation’s tough­est older-driver laws.

More older dri­vers are on the road than ever before, and an Asso­ci­ated Press review found they face a hodge­podge of state licens­ing rules that reflect sci­en­tific uncer­tainty and pub­lic angst over a grow­ing ques­tion: How can we tell if it’s time to give up the keys?

Thirty states plus the Dis­trict of Colum­bia have some sort of older-age require­ment for driver’s licenses, rang­ing from more vision test­ing to mak­ing seniors renew their licenses more fre­quently than younger peo­ple. At what age? That’s lit­er­ally all over the map. Mary­land starts eye exams at 40. Shorter license renewals kick in any­where from age 59 in Geor­gia to 85 in Texas.

The issue attracted new atten­tion when a 100-year-old dri­ver backed over a group of school­child­ren in Los Ange­les late last month. That’s a rar­ity, but with an immi­nent surge in senior dri­vers, the fed­eral gov­ern­ment is propos­ing that all states take steps to address what the National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion calls “the real and grow­ing prob­lem of older dri­ver safety.”

Here’s the conun­drum: “Birth­days don’t kill. Health con­di­tions do,” said Joseph Cough­lin, head of the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Technology’s Age­Lab, which devel­ops tech­nolo­gies to help older peo­ple stay active.

Healthy older dri­vers aren’t nec­es­sar­ily less safe than younger ones, Cough­lin points out. But many older peo­ple have health issues that can impair dri­ving, from arthri­tis to demen­tia, from slower reflexes to the use of mul­ti­ple med­ica­tions. There’s no easy screen­ing tool that licens­ing author­i­ties can use to spot peo­ple with sub­tle health risks. So some states use birth­days as a proxy for more scrutiny instead.

Senior dri­ving is a more com­pli­cated issue than headline-grabbing tragedies might sug­gest. Older dri­vers don’t crash as often as younger ones. But they also drive less. About 60 per­cent of seniors vol­un­tar­ily cut back, avoid­ing night­time dri­ving or inter­states or bad weather, said David Eby of the Uni­ver­sity of Michigan’s Cen­ter for Advanc­ing Safe Trans­porta­tion through­out the Lifespan.

Mea­sure by miles dri­ven, how­ever, and the crash rate of older dri­vers begins to climb in the 70s, with a sharper jump at age 80, accord­ing to the Insur­ance Insti­tute for High­way Safety. Only teens and 20-somethings do worse.

That ris­ing risk reflects the chal­lenge for fam­i­lies as they try to help older loved ones stay safe but still get around for as long as pos­si­ble, which itself is impor­tant for health.

The good news: Fatal crashes involv­ing seniors have dropped over the past decade, per­haps because cars and roads are safer or they’re stay­ing a bit health­ier, said the Insur­ance Institute’s Anne McCartt.

Yet the old­est dri­vers, those 85 and up, still have the high­est rate of deadly crashes per mile, even more than teens. More often than not, they’re the vic­tims, largely because they’re too frail to sur­vive their injuries.

And seniors are about to trans­form the nation’s road­ways. Today, nearly 34 mil­lion dri­vers are 65 or older. By 2030, fed­eral esti­mates show there will be about 57 mil­lion — mak­ing up about a quar­ter of all licensed dri­vers. The baby boomers in par­tic­u­lar are expected to hang onto their licenses longer, and drive more miles, than pre­vi­ous generations.

Spe­cial­ists say more seniors need to be plan­ning ahead like Jerry Wise­man and his wife Sandy.

“Absolutely we want to be as good dri­vers as we can pos­si­bly be for as long as we can,” said Wise­man, of Schaum­burg, Ill.

At an AARP course, Wise­man learned exer­cises to improve his flex­i­bil­ity for check­ing those blind spots. He takes extra care with left-hand turns, which become riskier as the abil­ity to judge speed and dis­tance wanes with age. He knows to watch for other changes.

“We’ll be ready when it’s time for one of us to stop,” he said.

Where you live deter­mines what extra require­ments, if any, older adults must meet to keep their driver’s license.

Among the most strict rules: Illi­nois requires a road test to check dri­ving skills with every license renewal start­ing at age 75 — and start­ing at age 81, those renewals are required every two years instead of every four. At 87, Illi­nois dri­vers must renew annually.

In Wash­ing­ton, D.C., start­ing at age 70, dri­vers must bring a doctor’s cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that they’re still OK to drive every time they renew their license.

New Mex­ico requires annual renewals at 75.

Geo­graphic vari­abil­ity makes lit­tle sense, said Jake Nel­son, AAA’s direc­tor of traf­fic safety advo­cacy and research. “Either I’m safe to drive or I’m not. Where I live shouldn’t mat­ter,” he said.

Yet when Iowa dri­vers turn 70, they must renew their license every two years instead of every five. Neigh­bor­ing Mis­souri lets the 70-year-olds renew every three years instead of every six.

Some states intro­duce age require­ments after high-profile acci­dents. Mass­a­chu­setts now requires dri­vers to start renew­ing licenses in per­son at age 75, with proof of an eye exam. The change came after an 88-year-old dri­ver struck and killed a 4-year-old cross­ing a sub­ur­ban Boston street in 2009.

This sum­mer, the National High­way Traf­fic Safety Admin­is­tra­tion pro­posed a national guide­line for older dri­ver safety that, if final­ized, would push states to become more con­sis­tent. Among the rec­om­men­da­tions: Every state needs a pro­gram to improve older dri­ver safety; doc­tors should be pro­tected from law­suits if they report a pos­si­bly unsafe dri­ver; and driver’s licenses should be renewed in per­son after a cer­tain age, tai­lored to each state’s crash data.

Still, many states say their main focus should be on inex­pe­ri­enced teen dri­vers and prob­lems such as tex­ting behind the wheel.

“Teens are risk tak­ers. Our older dri­vers are risk avoiders,” said Alabama state Rep. Jim McClen­don. Alabama dri­vers renew licenses every four years, with no older age requirements.

New Hamp­shire last year stopped requir­ing road tests when 75-year-olds renewed their licenses. The law was repealed after an 86-year-old leg­is­la­tor called it discriminatory.

It’s not the only state wor­ry­ing about age discrimination.

“You don’t want to go around and say, ‘This per­son is 85. We’ve got to take them off the road.’ That wouldn’t be fair,” said Assem­bly­man David Gantt of New York, where licenses last for eight years.

On the other side is the fam­ily of a Bal­ti­more col­lege stu­dent who died last year after being run over by an 83-year-old dri­ver who turned into his bike lane. Mary­land next month begins issu­ing licenses that last longer — eight years instead of five — despite an emo­tional appeal from the mother of Nathan Krasnopoler that that’s too long for the old­est drivers.

“You should be look­ing at your dri­vers to be sure they’re able to safely drive. There’s plenty of research that as we age, things do change and we may not be aware of those changes,” said Susan Cohen, who now is urg­ing Mary­land offi­cials to study adding some form of com­pe­tency screen­ing, in addi­tion to the required eye exams, to license renewals.

“Do we have to lose a 20-year-old with an incred­i­ble future ahead of him in order to deter­mine that this par­tic­u­lar dri­ver shouldn’t be dri­ving?” she asked.

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Traf­fic chal­lenges change for older dri­vers, who are less likely than younger ones to be in crashes involv­ing alco­hol or speed­ing. Instead, they have more trou­ble with inter­sec­tions, mak­ing left turns, and chang­ing lanes or merg­ing, because of grad­ual declines in vision, reac­tion times and other abil­i­ties, accord­ing to the National Insti­tutes of Health.

Sci­en­tists are hunt­ing screen­ing tests to check for such things as early warn­ing signs of cog­ni­tive prob­lems that might sig­nal who’s more at risk. But such screen­ings are a long way from the local license office. In a closely watched pilot project, Cal­i­for­nia tried a three-step screen­ing process to detect dri­vers who might need a road test before get­ting their licenses renewed — but it didn’t reduce crashes, send­ing researchers back to the draw­ing board.

Today, AAA’s Nel­son said in-person renewals are “the sin­gle most effec­tive thing states can do to improve safety.”

That’s because work­ers in the driver’s license office can be trained to look for signs of con­fu­sion or trou­ble walk­ing as peo­ple come in — two big clues that they may have trou­ble behind the wheel — and refer those dri­vers for a road test or a med­ical exam to see if there’s really a problem.

Vir­ginia, for exam­ple, lets even the old­est dri­vers hold a license for eight years, but start­ing at 80 they must renew in per­son and pass an eye test. Cal­i­for­nia has five-year renewals, and start­ing at 70 they must be in-person with both a writ­ten test and eye check.

Those eye tests can make a dif­fer­ence. In senior-filled Florida, 80-year-olds renew their licenses every six years instead of every eight, with a vision check each time. A study found high­way deaths among Florida’s older dri­vers dropped 17 per­cent after the vision test was man­dated in 2003.

How long between renewals is best? There’s no sci­en­tific con­sen­sus, but Nel­son rec­om­mends every four to six years.

Another big key: Pro­grams that make it easy for doc­tors, police and fam­ily mem­bers to alert licens­ing offi­cials to pos­si­bly unsafe dri­vers of any age, so the experts can inves­ti­gate. But in states that don’t allow con­fi­den­tial report­ing, fam­i­lies in par­tic­u­lar hes­i­tate in fear of back­lash if upset rel­a­tives learn who turned them in.

Utah adopted con­fi­den­tial report­ing in 2008 “to encour­age more peo­ple to report prob­lem­atic dri­vers with­out the risk of retal­i­a­tion or reper­cus­sion,” said Chris Caras of Utah’s Depart­ment of Pub­lic Safety.

Nor should the ques­tion be only whether some­one should drive or not: Iowa is lead­ing a grow­ing num­ber of states that cus­tomize license restric­tions to allow peo­ple to stay on the road under cer­tain con­di­tions. Peo­ple with early-stage Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s dis­ease, for instance, may qual­ify for a one-year license; peo­ple with other health con­di­tions may be allowed to drive only dur­ing the day or within a few miles of home.

In Cal­i­for­nia, older dri­vers who fail a reg­u­lar road test some­times get a re-test on famil­iar neigh­bor­hood roads to qual­ify for a restricted license. State traf­fic researchers expect demand for that option to grow, and are prepar­ing to study if that tai­lored test­ing really assures safety.

Mean­while, how can peo­ple tell how they do on the road?

—The Uni­ver­sity of Michi­gan devel­oped an online self-test to help dri­vers detect safety changes: http://um-saferdriving.org/.

—AAA and AARP offer web­sites with sim­i­lar tools and links to dri­ving courses: http://seniordriving.aaa.com/ and http://www.aarp.org/home-garden/transportation/driver_safety/

But ulti­mately, “the only way you can assess any dri­ver at any age is to sit in the seat next to them and watch them drive,” said Coughlin.

Posted by AP News on Sep 23 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.