Arguments Against Elderly Drivers

Everyone is put in a situation when you get stuck driving behind a person going 10 miles per hour under the speed limit. Every time someone pulls out in front of them, it seems as though it is always an elder. Many people have this perception that the reasons why there are all these accidents on the road is because the older people do not use their vision, cannot hear as well, and lose their reaction time. The majority of the population is in the elder generation. We cannot take away the older generations freedom of driving. Driving is a privilege and many people would want them to think as though they still have their independence. Sometimes people do not realize how gifted we are to have a license and the ability to be independent to drive. Taking driving for granted happens on daily basis and it just would not be fair if once a person reached a certain age, your license would be revoked. In many states, once a person turns the age of 16, one is able to take the …show more content…
Should a person 65 or older be taken off the road or should they still have the ability to drive? We should not strip the elders of their licenses and restrict them from driving just because they reach a certain age, but I believe that we should construct a way to keep everyone safe on the road with a sooner renewal of the licenses within 2 years instead of 4 years and have the older population have an annual vision, hearing, and motion/ability test to ensure they still have the abilities to stay alert and keep everyone safe on the road. Vision plays a major role in the ability to drive. When driving, one always has to be alert and know what their surroundings are every second of the drive. For example, people need to be alert of the speed limit, unexpected vehicles, things approaching their windshields, etc. Approximately 90% of the information needed for driving is visual (Hill, 1980) (Johnson