Essay On Bad Drivers

All older adults, no matter religion, race, or culture have many stereotypes that come from the younger generations. One of the main stereotypes that is well known all around is that, older adults are bad drivers. Many people believe that all older adults are bad drivers, but what makes their driving so “bad”? I have experienced a lot of moments with older drivers on the road where the stereotype of bad driving comes out. I have been driving with my dad and when he passes a slow-moving car, he always looks at them to see who it is, and whenever we pass an older adult he always says, “of course it was a grandma/grandpa”. I also have been driving and I catch myself using the stereotype comment. I will be behind a slow-moving car and then say, “move faster grandma!” even if it not an older adult. This stereotype is common among everyone. I even asked a group of friends what is a stereotype that comes to your head when you think of older adults, and they all stated that older adults are bad drivers. The stereotype is known by almost everyone, but there has been a lot of research done …show more content…
E., Watson J.M., Stefanucci J.K., Ward N., Bakdash J.Z., & Strayer D.L. (2015) talks about the stereotype of older adults and bad driving. The stereotype threat can be described as, hearing a stereotype and starting to believe it to be true for yourself (Lambert A.E., et al, 2015). The researchers hypothesized that older adults under the stereotype threat are at higher risk of being bad drivers. The older adults, ages 62 to 83 years old, were put into a driving simulator and their reaction times for hitting the breaks were recorded. There was a group of 60 drivers to begin with but by the end of it, there were 39 driving older adults who stayed with the study. There were two groups, those who believe that they are under the stereotype threat, and the others who believe they are