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Brooke Thompson

Micheal White

English Comp 1101

September 23, 2021

Should we retest older drivers?

Safety is hard to obtain on the roads. Driving huge pieces of metal that weigh up to 3,000

pounds at almost 70 miles an hour, can be extremely dangerous. As we get older, our bodies

begin to break down. We become weaker and our reflexes become slower. These things all play

a huge role in the safety of driving a car. Your mental state and physical state need to be at a

certain mark before you should be able to operate a car. Retesting older drivers should be

mandated due to our bodies deteriorating as we grow older.

As we get older, the first thing to go is muscle mass. Your muscle mass plays a huge role

in your everyday life. Losing muscle mass can decrease your mobility. Your mobility plays a

huge role in operating a vehicle. In a study done by Brian Tracy in the article “Mobility”, it was

found that “muscle strength can decrease by as much as 50% from 25-80 years of age and impair

the ability to move the body effectively and perform activities of daily living”. Driving would be

included as activities of daily living. Once you lose the ability to move freely, operating a vehicle

is going to be challenging. You need to be able to rotate your body to see passing cars and have

good mobility in your legs so that you can smoothly hit the gas and use the breaks safely. The

next main thing that starts to go is vision. Vision plays a huge role in the safety of yourself, and

others when driving a car. Aging also causes a normal loss of peripheral vision. A study done by

Gary Heiting in the article “How Your Vision Changes as You Age”, found that “our visual field

decreases by approximately one to three degrees per decade of life.” By the time you reach your
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70s and 80s, you may have a peripheral visual field loss of 20 to 30 degrees. Just these small

statistics show that your eyesight deteriorates as you age. This can make driving at night

especially hard on senior citizens. Eyesight is something that is tested when taking your first

drivers test but it should be mandated again once you reach a certain age. Retesting older drivers

to make sure that they reach these criteria standards, will keep everyone on the roads safer.

Brain productivity plays a huge role in the operation of a vehicle. As you age, your brain

ultimately slows down. You are not able to make quick decisions that are vital to being safe out

on the roads. The speed at which your brain can process stimuli is extremely important to safety

on the road. In the article “How Aging Brain Affects Thinking '' it was found that the effects of

an aging brain include: slower ability to find words and recall names, more problems with

multitasking, and could experience mild decreases in the ability to pay attention. All of these

changes in thinking will affect your ability to drive. Some of the changes can be more severe

than others which can be uncovered when retesting drivers at an older age. Things that go along

with reaction time are your reflexes. Your reflexes are one of the most important aspects of

driving. As you get older, your reflexes tend to slow down which can be very detrimental behind

the wheel. It's proven in the same study that, “Physical changes in nerve fibers slow the speed of

conduction and the parts of the brain involved in motor control lose cells over time.” which all

slow the speed of your reflexes. Your reaction speed and how fast you are able to respond to

events is huge when behind the wheel. Now that senior citizens are proven to live longer, these

two aspects need to be tested in order to be able to safely obtain a license.

While I agree that taking away someone's license can be seen as taking away someone's

freedom, the retesting of elderly drivers will keep the roads safer. Singling out this group of

people can be seen as unnecessary. Young drivers are also in question for safety on the roads.
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The article “Teen Driver Car Accident Statistics” points out that “Young drivers between 15- and

20-years-old accounted for 6.4% (13.2 million) of total drivers on the road. An average of nine

teens ages 16-19 were killed every day from motor vehicle injuries. 2,739 drivers ages 15-20

were killed and an additional 228,000 were injured in crashes.” It is easy to worry about younger

drivers taking the road, but we should be more worried about the diminished reaction times,

eyesight/hearing, and new technology and its effects on the senior citizen community. The

people that think they are in the right, when they are not, are the people that we should be

worried about for road safety.

Medical conditions may also affect a person's driving ability. Early onset disease

symptoms start to become prominent. It is not easy to self diagnose these diseases and most

people will continue to operate a vehicle. Common conditions that are found to inhibit driving

are: Alzheimer's Disease, Cataracts, Muscle atrophy/Muscle degeneration, Epilepsy. All of these

conditions can be extremely dangerous when driving a vehicle. If you are diagnosed with one of

these conditions, you are already forced to renew your license with a test. The problem with

these conditions is that the symptoms can start to affect your brain at an early age. When you are

unable to diagnose these medical conditions, it can make it extremely dangerous behind the

wheel. With these conditions, medication is usually prescribed to try and lessen the symptoms.

The article “Drugged Driving”, Brown Hartman pointed out that “certain kinds of prescription

medicines, including benzodiazepines and opioids, can cause drowsiness, dizziness, and impair

cognitive functioning (thinking and judgment).” All of these effects can lead to vehicle crashes

and risk the overall safety on the roads.

Retesting older drivers is necessary for the safety of all. It is a way to ensure that

everyone is in the best condition to operate a vehicle. Crashes can happen at all ages but it is
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proven that our bodies become weaker, slower, and begin to deteriorate with time so retesting

would be a way to ensure safety after a certain age. The deterioration of our bodies is what puts

the safety of the driver and others on the road at risk. All of these factors play a huge role in the

way we are able to safely operate a car. Making sure that our physical, mental, and emotional

health reaches the standards of the state law, before renewing a person's license.
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Works Cited

Hartman, Brown. “Drugged Driving Drugfacts.” National Institute on Drug Abuse, 10 June

2021, https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/drugged-

driving#:~:text=Drivers%20who%20have%20used%20cocaine,can%20lead%20to

%20vehicle%20crashes.

Heiting, Gary. “How Your Vision Changes as You Age (with Timeline).” All About Vision, All

About Vision, 8 Nov. 2021, https://www.allaboutvision.com/over60/vision-changes.htm.

“How the Aging Brain Affects Thinking.” National Institute on Aging, U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services, 2020, https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/how-aging-brain-

affects-thinking.

Redmond, Jodee. “Reasons for Retesting Elderly Drivers.” LoveToKnow, LoveToKnow Media,

https://seniors.lovetoknow.com/Retesting_Elderly_Drivers.

Tracy, Brian L. “Mobility.” Center for Healthy Aging, 30 July 2021,

https://www.research.colostate.edu/healthyagingcenter/aging-basics/mobility/.

“Teen Driver Car Accident Statistics & Facts.” Edgarsnyder.com, 1 May 2020,

https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/who-was-injured/teen/teen-driving-

statistics.html.