Should Aging Drivers Give Up the Wheel?
Aug. 4, 2004 -- Is it time for "the talk"? No, not the one you have with your kids about the birds and bees.The one you have with their elderly parents about … driving.
Aging drivers are everywhere — there are whopping 66 million of them over age 50, according to the Federal Highway Administration. And as the baby boomer generation ages, the number riding the roads will only increase.
When is it time to talk to your loved ones about giving up the wheel? Since cars are such an essential means of getting around in our society, it's not a transition to be treated lightly.
"We think of a driver's license as a license for a life, and nobody wants to give that up," notes Dr. Joe Coughlin, director of the Age Lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., "No matter what age they are."
Once a senior relinquishes his/her license, feelings of dependence can grow, Coughlin warns.
The impact of losing a license may have consequences besides transportation, adds Dr. Cynthia Owsley, professor of ophthalmology at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in Birmingham. "Epidemiological studies have shown that loss of driving in the older population is related to increased depression and social isolation."
Yet poor driving is a serious matter, as the nation was reminded last summer when 86-year-old Russell Weller plowed into a Santa Monica, Calif., farmer's market, killing 10 and injuring more than 50, 15 of them critically. A National Transportation Safety Board finding issued Tuesday, a year after the incident, found Weller inadvertently stepped on his gas instead of his brake.
For more on the finding in the Santa Monica incident, click here.
So how do we know when it's time for those we love to stop driving?
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