I Can't Drive (After 85?)

Exactly one month ago, I wrote about designing communities for the elderly. Just last Friday, I read about a local elderly couple who went to the store and got lost coming home. They spent the next 30 hours driving around trying to find their home, sparking a statewide senior alert that included a helicopter search and some 14,000 phone calls by the police looking for leads.

Luckily, the couple were found safely about 125 miles way, in another state. But others have not fared so well and the question of when should a senior's license should be revoked can provoke heated debate. Indeed, there have been times when my own grandmother has come back from an errand with no recollection on how the dents and scratches on her car's bumper got there.

Of course, like all age groups, there are always good and bad drivers, and there are many very capable senior citizens who drive better than those half their age. This post is in no way designed to poke fun at elderly drivers, but rather, to bring to light some of the implications of aging drivers.

In a country where cars symbolize freedom, we often forget that driving is a privilege and not a right. The question is further exacerbated when you factor in the fact that most communities in America are not pedestrian-friendly and require a car to get around. As the driver in the opening story said, "If they're going to take my license away from me, they might as well put me in an institution."

From a housing perspective, the notion of zoning, with dedicated residential and commercial sectors of a town distinctly separated, may not be the best solution in the long run. It's one thing to pack up the kids and take the minivan to the grocery store across town once a week when you're younger and mobile, but it's quite another to get in your car and make that same trek when you're in your eighties and suffer from glaucoma. You're not only risking your own safety, but the safety of other drivers as well. During the 1950s, when the nation's interstate and suburb systems were designed, the average life expectancy was around 68 years old. The current rate tacks on an additional ten years, and future generations may live even longer. Viable transportation options are needed to allow seniors to keep their freedom without sacrificing their (or others') safety, especially when you consider that after age 85, driver fatality rates are nearly four times higher than that of teens.

I live in a pretty eclectic neighborhood, where there's a good mix between young and old, and I joke about how every driver is frustrated when getting around the neighborhood - the young drivers think the old drivers drive too slow, and the old drivers think the young drivers need to slow down. And, while it's easy to jest about how slow grandpa drives, it's a lot harder to tell him that he can no longer drive. Especially when his neighborhood is paved with roads and driving is the only way he knows how to get around town.

So, what's the solution? Public transportation and walkable communities are a good place to start. Mix-use development, where the grocery store is a part of a neighborhood instead of placed on the outskirts of a sub-division is also a viable option.

Either way, with the aging population reaching its peak soon, we'll eventually have to have a conversation about when people should give up their car keys.