Beyond being an ingrained habit, the automobile is a necessity, especially for those of us who live in suburbia. There is little or no public transportation, the corner grocery has become extinct and people must get to a shopping center or mall-usually several miles away-to replenish the family larder.
I recognize that I am not a first-rate driver. I was not a great driver when I was a young man, and the aging process has not enhanced my driving skills. While it is true that in more than half a century of driving, I have had only two accidents for which I was to blame-both fender benders that caused minimal damage and no injuries-I attribute this to good luck rather than good driving. In a case of rare unanimity, my children concur with this opinion, adding the observation, “It’s not only good luck; it’s that everyone else is a good driver.”
I took the only driver’s test I would ever take when I was 21 years old, when my eyes were sharp enough to count the fleas on the hind leg of a shaggy dog at 100 paces. Twenty years later, I had begun to wear glasses. Today, I wear bifocals. Simply stated, I do not see as well in 1994 as I did in 1940.
But the state of Pennsylvania, where I live, takes no cognizance of my diminishing visual acuity. Aging drivers are not required-nor even encouraged-to take eye tests. In the photograph I am required to take triennially for my driver’s license, no glasses are in evidence. I did wear glasses the last time I went to have my picture taken, but the Bureau of Motor Vehicles official who took the picture urged me to remove them. “If you’re wearing glasses in the picture,” he observed sagely, “you gotta wear ’em when you’re driving.”
It would be safer for me to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel than to drive without glasses. Yet it is perfectly legal for me to do the latter in Pennsylvania. And, since this license is valid everywhere else in the United States, anywhere in the country.
Nor does the state have any interest in my physical condition. Is it not reasonable to assume I have suffered a measure of decline, a deterioration in some of the physical skills essential to safe driving, in the 50-plus years since my last driver’s test?
Some states have provisions for retesting older drivers, usually beginning at the age of 80. But Pennsylvania does not pursue the retesting option very vigorously. A phone call to the BMV revealed that there is a program for retesting older drivers, beginning at 45. It is done by random selection, based on ZIP codes. The official I spoke to had no idea what percentage of drivers over 45 were tested, nor was she willing to hazard a guess. I queried everyone I know who is over 45, and none had ever been retested. Nor had they ever heard of anyone who had been.
The office of my state representative was more helpful. Yes, there is some retesting of older drivers, I was advised, but only after a driver has suffered a stroke or seizure that renders him/her temporarily incapable of driving. Otherwise, one is permitted to drive until the day of his/her death.
“But not afterward, I presume?” I asked, in a lame attempt at levity. “There would be no need to,” she replied briskly. This lady was all business.
It is difficult to drum up interest in a topic as dull as superannuated drivers. Drug busts and drive-by shootings are much more dramatic. And in this era of political correctness, it would be suicide for any elected official to suggest that older people be treated differently from their juniors. In consequence, no office holder with an interest in job security would dare to venture onto such dangerous ground.
Since they cannot conduct the normal business of living without their cars, the majority of my contemporaries continue to drive, although most of us have made concessions to maturity. We no longer take long trips, nor do we drive after dark. We rarely venture out during rush hours, and we shun areas of high-density traffic whenever possible.
That’s most of us. Some refuse to bow to the inevitable, and continue to drive as they always drove. Which brings to mind my cousin Dave.
Cousin Dave had lost most of the vision in his right eye by the time he was 70, but he continued to bowl merrily along in all kinds of traffic, oblivious to what was happening to his right. Divine justice must have been playing hooky in Cousin Dave’s case, for in defiance of all logic, he died peacefully, in his own bed, of the infirmities of old age, at 87.
But not everyone is so fortunate. All too frequently, I see an item on the 6 o’clock news about an elderly gentleman who, having driven accident-free since 1928, has run into and through a crowd of people waiting at a bus stop. He cannot understand how it happened. He is certain the accident was caused by mechanical failure. “I was pushing down on the foot brake as hard as I could,” he asserts. Sure he was. Or maybe it was the gas pedal. And an eightysomething lady drives through the front window of a restaurant at lunchtime, and is at a loss to explain the aberration. These are adventures I would like to forgo.
And in an effort to forgo them, I will be moving in with my son and his family later on this year, when the house he is building is completed. This will make it possible for me to manage without a car.
Undeniably, I will suffer a loss of mobility when I give up driving. I will give up a measure of my cherished independence when there is no longer a car parked in my driveway, available for instant use. But I would rather stop driving five years too soon than one millisecond too late.
