Ah, driving! It's a great thing to be able to do. Getting out there and getting tickets, running stop signs, hitting wayward pedestrians... All part of a day's work.
I'm really proud of a woman in North Carolina. She's 80 years old and she's the best driver I've ever heard of.
What the hell is wrong with this picture?!? Why do we let people that old and in that poor shape drive cars in traffic? Something is fucked up. How do you manage to drive 14 miles on the interstate into oncoming traffic and not know it? There are going to be some pretty serious clues that something has gone afoul here. Anyone with any kind of faculties for reason will detect something amiss almost immediately. If nothing else, in fourteen miles wouldn't you figure it might dawn on you to maybe, just maybe, hit the shoulder and turn around to try it again?
Of course I know that I'm going to get an e-mail from some cheese-dick saying, "Hey man, those big "Do Not Enter: Wrong Way" signs are about halfway down the exit ramp anyhow." What-fucking-ever Einstein. If you can't see 50 feet, it's a safe bet you shouldn't be driving anything at all, but we let people do it.
We let anybody drive in this country, and I mean anybody. Don't know your ass from a tea kettle? That's okay. We let diplomats drive without a license and forgive their fatal car crashes and property damage because they just didn't understand what was going on. Too nearsighted to take a shit? We let geriatric motherfuckers who are so blind and senile that they can't find their asses with both hands get behind a wheel. Can't wipe your own ass? We let paralysed people get behind the wheel!
WHY!?
The old people claim that they don't want to lose their independance. I claim that us non-old people don't want you independant motherfuckers running over us on your way to church because you mistook a sidewalk for an express lane. We want to live to be old people too, and you're fucking it up for us with monkeyshines like this.
I think there's a better way, and of course, I happen to have it.
It's too easy to get and keep a license in this country. In Germany for example, a driver's license costs you somewhere around $1500 USD, and if you ever have it pulled for any reason, that's it. You NEVER get it back. We should take a page from their book on this. I say that if you were given a DUI, you're just a motherfucker on a bicycle from now on.
Let's scale the test to make it harder as you get older too. Let's keep the renewal tests the same until you hit the age of, oh, 50 or so. Then, from your 51st birthday to your 60th, not only do you have to take a reflex test, but your license is only good for three years.
From 61 to 65: same as above, but now you retest every two years.
66 - 70: license is good for a single year and you have to take a bi-annual physical as well as motor skills and reflex tests.
70 and up: Retest every six motherfucking months, full physical every two years, road skill test is now required, (just as if you were getting a license in that state for the first time), as well as reflex test.
I don't see how anyone can not like this idea. Oh sure, there're a few old people who shouldn't be driving anyway who'll complain, but I only need remind them of "Wrong Way Grandma" before they start muttering into their adult diapers and realize that they're wrong.
posted by Alan at 10:00 PM
2 Comments:
I agree with you. Older people should be required to prove that they are fit to drive. Your solution should be put into practice.
A few years ago an older (89 years old) family member drove his car into a store front in Florida because his eye sight had deteriorated. And I'm sure many of us know about the story of the old guy in California that killed a few people when he drove his car down a busy street during a festival. It just makes good sense to require people to have control of their faculties before getting behind the wheel of a car.
My mom's not even that bad yet, in her early 70s though, she half scares me when driving. I wish they'd at least give her a driving test and not just check her eyesight. I mean the sort of shit like getting an inch within the bumper in front of her at a stop light and creeping closer and closer every few seconds. And it's only gotten worse since she got an SUV!
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