How old is too old ?
Should driver’s licences expire once a certain age is reached? I say yes!
Why?
Because every day I see old people do some really strange things in cars.
But what age can be considered a reasonable cutoff - 70, 80 or perhaps 90?
Currently there’s no age limit relating for driver’s licences.
As long as you pass the fiveyearly eye test, your licence is renewed and you are good to sway across lanes like a tree in the wind for another half-adecade.
My own father, for instance, doesn’t belong on the road.
He’s eyesight is terrible, yet he passes the eye test.
I’ve got a suspicion that he’s memorised the chart and passes, although he has difficulty seeing the door where the test is done.
His 95-year-old mother was in a 1983 Honda Ballade with a licence to kill up until two years ago.
The family took her keys away after they discovered she reversed to town to get the car’s mileage down – I kid you not!
Want to know if your ABS is working properly?
Just follow a fossil and find out…
While they are too scared to go over 60 on a freeway, they feel comfortable doing 90 in town because they’ve lived there for a 100 years and can drive blindfolded for that matter.
But they see a red traffic light only when it’s just about parallel with their bifocals and then slam the brake pedal through the radiator.
It’s a sensitive subject and I can already imagine some arthritic knuckles being cracked while writing this, but friends and relatives should take responsibility seeing that there’s no law in place.
When grandpa drives 60 in the fast lane all the way to Durban, just to turn around when he gets there because he forgot that the reason he went was the long life milk special at Makro, it’s perhaps time he hangs up the keys to his 1972 Volvo.
People age differently, so it’s impossible to link a specific age limit to driving a car across the board and it will be unfair, therefore it’s the family’s responsibility to make sure a senior citizen is still capable of operating a car safely.
We will all get there one day.