Texas accident attorneys note that states like Florida, California, and Texas that have large numbers of older drivers also experience alarming numbers of fatal accidents caused by senior drivers. In many of these accidents, the elderly drivers simply lose control of their vehicles. Or they apply the gas pedal when they should have been applying the brake. They might put the car in drive, when they meant to reverse. The older drivers might have vision problems, or they might fail to look behind their vehicles before backing out.
These older drivers simply might make a bad driving decision or react too slowly to a driving situation. In any event, innocent victims lose their lives because these drivers probably shouldn’t be driving any longer. You can download our Texas accident attorneys’ free book on coping with serious Houston accidents to see what steps you need to take in the event you or a loved one are injured by another driver.
But coping after the fact doesn’t prevent the accidents from occurring in the first place. Our Texas accident attorneys point out that since the 1950s, the United States has actively worked to create a society utterly dependent on cars and driving. Only in Manhattan can one really escape the need to drive. Many of today’s senior drivers came of age at the dawn of the U.S. car-dependent era. Some of these drivers might well realize that they shouldn’t be behind the wheel anymore. Indeed, they might prefer to leave driving behind if they could. But without a car and a license to drive, many of these drivers face isolation and an inability to obtain many of the daily necessities of life lie groceries.
In trying to balance the needs of the various segments of our society, all but 17 U.S. states have developed some program that requires older drivers to be re-certified and re-tested before they can renew a driver’s license. Some of these programs start at the age of 69, while others don’t kick in until age 80. And our Texas accident attorneys can’t help but notice that all of them fail to account for the fact that people age at different rates.
Many people are seriously debilitated before age 80. And some people are quite capable drivers well into their 80s. Some programs just require the same vision retesting that some states require of all drivers renewing their licenses. Other state programs require the older driver to appear in person to renew. Almost none require a driving test upon renewal, primarily because such a test is quite expensive to implement. And our Texas accident attorneys remind you that the debate over elderly driver licensing fairly ignores the fact that seniors, like other people, will probably just take to driving without a license if they feel they must.
In Florida, a couple of recent highly publicized accidents where elderly drivers backed over and killed innocent victims has inflamed the debate regarding licensing of older drivers. In one incident, an 89-year-old driver drove up onto a sidewalk in front of Wal-Mart, ran over, and killed a 78-year-old who had been in the store to return an item. In another accident, an 88-year-old driver backed over and dragged a fellow parishioner to death after church let out. Florida statistics show that 2010 saw 442 fatal accidents involving drivers aged 65 years or older, representing a full 15% of the state’s traffic accident fatalities.
California has an even larger population of senior drivers than Florida. And Texas also has a substantial number of elderly drivers and related accident fatalities. In Dallas, for instance, city residents were outraged when a 90-year-old driver recklessly struck and killed a teenager that was on the way to school.
Our Texas accident attorneys emphasize that fatal accident statistics involving older drivers are trending upward as the population ages. So the debate over renewing licenses for older drivers will likely continue to heat up as well. The challenge remains to find an equitable solution to the problem in a nation that’s created a car-dependent culture.