"This is pure age discrimination. They cannot provide any evidence or figures to show that drivers aged 70 and over would be more often involved in accidents."

The European Union wants elderly people (70+) to undergo medical tests from now on to prove that they are still capable of driving a car every five years. However, the proposal has been met with a lot of criticism.

  • Phreak@lemmy.worldEnglish
    401·
    1 year ago

    This is quite a brilliant idea. Although we could argue that everyone of all ages should be somewhat tested every x years. The amount of people that are over confident and forget things on the road is quite scary.

    • Xeon@lemmy.mlEnglish
      7·
      1 year ago

      I do agree with you, but most of those people do that on purpose and will just drive like they should for those 30/60 minutes. I don’t see elderly be able to do that.

    • Pika@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I kind of agree with this, I do think that an exam should be done every so many years, but I don’t think that full on driving test should need to be done. At most maybe a minimal test like make sure you can still do intersections fine and make sure you still know how to use your blinker in Etc but honestly I don’t feel like a full-on test is going to be beneficial for anything, a timed exam with common sense questions such as who has the right away in this situation, or when is it appropriate to go through a yellow, basic stuff

      In the case of the eu, this isn’t an actually a driving test; it is more so of a medical test so like vision and memory tests to verify that you still have situational awareness, which I think will do tremendously more then your standard driving test where you may not even hit a situation that requires a lot of situational awareness

      • SoaringDE@feddit.deEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        In my opinion it should be doctor every 5 years, driving test every 10. And as you get significantely older both intervals get reduced.

      • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        I don’t think that full on driving test should need to be done

        A full on driving test should be done at least once though. Where I live (Pennsylvania), the “driving test” is basically going around the block and then parallel parking one time. In no sense can it be considered as a comprehensive test of a driver’s command of a wide range of potential situations.