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EU wants over 70s to prove they can still drive every five years (www.brusselstimes.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/europe@feddit.de
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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.

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[–] 43 points 3 years ago (11 children)

Honestly seeing how people drive ~10 years after getting their licence I think we need a kind of test every 10 years, not necessarily because of declining cognitive capacity but just generally forgetting about safety

although it would be pretty expensive to check absolutely everyone

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  • [–] 9 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    I agree with this except im too cynical to believe people just forget about safety. People learn to pass the test and then drive how ever the hell they like. Granted alot of people are safe but i see far too many people just completely disregarding anyone else on the road and their only goal is to get to the front of the line as fast as possible and screw everone else.

    They can retake their test, they will drive safely and carefully that one day and then go right back to being selfish idiots.

    I would maybe go as far as to say thst there is a requirement to have a black box installed in all cars that gets switched off/removed after a number of years of safe driving. And if you drive badly or unsafely then your insurance goes up every year until you prove you are safe.

    Maybe it goes up by x amount Β£100 or like 10% or 20% a year until you stop driving badly but remains at the price it was when you start driving safe for 3 years before dropping back down to the price it would be without the increases you incurred. That would stop people from trying to cheat the system.

    It may be extreme but if you are driving safely you have nothing to worry about.

    Of course we would have to nail down exactly what counts as unsafe driving so it wasnt overly/unjustly critical.

    I mean.... maybe its a bad idea. But again. If its not you then you needn't be worried.

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  • [–] 17 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Here in Germany your insurance fee goes down every year you don’t cause an accident. But if you cause an accident it will go up again.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago

    Yeah we have thst in the UK but im not aware of the amount thar it has contributed to reducing colissions and deaths.

    People can have crashes and avoid increasing their insurance by not informing the insurer and working our the costs between the two people involved in the accident.

    I was hit by someone speeding out of a side road once and they didnt have insurance as it was a company car that belonged to their dad.

    I didnt claim as the damage to my car was minimal and the car was a 15 year old POS anyway. I just kept it running until it died of natural causes and kept my lower insurance cost safe :)

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

    Lol... First they came for the people doing 20 over, and I don't drive 20 over, so I said nothing. Then they came for the ones doing 15 over, and I don't do 15 over, so I said nothing...

    You're talking about applying fees and profits to people deemed "less safe" by some arbitrary measurement, and assuming that said fees and profits will never be applied to you because you meet what will be the likely initial standard, but you're assuming the arbitrary measurement will remain fixed... And it absolutely will not.

    The thing is, the revenue you're suggesting as an incentive to avoid those behaviors will become a documented and budgeted source of revenue for someone, somewhere, and if your pie in the sky works, and said revenue reduces because the roads get safer, the people who've budgeted that revenue will be incentivised to tighten the restrictions to regain the revenue loss, all in the name of safety, of course...

    Of course, you have nothing to worry about if you're willing to comply with the increasingly restricting goalposts...

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (2 children)

    Firstly it was a hypothetical. I made that pretty clear.

    Second i literally said in my comment that we would need to define was considered unsafe driving so it wasn't overly critical or unjust. So there would be nothing arbitrary about it.

    You raise a good point about the revenue becoming budgeted but that is something that would be taken into account if such a system was ever devised. The revenue would have to be spent subsidising safe drivers lower insurance fees and be an acceptable loss in the event that unsafe drivers become safe drivers. At least it should not be considered as profit.

    I accept that i know very little about these systems so i cant really talk about how they would work but to be honest if you are more concerned about who profits feom unsafe drivers increased insurance premiums than making roads safe then im not sure you should have a say either.

    Also we already have optional black boxes to lower insurance costs in the UK so there is a precedent for this and thst might be a good starting point. They must already be considering the fluctuations in profits for those insurance packages.

    Ultimately i was preaenting a hypothetical and i wasnt willing to die on that hill.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    You don't have to die anywhere ;)

    It's got merit, and quite a few US insurers have similar programs, either via an OBD port dongle or through an app. My wife has an app on her cell phone that monitors her driving, and mainly cell usage, and frankly, I think that specifically is a hell of a good metric for safety these days.

    I like it as an incentive. I DONT like it as a matter of law or policy, for previously state reasons.

    You don't gotta die on any hills though, I come for the simple discourse and don't consider disagreement to be hostility. I just got removed resting comment syndrome or some shit I think ;)

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  • [–] 6 points 3 years ago

    not necessarily because of declining cognitive capacity but just generally forgetting about safety

    And because rules, regulations and the reality of traffic changes.

    There's this new move to make roads where bicycles are granted priority more prevalent, but the specific rules of how it works are completely unknown to most people who got their license more than 10 years ago. Same for reserved car sharing parking spots. Same for some rules around electric vehicles, etc. etc.

    It would just be good to make sure people who are operating a vehicle are current on the rules of actually driving a car - rather than relying on "that's how I learned it, back in the day!"

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