Society Getting Grandpa off the road

In May last year, Japan made it mandatory for drivers 75 or over with a history of any eleven types of traffic offences — from speeding to running traffic lights — to retake a driving test when renewing their license. The move came as the number of fatal traffic accidents caused by elderly drivers has gradually risen in a country where one in 3.5 people are older than 65, the highest proportion in the world. Fatalities caused by senior drivers rose about 2 per cent to 17 per cent in 2022.

How is this handled in other countries?

While deadly driving caused by the elderly may seem small in the grand scheme of things, with 379 cases caused last year by people aged 75 years and older out of about 2,500 incidents, some high-profile accidents put the issue firmly back in the spotlight. In 2019, a Toyota Motor Corp. Prius driven by an 89-year-old former senior bureaucrat ploughed through a crossing in central Tokyo, killing a toddler and her mother and harming several others. He was indicted by Japanese prosecutors and was sentenced to five years imprisonment. Tragedies like these pushed the government to put in place stricter rules. The result has been that 1 in 10 of some 77,000 senior citizens failed to pass up to December.

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Source: How Aging Japan Is Dealing With Elderly Drivers

At 73 , my wife tends to close her eyes and pray a lot when she rides with me .

I renewed last year (here). The 'obstacle' (increased scrutiny) was a refresher course to be taken at a local driving school. It took a good couple hours--kind of typical classroom talk, but then some rather thorough eye testing. Not only ID where the gap in the circle is, but peripheral vision and so on. Then also a driving test, but this was not a 'real'/strict test, but I think just enough to see if you could handle a car fairly well. Do a couple laps, stop and go, traffic signals, lane changing to go around a stopped car, and one stretch where the key was to get up to 40-50m/hr and hold it, I guess to see if you could handle some typical city speeds without blocking traffic. IIRC, this cost ~¥6000.

On reserving my time slot for this, I was told it was not a pass/fail thing, but anyone who failed would not get the certificate of completion, which was what you then took to the license center. And with that in hand, the processing at the license center was easy. A quickie eye test, picture, skip the usual lecture, and wait a bit as a group of elders for them to bring out the finished licenses, and call names to pass them out.

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My dad, now gone, had a valid license when he passed away at 97. He was able to opt for a license/testing center that was easy, kind of the next town over from where he lived. He had 'Ex POW' plates on his car, and my sibs speculated that he had found some examiners that simply passed him for that.

My mom still has a license at 91. Licenses expire every four years here and I can't remember the last time she had to go in person. Her last renewal was by mail. She hasn't driven in five years probably. Luckily she knows her limits and doesn't even think about driving now.

Both my Grandmother's still have licenses at 94 years of age and both still drive. One drives more than the other but both just to places that are fairly close. The one in Illinois has to take a yearly exam, not sure about the one in Wisconsin.

I almost failed the drivers test in Japan due to the depth perception vision test. Sounds like I got out at a good time!

My father at 84 doesn't drive much any more, but my mother still does. Not sure what's involved with them renewing their licenses, but it must be pretty much automatic as long as they don't have any citations.