Safe Speed Forums

That's true, but statistics don't support the idea that we've got zillions of grey haired incompetents causing substantial risk on our roads. In fact insurance premiums don't go up much, or at all in most cases, for old drivers.

If you're looking for risks that need addressing in wide population groups, look no further than insurance premiums for the first clues. And it's young and inexperienced drivers every time.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

Oh good. Does that include the taxi driver who overtook me last night by going the wrong side of a traffic island ?
Or the woman who drove all the way through town, missing countless cars/lorries/buses and pedestrians while texting on her mobile ?
If this is leading to a blanket "ban the elderly at 60" campaign then I'll start another..."ban anyone who consumes any amount of alcohol at all and drives"
Lets start by making the alcohol level for driving zero percent.
There's loads of miles in starting a "ban anyone for anything" campaign.
Or even better.....drop the speed limit, countrywide, to 10 mph maximum....m/ways included. That would lead to a massive drop in road deaths.
Obviously, speed kills.

My father is elderly - 80 this year - AND lives in a very rural area, in a foreign country, so family members helping out in an ermergency is a non starter, but even he has neighbours he could call on to take him or my mother for emergency treatment.
Indeed, many of his mainly elderly neighbours car share for things like hairdressing appointments, shopping, and visiting friends. Several of them do not have vehicles, so I cannot understand the situation you find yourself in of "no car, no care". Is this a lack of neighbours, or an isolationist stance among them all, that they wont help each other?

As to driving while unfit through age? Definately not - you are a danger to yourself if unfit for ANY reason, and worse, OTHER road users, so sell the car, claim back the tax, cancel the insurance, and spend the money on taxis instead.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

If you own your house, it costs money to move - money that often isn't available because you've got to buy somewhere with what's left after the Exchequer, solicitor, sellers pack vendor, estate agent, etc. have had their cut. That's, of course, assuming that you can sell the house for enough to pay for the cost of moving and to buy somewhere else. Many houses that belong to the elderly are so outdated that they're almost unsaleable. If you live in a council house, you can't just up sticks and get another somewhere else. You have to go on a waiting list, and someone who already has a place is given a low priority. Of course, this is only considering the financial side of things - and by the time you're too frail to drive, you're too frail to withstand the strain of moving.

Bottom line: some elderly are trapped in their homes and can't move.


To catch a bus, the bus must exist. So those who live where there are no buses are incapable of catching a bus even if they're fit enough to run a marathon. Also, many people (not just the elderly) can't walk far enough to be able to use buses - even where buses exist. <fe>So on the basis that you're dangerous long before you become incapable of catching a bus, we should scrap Motobility immediately and tell all the disabled to catch buses.</fe>


Now let me see: Existing car that will be run into the ground = nowt, VED = £170, insurance (3rd party only) = £150, annual service = £150, so standing costs are about £470 a year - call it a tenner a week. Fuel costs assuming 40mpg and 80 miles a week are under a tenner a week. So, that lifeline car costs twenty pounds a week. Now 80 miles per week by taxi would cost about £160 at the £2 per mile they seem to charge near me. So, the taxi would cost an additional £140 per week, or £560 per month, which is considerably over the £80 per week guaranteed minimum income for a single pensioner.

"If you can afford to run a car, you can pay for taxis"? Absolute poppycock!


Unfortunately, the youngsters who should be looking after their elderly relatives have been displaced by the rich incomers who bought the local properties to use as holiday or retirement homes. The incomers effectively remove "care resources" from the community while the retirees add to the "care users". So community-minded neighbours just aren't available. Even those neighbours that are won't put up with being used as free taxis every week - and that's what it'll take to get food and prevent malnutrition.

I'm not condoning anyone driving while not fit to drive. However, I can understand why many (and not just the elderly) do and also understand that the underlying issues need to be addressed before the problem of these unfit drivers can be satisfactorily resolved.

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Will

Where, apart from a few very deprived areas, are houses unsellable?.


Ironically those who live on these estates - and not are all bad - are often better served with local amenities and public transport. And a much higher percentage never had a car in the first place.


See above. In Greater Manchester the bus service is fairly comprehensive, and the areas least served are the big suburban 'Barratt' estates, because everyone has car and wouldn't be seen dead on a bus - until they have to sell the car.

I think we can put that one under sweeping generalisations.


I though you said pensioners homes were unsellable? So a relative should find moving nearer quite easy. Added to which if you have a elderly relative to give a hand to it usually follows you're getting into middle age yourself.

We plan for our futures all the time, big and little things, so why should becoming carless come as such a surprise?

Barkstar

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The difference between intelligence and stupidity is that intelligence has limits.

My street. When the guy up the road died, his family had his house on the market for over nine months. When it eventually went, it sold for over thirty grand below market value. Had the guy tried to sell and move while he was still alive, he wouldn't have had enough to buy somewhere to live. For him, his house was unsaleable.


I was trying to show how even tenants can be trapped. That said, many council estates have few (if any) council tenants, the original tenants having exercised their right to buy and sold on (usually to incomers). While you are correct that council estates typically have better public transport than many other areas, you can still become trapped in your own house and face problems that hasten your death.


Greater Manchester is hardly rural Cornwall, where many villages have no public transport. Try thinking outside your urban cocoon.


I don't think that you can. The guy up the road from me bought a B-reg Metro that lasted him until he died year before last. My father bought a J-reg Proton that lasted him until he died in 2001. In both cases, the car was bought in the expectation it would be the last. Many people buy a reasonable car to last the rest of their lives when they reach their twilight years, so the "existing care that will be run into the ground" is more common that you seem to think.


You really expect a relative to give up their own livelihood to move somewhere where they know will be a trap in their own old age?


I didn't suggest that becoming carless would come as a surprise - however the consequences of being carless often are, and by the time you understand those consequences, you're already trapped. When your back's against the wall; when faced with a choice between severe hardship (even death) or breaking some law with no intended victim, I suspect that most would choose to break the law. Again, I'm not condoning that choice - but I do understand why it's taken.

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Will

Er... surely then, the market value was the price at which it sold. Below asking price, maybe.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I know what you mean, but you can't deny that the phrase: sold well below market value has real meaning and is a useful description of some sales.

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Paul Smith
Our scrap speed cameras petition got over 28,000 sigs
The Safe Speed campaign demands a return to intelligent road safety

[quote="SafeSpeed

That's true, but statistics don't support the idea that we've got zillions of grey haired incompetents causing substantial risk on our roads. In fact insurance premiums don't go up much, or at all in most cases, for old drivers.

If you're looking for risks that need addressing in wide population groups, look no further than insurance premiums for the first clues. And it's young and inexperienced drivers every time.[/quote]

Well said -Paul .

Looking at this -is this the start of another campaign ---

Fist we had the 4x4 hate campaign.
Next the anti aged campaign.

Like another campaign of divide and rule.

Which group next - the under 21's - the disabled drivers ??
Be carefull ---road safety campaigns( started by do gooder groups,unlike SS) used to be a good idea till they got hijacked by those with ulterior motives.

Well said -Paul .

Looking at this -is this the start of another campaign ---

Fist we had the 4x4 hate campaign.
Next the anti aged campaign.

Like another campaign of divide and rule.

Which group next - the under 21's - the disabled drivers ??
Be carefull ---road safety campaigns( started by do gooder groups,unlike SS,WHICH IS FOUNDED ON LOGIC,REASON AND RESEARCH) used to be a good idea till they got hijacked by those with ulterior motives.[/quote]

Its got nothing to do with being 'anti-age' its about being anti dangerous driver.

If someone is a danger behind the wheel then they should be off the road. Simple. Bollocks to hardship (with the possible exception of banning someone for 4 minor speeding offences), if you're not fit to drive then you don't.

I actually think its far more dangerous to use the excuse of 'old people need a lifeline' to keep people ON the road.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Actually -Sixy - i agree with you -but in towns,and between towns there's plenty of free public transport - what is needed is some form of alternative to get the elderly out of cars ( the same magic solution to getting masses to take public transport to work) - and unless you're some government minister - it ain't there.

But could you see the DSA producing a test that spent more time looking at how someone used the wheel rather than their road safety and accident prevention qualities---how they accurately they reversed rather than how they did it, whether their reaction times were up to par rather than whether they moved their head to look in the interior mirror when they might have the outside ones set to view by moving their eyes.

It needed extensive renovation (as do the homes of many elderly, who either stop modernising from choice or lack of funds). What I meant was that it sold for over thirty grand less than two others in the same street that were in "reasonable nick". Selling for that low price normally means that there isn't enough in the kitty to buy the next house - effectively trapping the victim in what has become unsuitable accommodation.

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Will

I confess.
I have not used PT for over 20 years.
Not since a medical consultant told me: "if you want to die, use PT, it's the best way of becoming ill known to man" (mind you, he was talking of me, with my at-the-time medical problem)
Have I missed it ?
NO WAY.
if I need to use PT to go anywhere, I won't go. Simple. I'll order any stuff off the net.
Maybe that's why the gov want to get the elderly to use PT more....after all, they can't afford to pay their inflated salaries AND OAP.
In response to those who say: "what about the pollution"..... what about it ?
Look at Oxford. they closed the town centre to all traffic except PT...and the pollution levels went UP !
Anyway...where are all the zero pollution buses that all our taxes are supposed to be paying for ?

Absolutely - retesting, in fact ALL testing, shouldn't be based upon pedantic observation of technique, it should be based on actual ability to drive safety. Reaction to hazards or potential hazards, consideration for others, good mental state etc are all far more imortant than whether you changed gear at exactly the right time or put your hand in the right place on the wheel.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

So how would you resolve this moral dilemma?

Suppose you have a close relative who is in their late eighties, their driving skills have deteriorated but they are convinced that they are still a good driver. Then they suffer a blackout (not in the car).

What do you do? If they black out in the car and kill someone it's on your conscience for not getting their licence revoked, assuming they don't drive without the licence anyway. If you report them you will take away their independence and probably ruin their life.

And potentially save someone's

That's the whole point. On a personal level its a different matter, but you simply can't put the welfare of the individual above the safety of the system.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Unfortunately, reporting unsafe elderly drivers has little effect. I know this through family experience; my girlfriend's gran is an absolute liability on the roads, sitting in a position with poor view, following vehicles too closely, passing through red lights that she is unaware of, and getting flustered if she's not sure where she's going and just stopping in the road, any road......

My SO's family has reported the matter to the DVLA and the police on several occasions, and the only recourse has been a requirement for repeat eye tests, which she has passed, her eyes not being a problem but, I suspect, her ailing faculties. The police response is that if she's not caught doing anything wrong then they cannot intervene. Fair enough I suppose, but little comfort for a family terrified, every time their beloved gran takes to the road, in the knowledge that she is a danger to herself and others.

I personally feel very strongly for her. She lives alone, and cannot walk very far, and I can see how her car preserves her independance. I have offered to ride with her and give her 'pointers', thinking perhaps that input from outside the immediate family might carry a little more weight, but even then, only one error of the type she is making regularly would be enough to cause serious damage!

EDIT: Almost forgot about the time she reversed into someone's front room!

'Tis a difficult dilemma.

My mother is 76 and lives 3 miles from the nearest village and nowhere near a bus route. She lives in the house she was born in, has never moved and frankly it seems unthinkable that she would ever move now.

She still drives, but is aware of her limitations. Once or twice a week she trundles down to the local villages for her shopping or to visit her friends, and I'm afraid she does so at 35-40mph.

Now whilst I'd generally moan like hell about people who hold up the traffic by travelling unduly slowly, I sort of balance this one on the basis that she is still alert and has good vision, she just feels that this is the sort of speed she's confident at; meanwhile she does slow down and take care in the built up area rather than "monospeeding"; and she avoids travelling at night, on unfamiliar roads or in bad weather. I'm also sure that the day she doesn't feel competent she'll stop driving.

This may be hypocritical, but on that basis I don't feel she causes any undue hazard - she's never had even a parking accident throughout her motoring career - and in reality any delay or frustration she might cause other road users is pretty minimal, certainly no worse than following an HGV down the same road.

The point is that if she lived in a town I'm sure she would have given up owning a car by now, but she doesn't and never has. So whilst I broadly agree with the point about the needs of the individual not being allowed to outweigh the common good, still in this instance I feel that rural circumstances are a reasonable factor to consider.

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