Senior Citizens Behind the Wheel

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William E. Shelton III (Word Count 1,036) Senior Citizens Behind the Wheel If society as a whole does not do something quickly about all the unsafe senior citizens driving on public roads, the consequences will continue to soar. “Although older drivers often restrict their driving and have a low crash rate per person, they still have a higher rate of accidents per number of miles driven,” according to Christina Corcoran (16). Senior citizens and their poor driving abilities is a huge problem in today’s society; therefore, it is necessary to make all senior citizens retake the state driver’s examination after reaching age 65. Senior citizens are being allowed to drive all over the place, as they please, causing the roadways to become very hazardous indeed. Once individuals obtain their drivers license for access to drive on public roads, there is no further testing required to be completed. Even if a senior citizen has had his or her license for over 30 years, there is no requirement to retest that person to see if he or she even still obtains the necessary skills to be a safe and law abiding driver. There is simply no checks and balances program yet devised that ensures today’s senior citizens are even worthy of abiding by the laws of the road, and whether they are safe enough for public roads. One vital reason seniors should be made to retake the drivers examination once reaching age 65 is that their physical abilities have declined so pronounced making it hard for them to drive safely. People 65 years of age and older have predominately poorer eyesight than they did in their younger years. At least in Texas they are undergoing passing a bill that would require elderly Texas drivers age 79 and older to undergo periodic vision tests and drivers 85 and older to pass a driver’s test (Stutz 1). Dallas Texas Senator John Carona even said that his own mother, who

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