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Dr. David J. Demko, gerontologist and editor 
Life is full of inevitable events. Sadly, inevitable events in Aging America
include elderly drivers plowing into pedestrians or crashing through storefront windows. We read the headlines, shake our collective heads, then return to our daily routines.
Advocates for the elderly fight to keep older drivers on the road, arguing that too few options exist for transporting elders to the doctor's office, drug store, and shopping. Detractors demand driver's licenses be revoked at a set age. Both these pro and con arguments are wrong because the driver's "age" is not the issue. Advanced age is not a direct cause of reckless driving. In fact, teens have the highest accident rates; elders the second highest. These two driver groups don't have "age" in common. What they do have in common is incompetence at the wheel. Let's consider teens first. We put them behind the wheel of high-performance machines capable of accelerating at more than twice the legal MPH limit. Limited experience behind the wheel, while not a crime, can easily result in poor judgement and over-confidence leading to higher accident risk. How many times is a teen driver's road-skill competence tested once they've earned their license to drive? None. Yes, there are many well-qualified teen drivers. But because we cannot get the incompetent one's off the road, every teen is hit with high insurance rates. Many elder drivers, like some teens, are reckless due to incompetence behind the wheel. Here's why. When today's elders learned to drive, there were no high performance automobiles, power brakes, power steering, distractive cell phones and CD players, highway cloverleafs, and 70 MPH speed limits. Sixty-five years ago, the time when today's 80-year-olds formed their driving habits, cars excelerated to 70 MPH only when forced over a cliff. Just as modernization transformed the nation's transportation system, the process of aging was changing the competence of drivers. Here's a few examples.
It is possible to reduce the likelihood of continuing auto accident tragedies. We have the imagination to see the true source of the problem, the scientific know-how to monitor the situation, and the good sense to implement a cost-effective solution. A solution directed at the real problem, enhancing driver competence. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com |
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Dr. David J. Demko, gerontologist and editor It appears the group most identified with protecting the U.S. Constitution is actually dead-set against it. The ACLU religiously advocates individual rights of terrorists, child pornographers, drunk drivers, and sexual predators. But advocating for individual freedoms is only one part of the social contract embodied in the Constitution. What about the other half of the Constitution which calls for the protection of all members of society? You know, the common good which is expressed by our democratic process. The ACLU seems to have forgotten, lost, or just ignores the other half of the U.S. Constitution which calls for acting in the best interests of society. To make matters worse, only poor and working class Americans are subject to the ACLU's wacky court actions. ACLU turns loose the psycho's and sex offenders on unsuspecting citizens then drive their limos home to hunker down in the safety and security of their gated communities, immune from the very dangers they've set upon society. ACLU members and Supreme Court justices who support ludicrous ACLU actions should be required to live (along with the rest of society) in the predatory social environment they create. If the families of ACLU members and Supreme Court justices were exposed to the same social predators they turn loose upon the rest of society, all this nonsense would end in a heart beat. The actions of the ACLU and the Supreme Court are not Constitutional issues, but class-conflict issues. The privileged classes enjoy the luxury of not being subject to the consequences of their actions. It is working-class Americans who are asked to bare the consequences of irresponsible and mindless actions of ACLU elitists. By ignoring the common good, the ACLU undermines both the democratic process and the social protection guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. By accident or design, ACLU actions work squarely against the Constitution. AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com |
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