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The Long & Winding Road

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Wed
20
Oct '10

Too old? ………again.

This is another rant about re-testing for a drivers license. Here in NJ as long as you send in your $$$ every time your license is up for renewal, you get a new license. You could be in a comatose state never to recover, but as long as NJ gets your cash they don’t care. I bring this up again because of an event that happened the other day. I was at my now favorite food market (I wont shop at A+P ever again). And walking in the parking lot back to my car. I was off to the side of the isle and I heard a car uncomfortably close behind me. I looked back and slowly following me by about 3 feet is a lady that could barely see over the steering wheel (don’t mean to be stereotyping here but it was true) and looked to be well into her eighty’s. I stopped and turned around to look at her to say what are you doing and she just ignored me and waited for me to start moving again. She wasn’t even looking for my parking spot because she passed several. I finally got to my car and she pulled into a spot not far away.

What sane person would follow a pedestrian so closely?
New Jersey please wake up and start re-testing! Yes it will cost some money, but the life you save may be mine!!

Now this isn’t just me ranting about problems I have personally had, but according to an article in USA Today
“Fatality rates for drivers begin to climb after age 65, according to a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, based on data from 1999-2004. From ages 75 to 84, the rate of about three deaths per 100 million miles driven is equal to the death rate of teenage drivers. For drivers 85 and older, the fatality rate skyrockets to nearly four times higher than that for teens.” See the full article here
This is a national problem and a few states have addresses it with at a minimum having those 69 and older taking a vision test up to re-taking the road test. But there are more states that have no restrictions.

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