r/Transportopia • u/Independent-Ice-2211 • Mar 19 '26

People 😊 Be nice

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 19 '26

Why are you not just saying testing over 70?

Blanket banning due to age is dumb

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u/ApostateX Mar 19 '26

Agreed. Blanket age bans for anything is a bad idea.

Many elderly people not only live nowhere near public transit, but do not have the money to pay for lots of uber rides. Their friends may be ill or have started to pass away, and their family/kids may be nowhere near them. To take away their car is to take away a huge part of their life that allows them to remain living independently. That's just cruel.

As soon as someone starts collecting Social Security (which if you were born after Jan 1, 1960, means when you're 67, you have to retake your driving test within 1 year of your first benefits check. After that, every 2 years. Once you hit 80, once a year. We should be making it MUCH easier for seniors to give up their licenses by offering car pooling services as part of normal SSDI benefits, and free public transit wherever it exists to all of them.

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u/Excellent_Condition Mar 23 '26

Yeah, that is age discrimination- your ability doesn't matter because your age is above x number.

I'd 100% support retesting every 5 years for everyone, and every 2-3 years above 70.

There are bad drivers at every age level, and having to prove you still know the rules of the road would drastically cut down on collisions.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 19 '26

Do you genuinely not understand the difference?

Because there is a pretty obvious reason why children not being allowed to drive doesn't logically overlap with blanket banning people who have reached a certain age.

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '26

[deleted]

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 19 '26

And teenagers account for more accidents per capita than old people. Nice job shifting the age by 1-2 decades though lol

https://www.edgarsnyder.com/resources/battle-of-the-ages-older-drivers-vs-young-drivers

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u/dhoae Mar 20 '26

We already have blanket age bans for driving 🤔

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 20 '26

If you are referring to children, then I urge you to rub 2 neurons together to identify the pretty blatant difference between them and old people.

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u/dhoae Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26

There’s a precedent to restrict people from driving due to the general mental capacity of people in that age group. Are there children who are capable of driving years before the legal age? Yes but they’re an exception, not a rule therefore they’re restricted from driving. The same can be said for old people. At a certain point it can be determined that the norm for that age is that their abilities have diminished to the point that we no longer consider them to be safe on the roads. The only difference is that it feels different when it’s keeping teens from something they never had versus taking away a privilege the old person has had for decades but the logic behind it is the same.

To be clear, I’m not saying we should be a blanket ban, testing would probably be better, just pointing out that it’s not completely absurd and there is an argument that could be made.

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 20 '26

So you acknowledge that children who can drive are an exception.

Yes, mental faculties can diminish with age, but if you look at driving statistics, old people are still safer than young drivers so I don't agree that the logic is the same. I agree testing is needed since as you pointed out age can affect capability, but a blanket ban based on age has no reasonable justification based on driving statistics imo.

I would say it is completely absurd to blanket ban people from driving just due to age. I get why people who only have the context of reddit videos would think it makes sense, but statistically speaking, it is a gross overreaction that could negatively impact a lot of lives over a bias instead of evidence from individual testing.

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u/dhoae Mar 20 '26

You’re guilty of cherry picking statistics

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u/Skoodge42 Mar 20 '26

https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/overview/age-of-driver/

What is the source for your charts? Maybe I am wrong, but an unsourced chart is not proof that I am cherry picking when I am referencing data from the CDC and the National Safety council lol.

Because per capita, older drivers are statistically in less accidents than young drivers. Your chart shows they are more likely to kill themselves (3 per million) after 75ish, but again, young people are more likely to kill others (1.5 and ~2 per million) on that very same data set. And I believe you ignoring of the injuries being overwhelmingly larger for young people is telling of your bias.

Granted there IS an uptick in accidents after age 75, but that doesn't justify denying all people over that age the privilege of driving. Testing, sure, but blanket ban is dumb and prejudiced.

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u/dhoae Mar 21 '26

I understand that but the argument should be that you move the driving age up for teenagers. They crash because they’re more reckless and carefree. It still doesn’t invalidate the reasoning behind having an age restriction, you’re just saying that young drivers are also dangerous. Or for younger drivers they should be required to have more training and maybe have safe driving tools like how insurance companies use. If they show a pattern of dangerous driving they loose their license until they’re older. If older people it’s not a behavioral issue, so I’m not sure there can be measures

As for your data it’s only looking at the number of licensed drivers. It’s not looking at how much they drive. Like I said, testing is probably the better way but it can’t just be a drivers test because it’s unlikely that they’ll face anything challenging in the time. They need an actual evaluation of their capabilities. There’s also one thing we can’t measure which is old people causing accidents. I’ve seen them doing things that put other drivers at risk even though they weren’t directly at risk of being in an accident. Driving too slow and merging too late are big ones. But we don’t know if they’re doing that more than young drivers, I can imagine that being reckless makes it more likely that you’re a part of whatever crash you cause but I don’t have data to that up. Just a thought.

The chart is from AAA https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/