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Japan Moves To Ease Aging Drivers Out of Their Cars (nytimes.com)
As Japan's population ages, so do its drivers. Japan has the oldest population in the world, with nearly 28 percent of its residents above 65 years old. One in seven people are over 75. In the United States, by comparison, that figure is closer to one in 16. From a report: According to data compiled by Japan's national police agency, drivers between 16 and 24 are more likely to cause traffic accidents than any other age group. But last year, drivers over 75 caused twice as many fatal accidents per 100,000 drivers as those under that age. Among drivers over 80 years old, the rate was three times as high as for drivers under that age. The news media regularly features grisly reports of deaths caused by older drivers, some of whom are later discovered to have Alzheimer's disease.
Since 2009, all drivers 75 and older must submit to a test of their cognitive functioning when they renew their licenses [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled], typically once every three years. Under a new traffic law that took effect in March 2017, those who score poorly are sent to a doctor for examination, and if they are found to have dementia, the police can revoke their licenses. More than 33,000 drivers who took the cognitive test last year showed what the police deemed to be signs of cognitive impairment and were ordered to see a doctor. The police revoked just over 1,350 licenses after doctors diagnosed dementia.
Since 2009, all drivers 75 and older must submit to a test of their cognitive functioning when they renew their licenses [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled], typically once every three years. Under a new traffic law that took effect in March 2017, those who score poorly are sent to a doctor for examination, and if they are found to have dementia, the police can revoke their licenses. More than 33,000 drivers who took the cognitive test last year showed what the police deemed to be signs of cognitive impairment and were ordered to see a doctor. The police revoked just over 1,350 licenses after doctors diagnosed dementia.
Many US states have stepped up testing and medical requirements for people over 75.The older you get, the more frequently you must take a driving test.
The Japanese have just put a more specific requirement on it.
Did you not even read the summary? It gives you a lower bound.
"More than 33,000 drivers who took the cognitive test last year"
That means more than 33,000 drivers 75 years or older, because that's how many failed the screening test and were referred to a doctor.
That's also only those who had to take the test, which is only required once every 3 years.
From TFA:
"An additional 460,000 older drivers showed slight impairment of their cognitive functions, based on their performance on the test, but were allowed to keep their licenses if they took a three-hour traffic safety course."
That's half a million drivers who either failed or showed slight impairment in 1 year on a test only required every 3 years for >= 75 years old.
That's 1.5 million dodgy or failed results. There must be many times that who passed the test, so we're not talking 200000 drivers, we're talking millions.
i
While I do agree with you, the article specifically mentions people who live in rural parts of Japan, where there is no public transportation.
A more moderate version would be that cars give people mobility and that is worth a lot. Therefore the threshold for allowing people to drive should be as low as possible and a modest increase in death toll should be allowed
That's frankly an idiotic suggestion. If we want mobility it doesn't have to come in the form of a car. Heaven forbid we have a public transit system that doesn't suck. Stop thinking cars are the only possibility and the answers become obvious.
EVERYONE should have to take driving tests that are harder than the current ones and there should be a cognitive function test to go with them. If you cannot physically/mentally react fast enough to safely operate a motor vehicle then you should not have a license.
It's always tempting to put the bar as high as possible because it's good for the traffic deaths, but you have to balance it.
No you really do not have to balance it. You simply have to recognize that we've designed our infrastructure too heavily on the false presumption that anyone above the age of 16 is physically and mentally capable of driving a car. This is obviously and manifestly not true and therefore is stupid policy. The answer is to build our transport system to rely less on the presumption that everyone can drive. Public transit, subsidized taxi service, housing relocation assistance, etc. If this requires people to give up their car fetish and self indulgent assumption of a "right" to drive then so much the better.