Doctors make recommendations to ease seniors off the road
Posted March 15, 2010 3:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Two doctors have made a list of recommendations they say will help make the public safer by getting senior citizens to give up their drivers licence’s and getting them off the road.
The two wrote an editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal and recommendations include a reverse graduate licensing program that would put conditions on seniors licence’s, like limiting driving during peak hours and at night. They also say doctors need a better tool to determine who should and should not be driving.
Nathan Baker from Bestway Driver Training says right now it’s usually family members helping make the decision. “Your father, or your mother, you’re out with them and you’re wondering if they’re really up to snuff as far as their skills go and their safety goes. Of course just like we worry about our children we worry about our parents.”
The two doctors add a seniors’ right to drive shouldn’t come before public safety adding that by 2025, one in four Canadians will be 65 or older.
The editorial also mentions governments and urban planners will have to do their part in creating programs that would fill the gap for those who do stop driving.
