I live in a country where rules are not always respected and driving rules are among the least respected rules. Everyone is in a hurry, everyone wants to get to the destination as fast as possible and rules are bent every day. Not long ago I had a post about DIY - How To Get Out Alive Of PossibleTraffic Accidents - Twice A Day. Long story short, I almost got hit by a car, twice in a day.
Today
Today I went shopping to a supermarket that has a parking lot in front. I was on foot and after exiting the supermarket, I was almost ran over by an old lady. She was coming out of the parking lot with her car and instead of looking both ways to see if there's someone coming, she only looked right. I wasn't alone, there were a lot of people right next to me. The whole supermarket was crowded, so it's obvious people are coming and going all the time, an extra reason to be super careful.
source
Luckily I'm always paying attention and could stop in time, before her running me over (she totally would have). When she came out of the lot, I stopped in front of her car so she can't leave, waited a few seconds till she got angry, then showed her the two side mirrors and then her eyes so she can understand that she needs to look around first and make sure no one is around.
She got angry and started shouting at me (could not hear anything as she was in the car), so I made sure to not move away from her car for a whole minute, to make her more angry. She was convinced I'm the one to blame, although she wasn't right.
Imagine if it was a mom with a kid in a baby carriage or even without it, she would have hit them for sure.
Is It Right?
I believe there comes a time when certain people should not drive anymore as it's not safe. From a certain age people can't pay attention to everything, their time of reaction becomes longer and they are a danger to the others. I'm telling this without any bad intentions.
I've seen old people crashing the car several times in a raw because they thought they can still pay attention to everything and drive safely. This is not a joke as it can have serious consequences.
An Attempt
At the moment driving licenses in my country are issued for ten years. There was a bill in 2016 regarding limiting drivers license validity to one year to people over 70, and renewed each year in case the person can pass the test. Unfortunately I don't know what's happened to it as I can't find any information to confirm or deny it.
If you ask me, that step would have been excellent in order to avoid accidents. Let me give you an example.
About 20 years ago an insurance company wanted to sell as many car insurances as possible and as the market is crowded with insurance companies, the competition is fierce, they needed to come up with something to attract as many clients as possible. They decided to give people over 60 a 5% discount as they considered this category is going to appreciate the discount more as pensions are small and people over 60 enough to make a difference.
They were right, they sold a lot of policies but what they haven't thought of is what made them lose more than what they have gained. There were so many accidents that was impossible to make a profit out of it. This was a lesson to every insurance company.
My Question
Would it be right to issue drivers licenses for one year to people over 70?
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