Concern over senior drivers
Norma Moore, left, of Petaluma listens as California Highway Patrol officer Jon Sloat gives safe-driving tips to a group of senior citizens in Petaluma on Thursday. “I do want to keep driving,” said Moore, 89, who said she pays close attention to her vision and driving habits.
KENT PORTER / The Press DemocratPublished: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 3:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, February 20, 2010 at 10:21 p.m.
An 84-year-old man driving a Honda CRV sideswiped a wall, knocked down a bystander and hit six other vehicles in a grocery store parking lot in west Santa Rosa.
A silver-haired woman, 86, behind the wheel of a Subaru Legacy crashed through a front window of Copperfield's Books in Montgomery Village.
Another man, 80, confused the gas for the brake pedal in a GMC Yukon and pinned a woman to a support post near Raley's in Windsor, crushing her leg.
All the drivers in these accidents over the past four months were age 80 or older — a group especially vulnerable to accidents.
Teenagers are still the most accident-prone age group. But older drivers come next, and the crashes raise questions about how to keep the roads safe as a growing number of elderly drivers push the limits of their ability to maneuver a vehicle — and face tough decisions about when it is time to put away the car keys.
“I do want to keep driving,” said Norma Moore, 89, who pays close attention to her vision and road habits so she can drive from her apartment in Petaluma to a wood-carving studio in Santa Rosa where she likes to keep up her carving skills.
“One time I didn't drive and took the bus and it took forever,” Moore said. “You hate to ask your neighbor to drive you around.”
DMV officials and traffic officers are paying attention. Seven years ago, officials re-examined driving laws after 86-year-old George Russell Weller drove into a crowded Santa Monica farmers market and killed 10 people.
Nonetheless, lawmakers stopped pushing for a law that would have required drivers 75 and older retake a driving test after senior citizen advocates said the law was discriminatory.
Three years ago, the DMV dedicated four officials to fielding questions related to older drivers, both to help families struggling to get an aging driver off the road and to prevent the arbitrary revocation of licenses because of age.
Taking away a person's license at a set age isn't the best way to address the safety of drivers at the far end of the age spectrum, many officials say.
“It could be that a 60-year-old appears to not quite have the capabilities of someone who is 85 years old,” said Sgt. Doug Schlief, a traffic officer with the Santa Rosa Police Department.
Many still competent
Advocates for the elderly point out that many older drivers are competent behind the wheel.
Still, older drivers need to be aware of changes to their sensory perceptions and the effects of pharmaceutical drugs, said Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, former chief executive officer of the Sonoma County Council on Aging.
Family members also need to get involved if they notice physical symptoms that may impair the relative's driving, she said.
“It makes me sad when I see these tragic accidents because it perpetuates myths,” Zane said. “Generally they are the safest drivers until about age 79.”
Harvey Wiseman, 84, was about to pull into a parking spot at Santa Rosa's G&G Market on College Avenue on Jan. 27 when he sideswiped a parked car and ran into a second.
Wiseman then drove onto a curb, through several planter beds, hit a wall and a passerby's hand. He threw the car into reverse and struck three more parked vehicles before he stopped the car and a woman reached into the window and took the key out of the ignition, he said.
“He admitted, ‘Geez, I don't know how that happened,' and usually that's the case,” said Santa Rosa police Sgt. Rich Celli. “He told the investigator that he felt he was unable to keep driving.”
Some 93,500 drivers age 75 and older were involved in collisions statewide in 2008 — 844 of those in Sonoma County — the most recent figures available from California's Department of Motor Vehicles. That's about one fifth of all collisions for the year.
The youngest drivers, those between 16 and 25 years old, are most apt to crash, researchers say. Accident rates go down in adulthood and rise again as people approach 80 years of age, according to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Traffic enforcement officers and DMV staff say older drivers are in general a self-governing group.
“You're not seeing 70-year-olds street racing,” said John Locher, a DMV senior ombudsman for Northern California. “You see very few seniors getting DUIs. You see very few seniors driving without registration or without insurance.”
His position was created three years ago to prepare for the “senior tsunami” as baby boomers age, Locher said.
He fields about 20 calls a day from people who have questions after a license has been revoked, who don't know how to talk with aging family members about driving and who are unclear on current laws.
Feel singled out
Older drivers often say they feel singled out for their age if an officer or doctor suggests they get retested, Locher said.
“Normally I can get the driver to an understanding that it's not based on age, it's based on a specific issue,” Locher said. “Ninety percent of the time the action is at least justifiable at that time, and the benefit of that senior calling me or another ombudsman is that we can help them regain their licensure.”
Older drivers are generally compliant because they come from a generation that respects institutions, Locher said.
Carol Martin, 75, an information specialist with the Council on Aging, has taken a driving refresher course every three years since she turned 55, she said.
"And I've never gotten a ticket. So there, young people," Martin said.
A common misunderstanding of the law Locher must correct: a person must take a driving test when they reach a certain age. That's simply not true, he said.
California drivers must renew their licenses every five years, and drivers 70 and older must also take a vision test when they renew, Locher said. A person is re-tested only after a traffic incident.
Good until age 102
Which is how Doris Wise's 97-year-old friend just renewed her license to be valid until she turns 102, Wise said with a grimace.
“I followed her once and the only mistake she made was she forgot to turn on her right-hand signal for a turn,” said Wise, 80, of Petaluma.
Wise and a dozen other residents from the Vallejo Street Senior Apartments in Petaluma gathered Thursday for a class on safe driving taught by CHP Officer Jon Sloat.
Intersections, left-hand turns, merging and exiting are some of the key trouble spots for older drivers, Sloat told the group.
Virginia Byrnes, 82, raised her hand.
“Pedestrians scare me to death,” Byrnes sai.d.
“You have to assume nobody sees or hears you,” Sloat said.
Older people should practice looking over their shoulders and exercise to keep up agility and response times, Sloat said.
Insurance rates go down for older drivers because they drive fewer miles, said Robert Stroud, an Farmers Insurance Group sales agent who also talked to the group.
LaVerne O'Neel, 84, lost her license after she briefly passed out behind the wheel.
“I said, that's all right,” said O'Neel, who now gets rides from her adult children. “I've seen older people driving and I didn't care for it. I knew it was going to happen to me someday.”
Officers in Santa Rosa's traffic division issue about two emergency retest notices a month for various reasons, not always age-related, Schlief said.
“Age is not the determining factor,” Schlief said.
Loss of license
In the crash at Santa Rosa's Copperfield's Books, Helen Gillespie was trying to park when she plowed into a double-glass door and display window just after noon Jan. 30. She declined to comment Friday, but confirmed that she lost her license soon after the accident.
In the Nov. 12 accident at a Lakewood Drive strip mall in Windsor, the woman pinned to a support beam later lost her left lower leg and foot.
Investigators said the driver, Conrado Fernandez, 80, hit the gas instead of the brake pedal. Police seized his license at the scene, and the DMV later suspended it.
In Wiseman's case, officers notified him he had to be re-tested by the DMV before he could drive again. His license was suspended a few days later, Celli said.
Six weeks after the incident, Wiseman said he was adjusting to taking taxis to the grocery store.
“I was upset by having to wait so long,” Wiseman said about a recent trip to the store.
But he was glad to have the taxi driver's help carrying the groceries to his apartment door, said Wiseman, who said he has no living family.
“That's the one good thing about a cab, at least you have someone to help you,” Wiseman said.
News Researcher Teresa Meikle contributed to this report.
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Julie Johnson at 521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.
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