Older drivers chafe at proposal to tighten license renewals

Offer other ways to safer roads

Russell Henderson, a Belmont resident who drives the town's seniors van, wonders why state Senator Brian Joyce wants to make it tougher for older drivers to get a license.

The Milton Democrat is sponsoring the bill that would require drivers age 85 and older to take a road and vision test every five years in order to renew their license. Current law requires drivers of any age to take only a vision test every 10 years. The state Legislature's annual session expired before the bill could come up for a vote, but Joyce said he intends to reintroduce the bill in January.

Henderson, age 82, says teenage drivers represent a greater peril on the state's roadways. He suggested a better solution might be raising the age minimum of 16½ for obtaining a license.

"We keep giving these 17- and 18-year-old kids licenses, and they keep killing each other," said Henderson, a Belmont resident. "Meanwhile, some 80-year-old guy has an accident, and the whole world knows about it."

In an interview, Joyce noted the Legislature passed legislation in early 2007 putting additional restrictions on teen drivers. That law, among other things, revokes the licenses of junior operators under age 18 ranging from 90 days to a year for speeding offenses, and restricts young people from driving between 12:30 and 5 a.m.

The law has been both immediate and striking in its effect, said Joyce. "There's no question that junior operators' legislation we passed last year has saved lives," he said.

The pending senior driving bill targets the oldest seniors, which have statistically been shown to be even more dangerous than teenage drivers, said Joyce.

"When you get beyond 85, it's almost four times as likely to have a driving fatality," he said. "This age group has far more fatalities than teenagers."

Joyce's office cited data from Carnegie Mellon University's Center for the Study and Improvement of Regulation showing that drivers older than 85 have 11.47 fatalities per 100 million miles driven, compared with 3.3 fatalities in the 16-to-20 age group.

The senior bill, which could be voted on in 2009, is Joyce's response to a number of fatal accidents in the last few years caused by elderly drivers. In a press release, Joyce recounted 15 stories, conjuring images of mangled metal, damaged property, and death that resulted from elderly drivers on the road.

The accidents included an 89-year-old Taunton man who was killed last February, after his car careened into oncoming traffic. Authorities believe he was suffering from a medical problem.

The number of fatal accidents is expected to increase as the senior population expands, Joyce wrote in a recent letter to the Legislature. If his bill passes, Massachusetts would join 26 other states, and the District of Columbia, that have laws on elderly drivers, he wrote.

Doreen Goscombe, an 82-year-old from Pepperell, said she has mixed feelings about the legislation. Some elderly drivers are on the roads that shouldn't be, she acknowledged, but, at the same time, she said, the proposal was a punitive approach to the problem rather than a proactive one.

Goscombe said a driving course for seniors might be a better policy than more frequent vision and road tests. "I think that would be a good thing at a reasonable cost," she said.

Ann O'Donnell, a receptionist at the Pepperell Senior Center, wondered whether the bill would actually have its desired effect. Some seniors in Pepperell have told her they would still drive, even if they lost their license, she said.