Elderly drivers: Grieving family calls for greater political courage to deal with 'growing deadly problem'

[queequeg]

Another one today

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_ ... w9MQ%3D%3D

[outnabike]

[quote="queequeg"]Another one today

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_ ... w9MQ%3D%3D[/quote

I think it is wrong to ban old people just because the occasionally step out in front of cars.....I mean the ped might have been on the phone.

[ColinOldnCranky]

Between looking with my x-ray vision left thru the steel box 4WD to my right and left thru the steel box twincab on my other side as I inch out of the bay while also looking to the adults walking around the car and the unseen short kids plus any of the three window-tinted cars opposite me who may also be reversing under similar duress I tend to put my hazard lights on and trust that someone will notice and that no-one on foot will assume that I can see them as they slide by.

Car parks are one of those places where it is often well nigh impossible to cover every angle at once. And the worst time of year is Christmas with everyone in a hurry and a constant stream of vehicles looking for a vacant bay.

I would like to see new vehicle standards to require automatic hazard flashing on reverse. that way approaching cars left and right are alerted to the intended action regardless of the angle of the reversing vehicle.

[queequeg]

Another one today

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_ ... w9MQ%3D%3D[/quote

I think it is wrong to ban old people just because the occasionally step out in front of cars.....I mean the ped might have been on the phone.

The driver accidentally reversed over pedestrians on the footpath, nobody stepped out in front of the car.

[bychosis]

Another one today

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_ ... w9MQ%3D%3D[/quote

I think it is wrong to ban old people just because the occasionally step out in front of cars.....I mean the ped might have been on the phone.

The driver accidentally reversed over pedestrians on the footpath, nobody stepped out in front of the car.

Police should now be reviewing he suitability of the driver to hold a licence. But sad they had to mention it didn’t appear to be deliberate.

[fishwop]

I'd agree....

This was one of my encounters with an elderly driver. Police spoke to him, and he couldn't recall seeing me...on a perfectly straight road, in clear daylight, with no other traffic on the road

It's not only old folks who have this problem, though, is it?

[biker jk]

I'd agree....

This was one of my encounters with an elderly driver. Police spoke to him, and he couldn't recall seeing me...on a perfectly straight road, in clear daylight, with no other traffic on the road

It's not only old folks who have this problem, though, is it?

The crash statistics show that old folks have a considerably higher incidence of crashes at intersections and head-on collisions.

[queequeg]

I'd agree....

This was one of my encounters with an elderly driver. Police spoke to him, and he couldn't recall seeing me...on a perfectly straight road, in clear daylight, with no other traffic on the road

It's not only old folks who have this problem, though, is it?

I never said that it was only elderly people that had this problem, but in this case, the obvious apparent due care was not a momentary lapse of judgement. The side panel damage to his car suggests it wasn't the first time he's turned across something at an intersection.

The real question is why, handed the evidence on a silver platter, the police just went "oh well, oopsies, he's promised not to do it again"...and here's the thing, if he does do it again, and kills someone as a result, would the victims family have the right to sue to police given their lack of action when evidence of poor cognitive ability was first handed to them? Do you in fact have to kill someone before police will actually take any action?

[warthog1]

Do you in fact have to kill someone before police will actually take any action?

I think, practically speaking, there needs to be a collision in many cases before a valid assessment is made of the fitness of a person to drive.
With respect to elderly people, whose abilities are in an escalating state of decline, I don't think this is fair to other road users.

[trailgumby]

They're overrepresented in the 4 collisions I've had (none of which were my fault according to Police) - two of them.

And they are under represented in people who have failed to give way to me, causing either accidents or near accidents. So where does that leave us? That one persons anecdotes don't necessarily tell the whole story.

Never said it did. But it's a pointer to a useful line of inquiry for further research.

[queequeg]

Do you in fact have to kill someone before police will actually take any action?

I think, practically speaking, there needs to be a collision in many cases before a valid assessment is made of the fitness of a person to drive.
With respect to elderly people, whose abilities are in an escalating state of decline, I don't think this is fair to other road users.

...and therein lies the problem. Police won't get involved unless someone is seriously injured or killed. In fact, as per current policy, the won't even attend the scene of an accident unless someone is in the back of an ambulance.
It's not like a recreational pilot that continually needs to be reviewed for fitness to fly. It' pretty much ingrained that unless you kill someone with your car, you can merrily continue driving, no matter how much of a danger you are. This is not even specific to elderly drivers, but to any driver who demonstrates a clear lack of cognitive ability (or correct attitude) towards driving a lethal weapon.

Wouldn't it be great if anyone who was involved in a collision where they were at fault, automatically has to sit a full theory and driving test before being allowed to drive again?

[queequeg]

Sadly, the pedestrian that the 78-year old driver accidentally reversed over last week has died.

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/news_ ... w9MQ%3D%3D

[trailgumby]

Wouldn't it be great if anyone who was involved in a collision where they were at fault, automatically has to sit a full theory and driving test before being allowed to drive again?

... and they had to fund the full cost.

[Thoglette]

Meanwhile, at the other end of the age spectrum

Young workers are most likely to use their phones while driving – here’s how we can change that

December 13, 2017 6.12am AEDT

Distracted driving is a significant contributor to road accidents and fatalities. Mobile phone use while driving is a particularly important form of driver distraction. It can increase the risk of traffic accidents by up to four times.

At any moment, roughly 1-2% of Australian drivers are using their mobile phone while driving. In 2016 alone, police in New South Wales charged 39,000 people for doing so.

Our survey of 413 South Australians revealed that young working people were those most likely to use their phones while driving. Our broader findings could help inform the design of public information campaigns run by road safety organisations to discourage dangerous driving behaviour.

[warthog1]

Meanwhile, at the other end of the age spectrum

Young workers are most likely to use their phones while driving – here’s how we can change that

December 13, 2017 6.12am AEDT

Distracted driving is a significant contributor to road accidents and fatalities. Mobile phone use while driving is a particularly important form of driver distraction. It can increase the risk of traffic accidents by up to four times.

At any moment, roughly 1-2% of Australian drivers are using their mobile phone while driving. In 2016 alone, police in New South Wales charged 39,000 people for doing so.

Our survey of 413 South Australians revealed that young working people were those most likely to use their phones while driving. Our broader findings could help inform the design of public information campaigns run by road safety organisations to discourage dangerous driving behaviour.

Manadory loss of licence for using a mobile device whilst driving. End of story.
I don't know why there isn't already momentum toward this

[Thoglette]

Manadory loss of licence for using a mobile device whilst driving. End of story.
I don't know why there isn't already momentum toward this

I don't know why there isn't already serious policing of the existing laws.

Actually, I do. The majority of governments don't give a flying XXXX about road safety.

[warthog1]

True.
If you cant photograph and invoice in a semi-automated fashion, they aren't really interested.

[ColinOldnCranky]

I don't know why there isn't already serious policing of the existing laws.

Well, basically the cops have too much to do already. And we, the taxpayers, constantly expect more to be done while we pay less every election cycle. So until the technology gets to a certain capability AND price things that should be done are not done as much as we wish.

I saw recently that WA announced testing specially designed high angled cameras that will be peering down into cars, automatically generate the tickets and so forth. They were seeing 31 offences per hour! The decision on whether to use them is yet to be made.

Last week WA did start, after a period of testing, to book motorcyclists using ID gleaned from cameras that snap the REAR rego plates. Again technology, not patrol cops.

[Thoglette]

So until the technology gets to a certain capability AND price things that should be done are not done as much as we wish.

The technology (and in particular, getting it field ready) is my bread and butter. It's done.

E.g. Every major project site in Australia uses IVMS to monitor driver behaviour, on and off site.

Integrated sensor networks based on cheap hardware (e.g. phones) is the sort of thing every university lab rat and dot-com wannabee can whip up before lunchtime. Bus lane monitoring is the sort of thing I set as an assignment for students.

They were seeing 31 offences per hour! The decision on whether to use them is yet to be made.

There's the rub. Something that's catching lots of people doing dangerous things and will pay for itself, yet 'a decision' needs to be made.

Sir Humprey would be pleased with that turn of phrase.

[mikesbytes]

I saw recently that WA announced testing specially designed high angled cameras that will be peering down into cars, automatically generate the tickets and so forth. They were seeing 31 offences per hour! The decision on whether to use them is yet to be made.

They did that in Sydney just north of the harbour bridge a couple of weeks ago. I didn't see what the outcome was

[Mulger bill]

I saw recently that WA announced testing specially designed high angled cameras that will be peering down into cars, automatically generate the tickets and so forth. They were seeing 31 offences per hour! The decision on whether to use them is yet to be made.

They did that in Sydney just north of the harbour bridge a couple of weeks ago. I didn't see what the outcome was

And in VIctoria. One test across three lanes of CityLink pinging every 30 SECONDS

[hunch]

I don't know why there isn't already serious policing of the existing laws.

Well, basically the cops have too much to do already. And we, the taxpayers, constantly expect more to be done while we pay less every election cycle. So until the technology gets to a certain capability AND price things that should be done are not done as much as we wish.

I do wonder, certainly not paying less here and doubt it over there too!

Police numbers in this State are up somewhere around 36% in this decade alone, yet a never-ending chorus of more required is always trotted out. Serious crime seems to have been on a downward spiral for many a year, but doubt it can be attributed to that. I seem to remember much more active police enforcement of a variety of road rules, with the exception of drink driving, when I was a child. Now, unless it's automated, like speeding fines, blind eyes are turned, with the exception being a blitz item - that lasts for a whole day, or maybe a week if lucky.

On the subject of the elderly drivers confusing pedals, be interested to know how many of them are diabetes sufferers, with no sensation in their feet.

[warthog1]

On the subject of the elderly drivers confusing pedals, be interested to know how many of them are diabetes sufferers, with no sensation in their feet.

If there is peripheral neuropathy to that extent you question whether they should be driving at all.
The issue however is holding the foot planted on the accelerator long after a competent person would have removed it.
Reflexes and cognition are the issues at play there. Not sensation in the lower extremities.

[warthog1]

Meanwhile, at the other end of the age spectrum

Young workers are most likely to use their phones while driving – here’s how we can change that

December 13, 2017 6.12am AEDT

Distracted driving is a significant contributor to road accidents and fatalities. Mobile phone use while driving is a particularly important form of driver distraction. It can increase the risk of traffic accidents by up to four times.

At any moment, roughly 1-2% of Australian drivers are using their mobile phone while driving. In 2016 alone, police in New South Wales charged 39,000 people for doing so.

Our survey of 413 South Australians revealed that young working people were those most likely to use their phones while driving. Our broader findings could help inform the design of public information campaigns run by road safety organisations to discourage dangerous driving behaviour.

I note you changed the title on your post and introduced a topic unrelated to the age based impairment that impacts the driving ability of elderly people.

Whilst it is OT, if we choose to indulge it, you will find that elderly drivers fare worse there too.
For the same reasons their driving ability is in a steepening rate of decline.


The likelihood of a driver failing to
notice and respond to a highway-traffic situation ranged
from 20% when placing a call or holding a simple phone
conversation to 29% for holding a complex phone conversation.
Subjects over 50 years old were significantly more likely to fail
to respond than younger (17-25 years) subjects.

There is evidence that older drivers require more glances to
instrument panels to retrieve necessary information, require
more time to complete instrument tasks and require more
time to move their eyes between the road and an instrument
display.Therefore, using a mobile phone while driving may
cause more problems for older drivers than younger ones.

There is also evidence that using a mobile phone while
driving causes greater problems for those drivers who already
have a higher accident risk, namely young, novice drivers and
elderly drivers.

https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct= ... U7NXm7zd4x

[uart]

Reflexes and cognition are the issues at play there. Not sensation in the lower extremities.

Agreed. I think that eventually having collision avoidance technology in the car might become mandatory for drivers past a certain age, or perhaps as an alternative to more stringent retesting.

There are however some simple modifications to the transmission system that could fairly easily be done and which I believe would stop the majority of these pedal confusion incidents.

1. Dead simple, place an 8 km/h speed limiter on reverse gear, and no pedal input then no go. More than half of these incidents happen in reverse and this would stop the bulk of them overnight (or at least drastically reduce their severity).

2. For the ones that happen in forward gear, it's almost always a result of creeping in "D" at low speed with no pedal input. When there is no pedal input then the foot can get "lost". It can go and hover over the wrong pedal and the longer it sits there (all the while the person thinking it's the brake), then the more entrenched it becomes in the person's mind that this is the case. So much so that when they eventually do press it , (and purely by coincidence at that point in time there's a malfunction in the car's electronics - yeah right ), causing it to take off out of control, they can only think to press it harder (after all, it is the brake, right ).

The solution for this one to disallow the creep function in auto transmissions. Take your foot off the accelerator and the car engine brakes to a stop. Not super hard deceleration obviously, as that could be dangerous, but enough to bring the car to rest in just a few seconds at slow speeds typical in car parks and the like. This gets rid of the majority of the forward cases.

Now if people really feel that they can't get by without the creep function then let manufacturers offer an optional 5 position auto for them, with "P", "R", "N", "D", and "C" positions on the stick. Now "C" operates the same as "D" except that it has the creep function AND a 10 km/h speed limit, floor it in "C" and you get 10 km/h.