Older drivers - are doing it most

When I filled up last week, I realised it was over a month since the last time. I'm not doing long distances now because with I still have polymyalgia which makes my shoulders (and the rest of me) tired and achey. I can usually make the same journeys by train as or more cheaply than by car. I miss my stop off at the National Herb Centre near Banbury where I used to have a light lunch and a shopping session.

I am driving less since I moved here,because there are so many wonderful walks straight from the door, but I do whizz round Lake Geneva every few weeks to visit juragran! When my daughters lived in Kent I used to drive up from near Perpignan to Calais, staying one night en route, but when they moved to Yorkshire I couldn't face another five hours. I try to ration myself to one fill-up of petrol a week, which costs about £35 - I have a very small car. I do have to use the car to do my big weekly food shop as the nearest supermarket is about 10 miles away, and I like to explore various historic towns and villages from time to time.

Yes, well, ageist journalists. And in the economist you don't get to find out who is doing the writing. There is an ageist pic too, of Miss Daisy making a scared face while attempting to drive

Over 60s are geriatrics???

I don't consider myself a geriatric driver just yet!!

I tend to not use the car for local journeys apart from if its a big shop preferring to walk. Its mostly used for transporting family members ( its a 7seater) if we are having a gathering, travelling to support an elderly friend with shopping trips and holidays in the UK.. oh and trips to the dump with garden refuse for recycling. Oh! and airport runs mostly for family as it can accommodate people and luggage . I should start charging for the last one methinks..

Most of my driving is to visit family and friends, help with childcare and ferry non-drivers around. The rest of the time it's shopping or picking up things at the garden centre - quite a few rockery boulders have done the trip in the last few months. I couldn't do any of them on foot.

I certainly don't travel further than when I was working, though - dashing up and down across the country and round the M60 for meetings amounted to about 20,000 miles a year - I do a third of that now.