180 over 70's giving up their driving licences

Its a question of keeping as many options as long as possible.

Later in November I am visiting my sister who lives nearly 200 miles away. Most of the journey is non-motorway and much not even on dual carriageway. With DH no longer around to share driving I have decided to travel by train.

I'm going on a family visit on the train tomorrow. I prefer it to the motorway drive (if there's no problems) and it's cheaper than petrol so if I don't have a lot to take with me, it makes sense.

Next week I'm planning another family visit but it's inaccessible by public transport & taxi fares would be huge, so I'll drive.If I couldn't I could probably get a lift to/from station with family though.

I have no desire to give up driving. It is by far the easiest and quickest way to get around. Now so many shops and services are scattered all round the outskirts of towns or working from business units in farm buildings. Getting to three of them could take all day.

Where we used to live, I would go out once a week and do a circuit through farm shops, a large outskirts supermarket, a visit to a town centre and on to a friend in the course of a morning or afternoon.

Where we are now, I will drive out of town to a garden centre, calling in on B&Q on my way, coming back via the hairdresser and Lidl. To do that by bus would take days, even though they all lie within a few miles of each other.

If I could get shot of my car (and all the dead expense & aggro that goes with it), I would. But, like probably the vast majority of people my age, there is no truly viable alternative for me.
My village is probably better served than most around here. Even so, it amounts to 6 buses a day in each direction. If they don't coincide with the mass of appointments I have to get to, it can be up to a 2-hour wait in either direction, outdoors.
Taxis? For one thing, it's cheaper to run a car. For another, all the local cab companies (including the rank in our county town*) have been bought up by one company; the resulting monopoly is, to say the least, *not good for the customers!
I could go on but I've already made far too many negative posts today...

Quite a few of my friends - especially women - have given up driving completely but then we are in London and the transport is very good. I would give up like a shot if my son and his family hadn’t moved into the country and the public transport there is dire. I hate driving now.

You can move somewhere where there is good, or at least reasonable, public transport, a local hospital with necessary facilities, small shops providing what you need.
Then find a while later that the transport is cut right back, doesn't go where you need to, the hospital shuts down most services because they've been centralised (with no bus to get there) and the shops close down because they can't afford the rent and business rates or compete with online shopping.

Skye17

*Grantanow
No-one, it seems, addresses the problem of convenient transport after ceasing to drive.

The only solution is to move to a place where convenient transport is available*

Yes. Lack of alternative can’t justify a higher risk of causing injury or death to another person. There have been too many cases of older drivers doing this. My mum stopped driving when she felt her reactions were slower and she couldn’t turn her head quickly enough because she had a stiffer neck and shoulder. I will also stop as soon as I feel I need to.

An OP suggested regular tests should be for all drivers, not just over-70s. However,

//Older drivers involved in serious crashes are more likely to have not looked properly than motorists of all ages, new research suggests.

A Department for Transport report into older driver collisions shows that this failure was a contributory factor in 42.6% of accidents involving drivers aged over 70, compared with 35.7% for all ages.

The RAC Foundation said the figures show there is a “strong case” for requiring drivers to have their eyes tested when they renew their licence, which happens more frequently for older motorists. Other causes which are more prevalent when older drivers are behind the wheel during a crash include failing to judge another road user’s speed or path, illness or disability, being dazzled by the sun and being nervous, uncertain or panicking.//

//[The Director of the RAC Foundation said]: “As our faculties decline, we owe it to ourselves and other road users to routinely assess our own competence to drive.

“The worst thing a driver can do is ignore a medical condition that might impact their ability to drive.”//
www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/study-sheds-light-on-why-older-drivers-have-crashes

According to government statistics young drivers aged 17 to 24 account for roughly a fifth of all fatal and serious injury road accidents in Great Britain, despite making up a small fraction of total motorists.

Why does no-one suggest they should move to a place where convenient public transport is available?

Or that they should be subject to additional testing?

My DM didn’t stop driving until she was 80, and after an accident had become nervous in traffic. We kept telling her that what with the sale price of her car, plus savings in petrol, road tax, servicing, MOTs etc., she could take any amount of taxis.
But she never did - in her eyes they were still a great extravagance. It was very frustrating!

Unfortunately Butterandjam I don't live in the uk, but will look to see if there's something similar here

Unfortunately, I currently have no familiar roads.

Shel1951

No,but I would have a test to check my responses and judgement on the road, this I think is necessary, I have been pondering on having a few driving lessons to check myself, though my reactions are excellent and I am aware and never zone out,

The Institute of Advanced Motorists offers a free assessment to elderly drivers. It’s a relaxed, one-hour drive in your own car, on familiar roads, with a friendly IAM RoadSmart expert. There’s no test and no pressure - just constructive feedback .
DH did it and recommends.

<https://www.iamroadsmart.com/guidance-for-older-drivers/>

On the edge of a small town in the Midlands, supermarket and surgery is about 1/2 mile away I've often thought where else I might move to. There are a couple of large villages with surgery and shopping that appeal but I've already downsized family live close by so don't expect to have transport problems.
Our district hospital is 10 miles away, 3 regional hospitals in the cities, realistically I'm not going to be driving myself to or from major treatment so transport will have to be provided, by the NHS as a last resort. So driving to those is not relevant.

Dad lost his eyesight at 70 and resorted to a bike he was happy in his own locality and had no wish to travel to places he could not see, myself and other family took him to appointments. My brother also has little eyesight at 74 his wife does the driving, they go to the pub to meet friends a couple of times a week and make the best of what they have.

At 77 I'm lucky my driving is not restricted, happy to drive long distance in UK and Europe, the time will come were I will have to reduce and then stop driving, just like declining health I'm expecting it to happen, until then I'm going to enjoy what life provides.

Not available where we live.

David49 Where do you live?

Last year we downsized into the centre of a small town with all the services needed in the town centre and we found accommodation within 100 yards of the main shopping centre but to find that town we visited and researched about 20 or more small towns close to the A1 between Stevenage and Peterborough and where I am now was the only one of those towns that came anywhere near having the majority of services accessible in the town centre.

Lots had big beautiful medical centres on a greenfield site on the edge of the town, others had minimal town centre parking so that visitors might have to walk a quarter of a mile from their parked car to the various houses we considered, a lack of hairdressers and barbers and other minor services.

We moved from a large village because despite a good regular bus service and good village Co-op, which was very expensive. you had to change buses to get to the local main hospital 15 miles away. We had no other medical facilities, shops or services within 5 miles

It's doesnt need to be a move to the city most towns and large villages have good services and links, most can be accessed with a mobility scooter if walking distance is too far, small settlements are never going to be well served if you don't have a car

Sorry, some of that screenshot from the BBC articles was missing. Here’s the full version.

Here’s an example of someone killing herself, from a BBC article.

//Last summer, 79-year-old Geraldine Gibson died after pulling out into oncoming traffic near her home in Cornwall. …

Mrs Eady, from West Sussex, said older age was "absolutely a factor" in her mother's crash.

She learned her mother was struggling to manoeuvre beforehand and had a separate near-collision.

Mrs Eady said she believed arthritis and an earlier stroke may also have affected her mum's driving.

"I don't think my mum ever would have thought she needed to stop driving because there were too many things that depended on her being out in a car," she said.//

The article says:

// Older drivers make up 25% of driver fatalities but only 14% of drivers. //

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czell1g83nno

*Grantanow
No-one, it seems, addresses the problem of convenient transport after ceasing to drive.

The only solution is to move to a place where convenient transport is available*

Yes. Lack of alternative can’t justify a higher risk of causing injury or death to another person. There have been too many cases of older drivers doing this. My mum stopped driving when she felt her reactions were slower and she couldn’t turn her head quickly enough because she had a stiffer neck and shoulder. I will also stop as soon as I feel I need to.

An OP suggested regular tests should be for all drivers, not just over-70s. However,

//Older drivers involved in serious crashes are more likely to have not looked properly than motorists of all ages, new research suggests.

A Department for Transport report into older driver collisions shows that this failure was a contributory factor in 42.6% of accidents involving drivers aged over 70, compared with 35.7% for all ages.

The RAC Foundation said the figures show there is a “strong case” for requiring drivers to have their eyes tested when they renew their licence, which happens more frequently for older motorists. Other causes which are more prevalent when older drivers are behind the wheel during a crash include failing to judge another road user’s speed or path, illness or disability, being dazzled by the sun and being nervous, uncertain or panicking.//

//[The Director of the RAC Foundation said]: “As our faculties decline, we owe it to ourselves and other road users to routinely assess our own competence to drive.

“The worst thing a driver can do is ignore a medical condition that might impact their ability to drive.”//
www.racfoundation.org/media-centre/study-sheds-light-on-why-older-drivers-have-crashes

If it makes our roads just a little bit safer then, yes.

The thought of moving into a city would fill me with horror now, it was exciting in my late teens, early twenties, but it depends what you become used to and how you are able to adapt as you get older.

But then by moving you lose your community, local support and the services who know you. We did indeed move townwards because we realised living in our rural area was going to become untenable but it’s not an easy or a cheap move to make. It cost us tens of thousands of pounds to do so - not everyone is fortunate enough to have that cushion.

Indeed. We moved into a city centre, transport here is excellent. Too many people just don’t think ahead.

Grantanow

No-one, it seems, addresses the problem of convenient ttansport after ceasing to drive.

The only solution isto move to a place where convenient transport is available, there is never going to be public transport on demand for everyone, there never has been.

No-one, it seems, addresses the problem of convenient ttansport after ceasing to drive.

Wish I had renewed my licence as I no longer have any ID and am finding it difficult to prove who I am. No passport either.
Have done surveys for Yougov for years but can no longer do them as I have no ID and therefore do not exist!