Should Older Drivers Have to Re-Take Driving Tests?

Illinois just did an unusual thing. It ditched a previously-in-force requirement that had been in effect every driver who reaches the age of 79 must re-take a driving test in order to retain their license to drive. Which, to begin with, is more like a permission slip issued by the state that says a person may drive on the state’s roads. It is not quite the same thing as meaningfully demonstrating competence to drive. There is usually very little of the latter involved in these tests. Mostly, it is written test-taking (to show the applicant knows that the law is the law, which is not the same thing as knowing how to drive) and an eye-check.

Anyhow, this is remarkable in that it’s unusual for the state – any state – to dial back the hassles (and attendant fees) it imposes on people.

Some support hassling older drivers with recurrent testing because they are alarmed by the prospect that some older drivers may no longer be competent to drive – as if that weren’t also true of many people, much younger, who possess a driver’s license.

There is statistical truth in the claim that people over 70 have a higher likelihood of suffering from arthritis, dementia and declining vision. It does not follow that every person over 70 has arthritis, dementia or declining vision. Just as it does not follow that because some people drink and drive, everyone who drives must be presumed a “drunk” driver. The problem – the root of the problem – is that everyone who drives is presumed to be a “drunk” driver. This evil doctrine is the basis for every so-called “sobriety checkpoint.” Drivers aren’t forced to stop because their driving has given cops a reason to suspect they might be drunk. They are stopped because they are driving – and must prove to the satisfaction of the cop that they are in fact not drunk.

This upending of what had for a long time – generations – been the presumption of innocence has had consequences. Everyone who wants to board a commercial flight must now prove to the satisfaction of a sort-of cop that they are not a “terrorist.” Your bank presumes you are guilty of financial crimes if you withdraw (or deposit) “too much” of your own money and will alert the feds if you do. It does not matter that there is no more reason to believe you are guilty of financial crimes merely for depositing or withdrawing your own money than there is to believe a driver is “drunk” merely because he is driving.

Similarly, being older does not mean you are a dangerous driver. It means you’re older and driving. The fact that some older drivers might be dangerous ought not to indict them all. Just the same as the fact that someone who isn’t you shot up a school does not mean you shot up a school or will in the future. Do you suppose a point will ever be reached when people will finally have had a enough of being treated as if they had done something because someone has done something – or (worse) because a generic “someone” might do something?

This is the foundational premise of the Safety Cult that has turned what was once a pretty pleasant country into a kind of institution for mildly retarded children run by “parents” who despise their charges.

But what about all those rheumy old coots who can’t see where they’re going – or what’s in front of them? Who drive 20 miles an hour below the speed limit in the left lane, with their blinker on? Who have “senior moments” and fail to notice a stop sign or red light and run into someone?

Well, when they do those things, there is cause to do something about them. Just not before. In the same way and for the same reason that there is no cause to take away a man’s gun or punish him for possessing one until he does something criminal with it.

This is, of course, a doctrine from a bygone time that is not at a popular in our time. There are many reasons why but the primary one is the one H.L. Mencken articulated a century ago when he wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” This is such an obvious truism it is demoralizing to realize how few Americans recognize the truth of it. That is why Americans – not all, but a working majority – are easily manipulated into supporting actions against their fellow Americans based not upon anything their fellows have done but solely on account of the worry that someone among them might do it. At the risk of using politically incorrect terminology, it is an effeminate outlook. No, that is not fair. Not all women are effeminate – just as not every driver is “drunk” and not every person over a certain age is blind and addled.

Many people – of all ages and both sexes – are, however, hysterics. This is often conflated with the female sex (hysteria derives from the Greek word hystera, meaning uterus and historically referred to a diagnosis applied almost exclusively to women). This is neither fair nor true, which is saying the same thing. Men are very often hysterics, too. We saw a lot of them during “COVID.” 

It is also not fair to presume anyone has done anything before they actually do it. But that is a presumption that requires the measured and reasoned maturity of adulthood (not necessarily chronological) to understand and respect.

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