While silver-haired women play canasta down the clubhouse hall, Sarah Currie punches her finger at a computer screen where cars and trucks are zooming down a freeway at rush hour.
Currie’s elegantly lined face is set with determination and not a small amount of fear. That’s understandable because this is the first time in her nearly nine decades that she’s been face-to-face with a computer, and the objects on the screen are scrambling like Pokemon.
“I’m no computer hound, you know,” she said in frustration.
She is equally stern when she is told to walk rapidly along a 10-foot strip of masking tape on the floor, as if she were caught having a few too many. And when she is told to turn her neck 180 degrees to look at a clock.
To Currie, this isn’t fun. She fears she is fighting for her independence, if not her life, by proving she’s still fit to drive.
That’s why she is working so hard, while all around her the residents of Leisure World, an upscale retirement community of 8,000 north of Washington, D.C., seem to be enjoying themselves.
One day, millions of older Americans could be in Currie’s shoes, if the research project she is involved in, funded by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, bears fruit.
Americans older than 50 might have to take one or more tests that evaluate vision, flexibility, reflex, memory, perceptual acuity and cognition to prove they are not a threat on the roads.
In most states, senior citizens have to do no more than any other driver to renew their licenses. But safety groups are trying to figure out if there are ways to evaluate whether older drivers are a menace–and if there is anything anybody can do to make them less of a threat.
Tests like these could become as routine to seniors as health checks, said Dr. Robert Raleigh, who heads the research program.
“Our goal is to keep people on the road as long as they’re safe,” said Raleigh, 74, chief of the Medical Advisory Board and of driver safety research for the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration.
Like millions of older Americans, Currie doesn’t like to contemplate life without driving. Her car is her lifeline to the active life she wants to keep leading.
“I need to drive,” says Currie, who won’t share her age but says she’s been driving since 12, when her father first put her behind the wheel. “I wouldn’t know what to do if I couldn’t.”
She uses her car daily to visit her ailing sister, to attend classes, to attend church on Sunday and to go to the grocer. She doesn’t drive at night and gave up long trips two years ago.
She is one of about 3,000 Maryland seniors since 1998 who have gone through an unusual battery of tests at the Maryland Department of Motor Vehicles offices and satellite offices such as this one at Leisure World.
For now, the tests are voluntary, and the results will be used not to revoke someone’s license but to refine testing procedures and determine what tests can predict driving problems.
Most of the seniors who have taken the tests at Leisure World come to renew a driver’s license, get a new license tag or conduct other business. The tests, offered one day a month, are voluntary and take about 15 minutes.
A foot-tapping test measures the time it takes to move from a gas pedal to a brake pedal. Drivers who have difficulty performing this function could have difficulty applying the brake.
Another test involves a participant sitting forward in a chair and then turning just the upper torso to look at a cardboard clock held by a volunteer behind him or her. Drivers who cannot turn around far enough to see vehicles behind them might be involved in more accidents changing lanes than those who can turn around.
Seniors such as Elaine Sharpe, 78, take the tests because they’re curious.
“I know I can’t see as well today as I did 10 years ago,” said Sharpe, who stopped off before a game of golf. “But I’m still a pretty good driver.”
She passed all the tests except one testing memory and recall. She was given three words–bed, apple, shoe–and told she’d be asked to recall them. Later, after battling a computer game and raising her arms over her head, she couldn’t remember one. “Oh, my gosh, I’ve been concentrating so hard,” she said.
With those who do poorly, Raleigh discusses potential problems and suggests possible corrective actions. He might recommend that driving be curtailed, some remedial steps be taken, such as physical therapy, or refer them to other health professionals.
A small number of the seniors, such as Currie, are taking the tests because someone they know –a doctor, a relative, a neighbor, or a police officer–is concerned that he or she shouldn’t be driving and contacted Maryland motor vehicle officials. But by passing the tests and showing a health certificate, Currie proved herself fit to be on the road.
Other seniors might be asked to do the same. In December, the American Medical Association passed a resolution requiring doctors to report patients who refuse to restrict their driving or get help for potential problems. The AMA said the public health responsibility to report dangerous drivers outweighed the physician’s oath of confidentiality.
“Mom shouldn’t be driving anymore” is a common refrain that doctors and those who work with the aging don’t know how to handle, according to John Eberhard, senior research psychologist on aging for NHTSA.
“Older drivers are among the safest on the road,” he said. “But they’re in your way, they’re driving slow, and everyone has someone in their family they think shouldn’t be driving. What you don’t know is most older drivers have the common sense, or have people in their lives who have, to curtail their driving.”
But a small minority doesn’t have the mental capacity to make a sound choice. They pose the greatest threat and are the “needle in the haystack” that the Maryland project hopes to identify.
An accurate way to assess the effects of aging on driving is essential. Americans are living and driving longer. More than 75 percent of men older than 85 hold a valid driver’s license; 25 percent of women do, Eberhard says.
“It’s harder to tell someone they can’t drive than to tell them they have cancer, doctors tell me,” he said. “When people can’t drive, they can’t get around. They get depressed. If they get depressed and lonely, they leave home and go to nursing homes. Who pays for that? Often, taxpayers.”
