What To Do About Older Drivers?
The author of Traffic says this:
An interesting piece from the New York Times on the growing problem of handling older drivers who shouldn’t be behind the wheel. It’s quite striking how people, in the U.S. at least, take driving to be some kind of inalienable right—rather than possessing the ability to operate heavy machinery in a safe manner.
To me, this is a no-brainer. It’s obvious. Who in the world wants their freedom taken away?
I’ll tell ya what: In the future, if any of my kids or grandkids or step-kids or the neighborhood kids or anybody else tries to take away my freedom—my bicycle—I won’t be talking to them for a lot longer than two months. Or, more likely, I’ll just be on my way to pick up another bike later that day.
In all seriousness, though, this is a very real problem.
And I would not want to suggest that we should put seniors on bicycles when it is generally not safe to do so in what can be very challenging road conditions in many parts of the world, but it does give seniors another option. The simple fact of the matter is that right now, in many instances, if you take away a senior’s car keys, you take away their freedom. It’s a brutal reality. It’s just one more reason we need to change things, and change them quickly.
Enter the Portland Office of Transportation (PDOT). They created a program that is giving seniors another option. The official name of the program is called “Older Adult Three-Wheeled Bicycle Program“:
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In the video, Oregon Health and Sciences University is mentioned as being a partner of PDOT’s, doing research on how physical activity affects aging.
BikePortland.org covers the program here. A local Portland paper picked up the story here.
The trikes ideas was something we’d mentioned earlier. With the help of organizers in Portland and New York (StreetFilms), we might be able to see this thing spread.
It would be awesome if we could get the folks in the great state of Miami to get out ahead of this idea and put it into action during their upcoming Ciclovia. Maybe there’d be more support for a public/private partnership of some kind. It seems like the Mayor down there is ready to go. Seeing some older folks out on trikes enjoying themselves during the Ciclovia might be the one aspect we’re still missing from our movement; cycling should be for everyone. And not every town is blessed with an adaptive cycling center, but we should support these folks, too.