Driving Us Crazy

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The way older drivers are licensed is changing too. Iowa has introduced a requirement that drivers age 70 and older renew their licenses in person. If a DMV official suspects a problem, drivers may be asked to take a road test. They may then choose between taking the standard test or a newly devised "local" test. If they opt for the latter, an examiner will evaluate them on their usual route--to the store, to church, to the doctor and so on. Those who pass the local test are licensed only on that route and may also be restricted to lower speeds and daylight-only driving.

The local license has been a godsend to retired farmer Clair Leo Maguire, 74, of Danbury, Iowa, a town of 450. He loves driving to the restaurant, the newsstand and the post office, and he never goes outside his limits. "It's a pleasure to drive," he says, "but the farthest I go is five blocks to town--all paved streets."

Lola Barner of Monticello, Iowa, is not so fortunate. The retired schoolteacher, 72, failed her local test and has no way to get to her garden and crafts clubs. "It made me feel like I was hardly a person anymore," she laments. Although senior vans fill the gap in some communities and other alternate transportation programs are being created, their availability--especially in rural areas like Barner's--lags far behind the need. Her embarrassment at having lost her license, she says, holds her back from asking others for rides.

Iowa is among the states and national organizations seeking to instill the notion of "driving retirement" as a natural phase of life. Many in the field believe that older drivers must be taught to plan ahead for the time when they may no longer be able to drive. At a certain age, Raleigh of the Maryland Medical Advisory Board says, people should have their driving tested as routinely as they would have a colonoscopy or a mammogram. "Our goal," he says, "is to get people to realize that driving disability is like other diseases. If you pick it up early, you can make drivers safer longer and prevent terrible accidents." And when the disease becomes too advanced, older drivers need to accept, like Peter Haugen's mom, that the best remedy is to get out from behind the wheel.