The majority of older adults with cognitive impairment are still driving, despite concerns raised by caregivers and others, a Michigan Medicine study in a South Texas community finds.
In the Netherlands you are tested every 5 years after the age of 70. So many people lose their licence and end up stuck in the middle of nowhere because there is no public transport and most affordable retirement homes have been shut down. So my dad, who is in his eighties and has passed his tests so far, drives around looking after them.
Them not driving is a small inconvenience compared to the risk of killing themselves or someone else. Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege with real and dangerous consequences. The ability to do it safely needs to remain the most important factor when distributing licenses.
@Zana@RGB3x3 It’s quite funny how the whole premise of this sub/community is “it’s insane that driving cars is the main option for transportation in many places, we should strive for our cities/countries to build other, better, more sane options” but there’s always a comment in every post reminding us that there “aren’t any other options.”
The tests they make these old people take are a joke. They’re nowhere near as complex or demanding as a regular driving exam, which is supposed to confirm you’re a good enough driver to be on the road.
As an alternative, public transport exists. It’s been heavily reduced in remote areas, but it didn’t disappear completely.
Aside from ebikes for the more healthy elderly, there are also slower vehicles that don’t require a license old people can use. These things are limited in speed (±25-45km/h) but they’ll get you to the nearest train station and back.
I do feel bad for the old people stuck with little available transport, but I’ve also had more than enough near crashes with old people that look like they don’t even know where they are that I can’t really get mad about this.
We need to invest more into public transport and, in a few decades, driverless cars, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with the current price of healthcare and the absolutely devastating impact of boomers growing old will have on our social system. I doubt we’ll get this fixed anytime soon, if it even happens in our own lifetimes. Things will get much worse for the elderly before they’ll get better, we need to get our elderly to become less dependent or our entire social security system will simply collapse under the weight of elderly care.
For context: to maintain our current (severely lacking) level of care, one in four people in the Netherlands will have to work in healthcare in 2040, an increase from our current 1 in 7. This is despite increase in spend in healthcare that happened despite the conservative governments we’ve had for the past two decades. After nearly 80 years of ignoring the population boom problem, we’re starting to see the impact it’s going to have on our society, and it’s not pretty.
Smaller towns tend to have public transit, but it would be something like “hourly buses between 9 and 5 except on Saturdays, Sundays, and bank holidays” with possibly a few kilometers of walking distance to the closest bus stop.
The more populated your area is, the better your public transit will be, but if you can’t walk to the bus stop you’ll have to rely on external services (that are available but not exactly cheap or easy). This is especially bad in the more remote areas (i.e. old people living on a farm, not willing to sell their house for a much smaller appartement close to the services they need).
What are they going to do instead. Apparate?
In the Netherlands you are tested every 5 years after the age of 70. So many people lose their licence and end up stuck in the middle of nowhere because there is no public transport and most affordable retirement homes have been shut down. So my dad, who is in his eighties and has passed his tests so far, drives around looking after them.
Them not driving is a small inconvenience compared to the risk of killing themselves or someone else. Driving is not a right, it’s a privilege with real and dangerous consequences. The ability to do it safely needs to remain the most important factor when distributing licenses.
If there were other options that would be great.
That’s what we’re all about. We should build cities to allow alternative options besides cars
@Zana @RGB3x3 It’s quite funny how the whole premise of this sub/community is “it’s insane that driving cars is the main option for transportation in many places, we should strive for our cities/countries to build other, better, more sane options” but there’s always a comment in every post reminding us that there “aren’t any other options.”
The tests they make these old people take are a joke. They’re nowhere near as complex or demanding as a regular driving exam, which is supposed to confirm you’re a good enough driver to be on the road.
As an alternative, public transport exists. It’s been heavily reduced in remote areas, but it didn’t disappear completely.
Aside from ebikes for the more healthy elderly, there are also slower vehicles that don’t require a license old people can use. These things are limited in speed (±25-45km/h) but they’ll get you to the nearest train station and back.
I do feel bad for the old people stuck with little available transport, but I’ve also had more than enough near crashes with old people that look like they don’t even know where they are that I can’t really get mad about this.
We need to invest more into public transport and, in a few decades, driverless cars, but I don’t think that’s going to happen with the current price of healthcare and the absolutely devastating impact of boomers growing old will have on our social system. I doubt we’ll get this fixed anytime soon, if it even happens in our own lifetimes. Things will get much worse for the elderly before they’ll get better, we need to get our elderly to become less dependent or our entire social security system will simply collapse under the weight of elderly care.
For context: to maintain our current (severely lacking) level of care, one in four people in the Netherlands will have to work in healthcare in 2040, an increase from our current 1 in 7. This is despite increase in spend in healthcare that happened despite the conservative governments we’ve had for the past two decades. After nearly 80 years of ignoring the population boom problem, we’re starting to see the impact it’s going to have on our society, and it’s not pretty.
@starlinguk @veganpizza69 the village I live in has a on-demand shuttle bus for seniors. This is not hard to solve for.
I thought cities in the Netherlands were required to have public transit?
Smaller towns tend to have public transit, but it would be something like “hourly buses between 9 and 5 except on Saturdays, Sundays, and bank holidays” with possibly a few kilometers of walking distance to the closest bus stop.
The more populated your area is, the better your public transit will be, but if you can’t walk to the bus stop you’ll have to rely on external services (that are available but not exactly cheap or easy). This is especially bad in the more remote areas (i.e. old people living on a farm, not willing to sell their house for a much smaller appartement close to the services they need).