CHP and DMV Dilemma : Motorists--Just When Is Old Too Old?

By some people’s reckoning, something should have been done long ago about John Arnold.

But because there is little in California’s system of regulating motorists to rapidly identify an aging driver who is incompetent, Arnold, 84, of Hesperia, was able to continue driving until he caused an accident that took his own life and killed a 16-year-old Northridge girl. He drove the wrong way on the San Bernardino Freeway.

It was the second fatal accident in less than a month caused by an elderly driver going the wrong way on a Southern California freeway. Those accidents have raised the issue of whether the state adequately tracks elderly motorists, whose mental and physical powers can deteriorate rapidly.

Officials of the state Department of Motor Vehicles insist that special tracking mechanisms would discriminate against the elderly. Citing statistics showing that youthful drivers are far more dangerous, they contend that their policy of periodic review--supplemented by reports from law enforcement officers, family members and doctors--is sufficient to check those elderly drivers who may have become hazards.

‘We have to be very careful. We can’t discriminate against the elderly. We can’t say, “Because you’re old, we’re going to deny you a license.” If you appear to be in good health and your eyesight is good and your hands are not shaking, do we have a real right to say, You’re 75 now and so we’re going to make you come in every year?” We can’t do that.’ --David Robertson, Manager of the DMV’s headquarters driver safety section in Sacramento But a warning from the California Highway Patrol was not enough to prevent a tragedy in the Arnold case.

Shortly after midnight on Jan. 2, CHP officers found Arnold driving eastbound in the westbound fast lane of the San Bernardino Freeway in East Los Angeles. He appeared coherent but confused and disoriented, and he seemed to be suffering from hearing and visual problems, officers said. They cited him and, concluding that he was incompetent to drive, impounded his car and drove him home.

A CHP officer filled out a petition to be mailed to the Department of Motor Vehicles requesting that Arnold be scrutinized to see if he was competent to drive. It would have been at least three weeks--and probably twice that long--before the DMV could have acted on that request. In the meantime, when Arnold requested that his station wagon be returned later the morning of Jan. 2, the CHP had to give it back, CHP officials said.

Arnold drove the car only 116 miles before proving the CHP’s contention.

At 7:40 p.m. on Jan. 3 in Ontario, Arnold again drove the wrong way on the San Bernardino Freeway. His car slammed head-on into a compact car driven by Holly Bregman, killing Arnold and fatally injuring the teen-ager. Two other teen-agers in the car were also injured.

Less than a month earlier, on Dec. 6, a Sun Valley couple was killed and several other people were injured when their car was struck head-on on the Golden State Freeway near Griffith Park by a car driven in the wrong direction by Julia Williams, 74, of Long Beach. Williams, who remains hospitalized, was charged by the district attorney’s office with felony manslaughter.

Williams was driving with an expired license. Arnold, however, was a licensed driver who apparently slipped through a system that is supposed to weed out incompetent elderly drivers.

The DMV does not make any attempt to track potentially accident-prone elderly California drivers. It does, in some cases, require that a person’s license be renewed yearly or every two years, rather than the customary four years, said Al Livingston, the DMV’s chief deputy director in Sacramento.

In Arnold’s case, however, no such restrictions were applied, despite questions raised about his driving abilities after he was arrested in July, 1982, on a charge of driving under the influence. That charge was later reduced to straddling two lanes, failing to obey signs and running a traffic signal, said CHP Officer Al Smith, the arresting officer.

Following established procedure, the officer petitioned the DMV to re-examine Arnold out of apparent concern that an arthritic condition might impair his driving abilities, DMV spokesman Erwin Cooper said.

Arnold met with a DMV analyst in the San Bernardino area in September, 1982; no action was taken because he passed the prescribed vision, driving and written tests, Cooper said. At the time of his death, Arnold was not scheduled to be tested by the DMV again until his license expired on his 86th birthday, in July, 1986.

‘Very, Very Sophisticated’ “Nothing could have been done. Two years ago, he passed,” said Livingston, who described California’s system as one of the most safety-conscious in the nation. “The tracking we have, among other things, is that if somebody is driving erratically or negligently, they’ll probably get a traffic ticket and we have a very, very sophisticated system for tracking tickets.”

Lorna Moore, district manager of the DMV’s safety section in San Bernardino, disagreed. Speaking of incompetent elderly drivers, she said: “We do the best we can, but there are a lot of them that we don’t see, unfortunately, until it’s too late. A lot of people out there are good defensive drivers, and that is probably why we don’t see more of these elderly people. Other people are able to avoid the accident or the difficulty that the elderly people presented.”

It has been even harder to catch incompetent drivers since 1979, when the DMV began allowing drivers to renew their licenses by mail. Under provisions set by the Legislature, a person under age 70 with a good driving record is allowed two renewals, each good for four years. This means that a person can go 12 years without having to go to a DMV office for tests. Persons aged 70 and older must go in every four years for tests, officials said.

One driving safety referee, who asked not to be identified, said: “It’s all a question of money. That’s all it is. It’s not safety at all. Most of the elderly people are slipping through the system. Most of them never come to the attention of the department. Not only that, the majority of the population is slipping through.”

David Robertson, manager of the DMV’s headquarters driver safety section in Sacramento, said: “We have to be very careful. We can’t discriminate against the elderly. We can’t say, ‘Because you’re old, we’re going to deny you a license.’ If you appear to be in good health and your eyesight is good and your hands are not shaking, do we have a real right to say, ‘You’re 75 now and so we’re going to make you come in every year?’ We can’t do that. That would be discrimination on the basis of age.”

DMV officials are also mindful of the implications of taking away a person’s right to drive, especially given the lack of adequate public transportation, Robertson said.

Most incompetent elderly drivers come to the attention of the DMV through referrals from law enforcement agencies or from relatives, neighbors, friends and doctors, officials said.

Under the state Vehicle Code, the DMV may automatically retest a driver involved in a serious or fatal accident and drivers involved in three or more accidents within a year. Other grounds for re-examination include three convictions for driving under the influence; evidence of reckless, negligent or incompetent driving and conviction for possession of narcotics.

In extreme cases, a license may be summarily revoked. But usually, the person is notified by mail to go to a DMV facility to be retested by a driver safety referee. If necessary, the examiner will go to the person’s home to administer the test. The person must pass the same written and vision tests given to other license applicants and must pass a driving test that differs little from the standard test, said DMV spokesman Jim Dunn.

Added Restrictions As a rule, the examiner would require the elderly person with poor vision to renew his license every year, but never more frequently, officials said.

In addition to granting the license or revoking it, the DMV may grant the license with restrictions, which are listed on the back of the license, Dunn said. For instance, an elderly person might be restricted to driving only during daylight, only to the doctor, store or church, or only within a certain radius of home.

“There are 50 or 60 restrictions,” Dunn said. “There’s actually no limit to what we can do.”

DMV officials point out that elderly drivers are not the cause of most serious traffic accidents.

In 1983, 1.7 million of California’s 16.6 million licensed drivers were 65 or older. Although they were 10.3% of the driving population, elderly drivers were involved in 6.2% of the fatal accidents, according to Dan Parker, a spokesman for the CHP.

Drivers aged 20 to 24, representing 12.7% of the state’s licensed driving population, were involved in 20.6% of all fatality accidents. And those 15 to 19 years old, 5.6% of the licensed drivers, were involved in 11.9 % of the fatal accidents.

By another standard--accidents per miles driven--elderly drivers are more accident-prone than all but the high-risk youthful drivers, some national figures show.

A report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that drivers 65 and older travel an average of 4,600 miles per year, less than half the 9,400 miles averaged by drivers under 65. Yet elderly drivers are involved in 8.76 accidents per million miles traveled--more than all other age groups over 25, the report said.

Drivers under age 20 have the highest accident rate: 46.1 accidents per million vehicle miles traveled. Drivers 20 to 24 have an accident rate of 13.9 per million vehicle miles, the report said.

According to the national report’s projections, there will be 32 million people 65 and over in the country by 1990, 22 million of whom will be licensed drivers.

“Most older drivers are safe drivers,” said Michael Smith, a research psychologist with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in Washington who has studied older drivers. But the aging process diminishes hearing, eyesight and reflex speed and, sometimes, mental alacrity, he said.

In the case of Arnold, the elderly man’s stepson, Wesley Goodrich of Arcadia, said he had long had doubts about Arnold’s driving. “He made me nervous driving,” Goodrich said.

‘I Fouled Up’ “He was losing his ability to rationalize. He couldn’t think clear. His mind would wander on things sometimes. He wasn’t quite right,” Goodrich said. Arnold would “wander on the road. He’d be driving along and all at once he’s over to another lane for no reason,” he said.

Goodrich took Arnold to pick up his impounded car on Jan. 2, the day before the fatal accident. Arnold sounded clear and coherent when he called to ask for a ride, Goodrich recalled. He said his stepfather explained the problem with police by saying, “I fouled up there on the freeway. I got a little confused.”

After they picked up the car, Goodrich recalled, he was going to lead his stepfather home.

“I said, ‘You follow me. Don’t get off the freeway until I get off!,’ ” Goodrich said. “But he got lost. Some guy cut in between us and turned off the freeway and he (Arnold) turned off too.

“And then he wound up in the coroner’s office. That’s when I knew it was a mistake to take him” to the impound garage, Goodrich said.