Older Drivers: A Dangerous Dilemma

An 88-year-old woman who drove through a pharmacy window on Monday, breaking a customer’s legs, now must pass a driving test to retain her license. Officials said Tuesday the woman is among an average of 30 elderly drivers who become involved in traffic accidents each week in Orange County and, as a consequence, face retesting.

While police on Monday did not ticket the driver, Edna Morian of Irvine, they will submit her name to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which will retest her, Irvine Police Sgt. Jim Broomfield said.

The accident occurred about 2:30 p.m. when Morian hit two cars in a parking lot, veered onto the sidewalk and into the Parkview Pharmacy at 5311 University Drive in Irvine, police said. A shopper, Donna Lou Comstock, 54, suffered two broken legs and Morian suffered minor injuries.

Apparently Morian panicked after hitting the first car and accelerated, Broomfield said.

Senior citizens’ “reaction times are a lot slower and their foot does tend to slip. Before they realize it, they are already moving forward,” he said. He recalled a similar incident in which a man pulling into his garage accidently accelerated and hit his wife, breaking both her legs.

Police can recommend that a driver be retested, he said. “It can be because of age or for visual problems that they need to be reevaluated.”

At the Department of Motor Vehicles in Orange County, an estimated 30 seniors a week are reevaluated, DMV spokesman Richard Kohr said. The department gathers any citations, traffic reports and a medical history when necessary before scheduling them for an interview and a road test, he said.

While the department does not have statistics on the number of licenses revoked, Kohr said it is a “frequent problem.”

And once an older person’s license is revoked, it is usually not reinstated, he said.

“It’s sad when you reach that point in life, but on the other hand, they are fortunate to have made it to be that old. But for some, it’s time to stop (driving),” he said.

Most referrals for retesting come from police after a traffic accident or citation, but sometimes relatives write letters to the agency, Kohr said.

But elderly drivers are not the most likely to have traffic accidents. Drivers between the ages of 20 and 24 are involved in more accidents with deaths or injuries than any other age group, according to a 1983 report by the California Highway Patrol.

Seniors make up 10.3% of all drivers and are involved in 6.2% of all fatal accidents and 5.4% of injury accidents. Drivers in the 20-24 age group make up 12.7% of all drivers and are involved in 20.6% of all fatal crashes and 19.4% of injury-causing accidents, according to the report.

To help senior citizens continue to be good drivers, the American Assn. of Retired Persons sponsors a two-day driver-education course called 55 Alive.

The course, which costs $7, shows seniors what physical problems can impair driving ability and offers techniques to compensate for them, instructor Charles Lotarius said.

“We give them a presentation on what has happened to them. Because it creeps up so slowly, some don’t realize it,” he said.

The course includes taking a test to determine reaction time and ways to make up for slower responses, he said.

For example, he said, to make up for perceptual problems, seniors should not try to judge car lengths from the car ahead, but should count the seconds from the moment that car passes an object to the moment they do, Lotarius said.

One of the biggest problems is a loss of peripheral vision, he said. Seniors should scan an intersection by turning their heads, and not simply glance to the side, he said.

Some insurance companies give course graduates a discount on their policy payments, he said.

For seniors who are left without a license, local groups do offer assistance. Free ride programs are offered by a few senior citizen centers, and such services as dial-a-ride are available at a low cost.

In Irvine, the senior citizens center offers free rides to doctors’ offices, grocery stores and the senior center, director Kathleen Ego said. About 100 seniors use the service monthly, she said.

In Huntington Beach, the Senior Outreach Program coordinates rides to hospitals, doctors’ offices, legal aid, social security or lawyers’ offices, a spokeswoman said. The program operates Monday through Thursday mornings and uses one city vehicle.

But more is needed, an Outreach worker said.

“A lot of people do not have anyone. As long as they can drive they don’t think about it. People don’t realize how hard it is to get transportation,” she said.