The Over-65 Driver : An Aging Population of Motorists to Bring Changes
Since he began driving as a 16-year-old farm youth in Minnesota, Eric Johnson’s life has been deeply rooted in the American motoring ethos.
He has always been on the road, on business trips or vacation jaunts, from Minnesota to Maine and Oregon to Florida, a man who relishes the freewheeling sense of mobility granted by the automobile.
So in the summer of 1989, when Johnson, a widower, moved to Orange County to be close to two of his children, he thought nothing of driving the entire distance--alone--from his longtime home in Atlanta to his new residence in Mission Viejo.
And last month, he made an even longer trek--a return visit to Atlanta, but one that took 5,000 miles and four weeks.
“I’ve been doing this all my life--going where I please, when I please,” said Johnson, who prides himself on his physical and mental fitness and his continued good driving record. “When you come down to it, I can’t imagine not driving.”
Johnson is 78.
Two or three generations ago, a driver like Eric Johnson seemed more a demographic quirk, a motoring anomaly. But today, he is at the vanguard of an immense changeover in America’s motoring masses.
He is one of 166,000 licensed drivers in Orange County who are over age 65--a fast-growing segment of the driver population that is one of the most striking results of the greater longevity and healthiness of older Americans.
For example, California drivers over 65 now total nearly 2.2 million, or 11% of the state’s licensed drivers. According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, 65-and-over drivers are projected to increase to 2.9 million (12%) by the year 2000, and 3.9 million (14%) by 2010.
And even more dramatic is this trend: the significantly growing numbers of drivers not only in their late 70s, like Eric Johnson, but also in their 80s and even 90s.
Statewide, drivers over age 70 are expected to increase from the current 1.3 million to 1.8 million by the year 2000 and 2.5 million by 2010. Drivers over age 90, now numbering 11,300, are expected to total 19,000 in the year 2000 and 32,000 in 2010.
The implications of the senior-driver boom, veteran analysts say, are monumental, a situation that goes beyond the modernizing of long-outmoded licensing procedures.
“To gear up for the impact of this aging phenomenon on our transportation systems and motorist lifestyles means new fiscal and political priorities. It hits us at a time when we’re already dealing with crushing gridlock and the urgency to redesign our roadways and vehicular technology for the next century,” said Ray Peck, director of research and development for the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Researchers at the state and federal levels have long studied improving visibility of road signs, providing more left-turn lanes and installing voice-command aids and other new driver-technological features in cars. While such changes are aimed at safer driving at all ages, they are being proposed with mostly the older driver in mind, Peck said.
California is one of the first states to consider more sophisticated vision and road tests by way of a computerized video screen, Peck said. The state’s pilot project, which is expected to begin this year in a few field offices, would simulate actual driving situations, including intersection maneuvers and night driving.
Also, California is studying a “graded licensing” system now imposed in 13 other states. This means issuing of severely limited licenses, such as requiring the motorist to drive only in daylight hours and from home to the supermarket and bank.
Although such restrictions, which usually affect older drivers, can be applied under California’s present general-license system, they would be more clearly spelled out and the drivers more closely monitored, Peck said. Such a sweeping revision is still in the study stage, he added.
But for now, such long-range issues, vital as they are, may seem academic and remote to senior drivers whose overriding immediate concern is simply to keep driving as long--and as safely--as they can.
“Whenever senior citizens have had to give up driving, you hear them express the same feelings,” explained Ed Lasater of Santa Ana, driver-education coordinator in Orange County for the American Assn. of Retired Persons.
“To them, it’s an enormous personal loss, a traumatic disaster,” Lasater said. “It’s like you’re taking away their last freedom.”
Indeed, to someone like Eric Johnson of Mission Viejo, life without driving would be an intolerable one.
“It would be terrible. Miserable. I would feel penned in. I would have to be so dependent on others,” he said, sitting in a den lined with his favorite history and financial books and classical records.
It’s easy to understand why. It seems his whole life, his very independence, has been closely connected to the automobile.
“I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t buzzing around in my own car,” the Minnesota-born Johnson said. “My first one was a Model A, and I was just out of high school, selling Bibles that summer.”
He later traveled throughout the Midwest and South, selling insurance, then promoted poultry and other agricultural products.
Even when his business kept him in one place for lengthy periods, such as in Atlanta to mind his real estate interests, he would take vacations to visit his five children scattered across the United States.
“I guess you can say, I love to drive,” he said, breaking into laughter. And today, at 78, he is as restlessly energetic and free-spirited as ever.
Except for occasional jaunts to San Diego or Los Angeles, his driving trips are usually short, such as dropping in at the Mission Viejo Senior Citizens Center, going shopping or eating out. “Oh yes,” added Johnson, a widower since 1972, “and going out on dates.”
His driving record has been accident-free for years, he said, and he has always had his license routinely renewed. When he received his first California license last February, the only restriction imposed was the standard one for corrective eyeglasses.
“My health’s fine, my vision’s OK for night. Right now, all I got is this little (hearing) problem with my left ear.” Each day, he does his warm-up exercises with the dumbbells and stationary bike he keeps at home.
“I’m a super-careful driver,” he said. “Like last October, on the (5,000-mile round) trip to Atlanta, I drove by myself but took it easy. I never drove faster than the limit. I drove each day, but I made sure I stopped a lot and got plenty of rest.”
And last November, just to play it extra safe, he took a state-certified course given at the Mission Viejo Senior Citizens Center. The eight-hour, $8 class for senior drivers was taught by the AARP under its 55 Alive/Mature Driving program.
One reason Johnson took the course was for the financial bonus. Under state law, drivers who complete such a course--and who are at least 55 and have maintained good driving records--are entitled to an insurance premium discount (Johnson said he’s getting 5% off).
Mainly, though, “I wanted to keep up to date on driving, to brush up on a few things,” he said. The AARP class discusses such topics as roadway rules, defensive-driving tactics and the effects of medication and alcohol.
But the course also discusses the realities of aging. The impairment of vision, coordination and other critical driver faculties is discussed, including the stages of physical deterioration when it is no longer safe to drive.
However, instructors at these driver classes, citing studies by university and other researchers on aging, emphasize that the rate of decline varies greatly among individuals--apparently, a crucial explanation for the longevity of such drivers as Eric Johnson.
It would seem, added Johnson with a big grin, that this kind of driver longevity runs in his family. “My father drove most of his life,” Johnson related. “And he didn’t have to stop--until he was well into his 90s!”
Steve Lally of Laguna Hills is still driving, at age 96.
His trips are short--to the supermarket, bank and mall, to the Leisure World clubhouse and Laguna Hills Senior Center--and he avoids the freeways and driving at night.
But Lally, still physically sturdy, still playing a mean game of boccie ball, still mentally keen and deeply inquisitive, drives his Chevrolet sedan every day.
And he treats the whole subject of a 96-year-old motorist--one of 1,060 licensed drivers in Orange County who are in their 90s--with the utmost casualness.
“I just do it. It’s perfectly normal to me. Nothing special, nothing astonishing. Nothing to get a gold medal for,” said Lally, a former longtime electrical engineer with federal agencies, who started driving when he was a 20-year-old college student in Colorado.
“I still enjoy driving. I’m still pretty relaxed about it,” added Lally, who regularly drives on El Toro Road, one of the county’s most congested streets, with calmness and ease--traveling neither too fast nor too slow.
For years, Lally and his wife, Willma, had shared the driving chores. “Usually, I took over on the freeways, because I had been driving the L.A. area system for as long as I can remember,” said Willma, 86, whose family had moved from Illinois to Hollywood when she was 16.
But six years ago, Willma Lally stopped driving. Her eyesight was failing. “No one said I had to. It was my own decision,” she recalled.
“It (failing eyesight) had just gotten too far,” she added. “I didn’t think it was safe to be on the road anymore. I didn’t want to be like some others who keep on driving, even when they shouldn’t.”
As for Steve Lally, his driver license has been routinely renewed without any difficulties or special restrictions. His most recent four-year renewal: August, 1989.
“He’s a very careful, vigilant driver. He doesn’t get into accidents. But then he’s always been like that, his whole life,” said Willma, as the two of them sat in their Leisure World home one recent morning, before joining a group of friends at the Laguna Hills Senior Center.
But what of her?
“Sure, I miss driving--who wouldn’t! It’s not easy to give up after all those years,” said Willma, who otherwise has lost none of her vivacity and robust sense of humor.
“But it’s not the same. All my life I had been one of those who bustled about, hopping into the car on a moment’s notice, and just taking off! I was the one who was always picking up people,” she said.
Now, she added, her mood turning solemn: “I have to depend on Steve. If he’s out, then I wait for the bus. Now I’m the one who’s being picked up. That’s no fun. You try to live with it, but it’s hard to accept.”
With a grimace, Willma Lally added: “You lose a big part of your independence. It’s gone. It’s irreplaceable.”
AGE AND DRIVING
The following figures are the number, by age, of licensed drivers in Orange County in February, 1990, the most current figures released by the Department of Motor Vehicles.
AGE 16-19
Male: 49,487Female: 42,647AGE 20-24
Male: 113,294Female: 87,202AGE 25-29
Male: 139,162Female: 109,742AGE 30-34
Male: 129,086Female: 106,067AGE 35-39
Male: 103,979Female: 93,127AGE 40-44
Male: 90,357Female: 86,319AGE 45-49
Male: 71,858Female: 68,534AGE 50-54
Male: 56,485Female: 52,519AGE 55-59
Male: 48,624Female: 44,413AGE 60-64
Male: 41,517Female: 39,965AGE 65-69
Male: 34,085Female: 35,031
AGE 70-74
Male: 21,720
Female: 23,855
AGE 75-79
Male: 13,346
Female: 15,780
AGE 80-84
Male: 7,020
Female: 8,529
AGE 85-89
Male: 2,709
Female: 2,931
AGE 90-99
Male: 602
Female: 460
TOTALS
Male: 923,331
Female: 817,121
T he following are 1989 statewide figures on the number, by age, of licensed drivers and the number of drivers involved in injury and fatal accidents.
Total Drivers Drivers Licensed in Injury in Fatal Age Drivers Accidents Accidents 0-14 ---- 563 9 15-19 921,800 49,084 788 20-24 2,073,300 70,194 1,267 25-29 2,636,200 65,674 1,120 30-34 2,659,900 53,568 860 35-39 2,360,500 41,444 703 40-44 2,032,900 31,668 518 45-49 1,521,000 21,878 370 50-54 1,181,600 15,926 298 55-59 1,030,600 13,010 210 60-64 967,300 11,198 206 65 and over 2,192,000 23,734 529 Not stated 0 24,311 345
Source: California Highway Patrol, 1989 Annual Report
* HOW THEY MEASURE UP
Statistically, older drivers have a mixed safety record, despite a negative image. E4
