A DMV Policy That Endangers Us All

My father was an unfit driver, and the California Department of Motor Vehicles knew it. Yet DMV officials quietly allowed him to keep driving, and I helped them.

In the past 10 months, my father has been in two accidents, cited for reckless driving and caused a few fender-benders that went unreported. He also has had several near misses, some involving pedestrians.

He did not seriously injure himself or anyone else. Yet he was bound to--if he was allowed to keep driving.

Shortly after he got the reckless-driving citation, my father was summoned to his neighborhood DMV office for a test to renew his operator’s license.

He failed the test resoundingly. He also just missed getting into two accidents during the 30-minute, behind-the-wheel exam, first when he ran a red light and then when he swerved to avoid hitting a parked car and nearly clipped a motorcyclist in the lane to his left.

After the test, the examiner, a veteran DMV employee, told my father he hadn’t passed and advised him to appeal. Then he explained the appeals process, wished him good luck, and told my father to drive home and mull over his options.

I was stunned. My father should never have been allowed to drive off after failing that test. Letting him do so was shortsighted and dangerous. It was also inconsistent with other policies for dealing with impaired drivers.

If my father had been the slightest bit tipsy, would he have been allowed to drive away? He would not have.

If he had been trying for his first driver’s license and had failed the test, would he have been permitted to drive home alone afterward? He would not have.

Yet because his impairments were diminished physical and mental capacities, perhaps related to age (he’s 79), he was allowed to drive home.

At present, a licensed California driver who fails an early retest can keep driving until he or she receives a letter from the DMV ordering the surrender of his or her license to the local DMV office.

Officials at the DMV’s Driver Safety Policy Office in Sacramento told me that this policy is controversial and that it is under review but gave no hint that any changes are imminent.

“Perhaps your dad just had a bad day behind the wheel,” one official speculated when I explained my father’s situation, anonymously.

“My dad has had a bad year behind the wheel,” I told her. “There’s no way he’ll pass that test again--ever.”

Nevertheless, he remained eligible to drive. He drove about 50 miles a day, darting in and out of driveways, rush-hour traffic, parking lots and school zones.

Like most adults, my father treasured his driver’s license and the convenience and freedom that come with driving his car. Without his license, he will have trouble getting to and from work, the store, church, the park, his favorite restaurants, the hardware store, the cleaners and his friends’ haunts.

The bus system is above average where he lives, and taxis and Dial-A-Ride are available. Nevertheless, he will be substantially inconvenienced by the loss of his driving privilege, and his pride and self-confidence will suffer.

That’s the downside of losing his driver’s license. My father will regress. He may even lose his job at a museum--his passion and salvation since my mother died 10 years ago. I can’t shake these dark probabilities. I doubt he can either.

I’m sure that’s why he continued to defend his driving privilege so fiercely--despite angry pleas, thoughtful arguments, furious tirades and dispassionate appeals from his family and friends that he stop driving voluntarily.

His rationale was simple and simplistic: “The state considers me a fit driver. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t have my license. Why should I stop?”

I thought a lot about calling the DMV’s safety office again, identifying myself and my father, and requesting some direct action. But I didn’t do it. How could I turn him into the DMV for being an unfit driver? I’d be betraying him, condemning him.

Three and a half weeks after the test, my father received the letter from the DMV asking him to turn in his license. This 3 1/2 weeks of unrestricted driving was time enough for him to get in one more wreck and send two people to the hospital for treatment of scrapes and lacerations.

Any grace period is too long. He should have been required to surrender his license the day he failed the test, even though his anguish would have been great.

If discrimination against older people influences the driver-licensing process, let’s get people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s to administer or monitor the driving tests older people must take. If the test itself has unfair biases against older drivers, let’s restructure it.

Whatever we do, let’s work together effectively to get my father and drivers like him off the road as soon as they fail a test.

Right now, the policy that allows them to continue driving jeopardizes us all.