Many Seniors Eager to Go Back to Driver’s Ed Class

Ed Krupps, 73, a retired regional sales manager, estimates he drove 1.5 million miles over seven Western states in his 30-year career. In all that time, over all those miles, he received just one speeding ticket and was involved in one accident; he was hit in the rear while stopped at a light.

Yet, because of his age, the Fountain Valley resident is commonly perceived as a driver who is more likely to cause fatal accidents, injuries and have bad driving habits.

That perception is fueled by incidents such as the one last July when an 86-year-old man in a Buick plowed through a crowd of people at the Santa Monica Farmers’ Market, killing 10 and injuring more than 60.

George Russell Weller, now 87, has pleaded not guilty to 10 felony counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence. The incident renewed calls for more stringent requirements for seniors to drive, such as more frequent eye and road tests.

California has joined 19 other states with age-based license renewal requirements. After age 75 in California, a driver has to pass an eye test. And driving tests are mandatory for license holders 70 and older involved in two or more crashes in a year.

Some seniors fault the media for perpetuating the myth that older drivers are more dangerous than their younger counterparts on the road.

“The press targets the older driver. I don’t think age has anything to do with [good] driving,” said Ken Katz, 77, an instructor and the Orange County coordinator for the AARP 55 Alive driver safety course. “It’s the physical condition. Are they physically able to cope with the road conditions?”

Weller, who had undergone hip replacements and suffered from arthritis, was taking prescription medication that causes nausea and dizziness, authorities said. The surgeries might have hampered his mobility and led to him hitting the gas instead of the brake, reports stated.

But the Santa Monica incident is atypical of what happens when seniors are involved in accidents, a spokesman for a state insurance organization said.

“Yes, older drivers are involved in fatality accidents and injuries, but most of those [injuries and fatalities] are to themselves,” not others, said Pete Moraga, a spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California, a nonprofit media relations organization supported by the insurance industry.

Nationwide, relatively few deaths of people 65 and older -- 1% -- involve motor vehicles, according to a 2002 report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit research and communications organization funded by auto insurers. In drivers 16 to 19, however, it’s the leading cause of death.

The number of traffic tickets given to different age groups also attacks the myth that older drivers are worse than younger ones. According to the state Department of Motor Vehicles, in 2000, for every 100 drivers who were 18 years old, police issued 38.9 traffic citations. For drivers 65 to 69 years old, the number fell to 5.32 citations per 100 drivers. For every 100 drivers who were 75 years old, only 2.79 citations were issued.

“What we see in the last category is that they drive much less and only in their local neighborhood,” Moraga said. Because older drivers are more frail, he added, they are more likely to suffer injuries in accidents. Their physical condition can also dictate how often and under what conditions they will drive.

Krupps’ wife, Peggy, 64, doesn’t drive as much because of a blood clot in her right eye.

The couple recently completed one of the eight-hour AARP classes taught by Katz. The class, over two days at Fountain Valley City Hall, had about 26 students, most of whom have taken the class before. Seniors receive a discount on their insurance premiums -- from $10 a year to 5% of the premium -- by taking the class every three years.

Howard Nelson, 73, has taken the class four times. He gets a 5% discount on his insurance premium, “plus it never hurts to brush up on the laws,” he said.

He and his wife Dorothy, 68, consider themselves safe drivers and claim relatively clean records to back it up.

Dorothy, who grew up in Drummond, Mont., started driving at 16, but not before she learned how to change a tire and put on snow chains.

She’s all for seniors being tested at a certain age, “not just a written test, but a driving test to see if our responses are as fast as they ought to be.”

The discount and seniors’ apparent willingness to refresh their understanding of traffic rules make the classes a popular program for the AARP. Last year, Katz said, about 50 volunteers taught the class to about 50,000 people in Orange County.

The workbooks describe the physical changes seniors undergo as they get older, such as vision and hearing problems, which can affect their driving ability. Medications for arthritis, hypertension and heart arrhythmia can cause dizziness, blurred vision and drowsiness.

The pupil size in older people is reduced, making it more difficult to see at lower levels of light, and seniors’ peripheral vision diminishes with age.

Katz said the goal of the class is “making people think about what they’re doing behind the wheel, correcting things they’ve been doing wrong for years.”

He asks the students what they consider the best safety feature of their car. “Brakes,” “Tires,” “Air bags,” they toss out.

He says, “The best safety feature is a police car in your rearview mirror.” That’s sure to make you slow down, pay more attention to what you’re doing, he said.

If you have a question, gripe or story idea about driving in Southern California, write to Behind the Wheel c/o Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or send an e-mail to behindthewheel@latimes.com.