A bone of contention picked from Humph's Grandpa's Golf Car thread.
MM asserted what has become the orthodox view round here:
People who haven't driven autos before shouldn't adopt them when they're old.
And we understand this point of view in the light of the too-frequent accidents caused by elderly drivers who lose control of an automatic in a confined space. (I'm going to refer to them generically as 'shop window accidents'.) But is it - as Roger, for example, might feel, given his comment in the other thread - an unfair generalization that picks out age as the cause when we should be looking at ability?
I think we all agree here that driving is a privilege and not an entitlement, and that we as drivers have a duty to keep ourselves physically and mentally up to the task. Some physical deterioration is inevitable, and we can compensate for many of its forms. Automatic transmission can be one of those compensations. But the car is only as safe as the mind controlling it.
The critical common factor in a shop window accident is failure of the driver to set the car up correctly to move off. That's mental, not physical and we can all do it occasionally. When all is well, the mind then quickly recognizes what's happened, stops the car safely and moves off correctly at the second attempt.
Where it all goes wrong is where the driver panics and exacerbates the original error. Automatic transmission amplifies it further, of course, by removing the quick cut-off of a manual clutch, but my point is that if you have your wits about you it's perfectly possible to drive an automatic so that small errors are corrected safely before they become big ones, in which case it's as safe as any other car.
I started out to write an open discussion question but I seem to be arguing my way round to a point of view. If you're concerned that an automatic might be too big a change for a late-in-life driver, consider whether the problem is in fact driving per se. Conversely, if Grandpa is still mentally sharp enough to be driving at all, why shouldn't he get used to an auto as easily as anything else?
OK, now discuss.
}:---)
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Your last sentence says it all, WdB. If Grandpa / Grandma can't adapt from manual to automatic, how can they adapt to constantly changing traffic conditions? Putting it more positively, if they can do one they can do the other.
And it's a fact of life that people age and lose their faculties in different ways and at different ages. I'm sure there are some people over 90 who can drive perfectly safely, and some in their 70s who should be giving up.
I think all modern cars are designed so that if (new to an automatic) you slam your left foot down as if to declutch, your foot hits an empty space rather than the brake.
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SQ - again!
>> I think all modern cars are designed so that if (new to an automatic) you
>> slam your left foot down as if to declutch, your foot hits an empty space
>> rather than the brake.
Its nothing to do with converting to auto from manual when elderly. Those who have never driven a manual do a "shop window" when elderly. Its age, nothing more complex needs to be discussed.
My mother did when she was 75 Never driven a manual in her life, not even licensed to. She claimed it was brake failure.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 11 Oct 14 at 17:15
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Herself loathes autos, after driving years ago her cousin's horrible early Nissan Micra with 3-speed slushpump auto. It really was a horrid sluggish little POS. But since she hates them and is a tense, although not jumpy, driver, I wouldn't want her to be driving an auto with any real oomph. It would be asking for trouble.
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Years ago I sat through a two-day court case after my great-aunt was knocked down and killed by a 'runaway' car, driven by an 82-year-old woman.
The car was an automatic (CVT) Volvo 343, which was at that time subject to much controversy over the way it could or couldn't be driven, after a series of well-publicised accidents.
As well as the facts of the case and witness evidence the magistrates heard a lot from several organisations and engineering expert witnesses, including what was, I think, called The Volvo Action Group on the subject of the auto transmission design and control system.
The Bench eventually decided that the elderly driver was at fault and not the car. I agreed.
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Those Volvos (I had one briefly) were no different in design to the DAF's which they superseded. I don't recall any outrage ever kicking off about them; the only things I faulted mine on were that it was sluggish and, compared to the manual version I had afterwards, heavy on fuel.
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Couldn't those old Volvo's and DAFs go just as fast backwards as forwards due to the transmission design?
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Not sure 'fast' was the word in either direction.
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>> Couldn't those old Volvo's and DAFs go just as fast backwards as forwards due to
>> the transmission design?
The DAFs could anyway. A pal of mine worked in the early 70s for subsidiary of Cummins that made turbochargers and other bits. They had a bunch of people over from DAF with some DAF 33s for testing and seemed to have spent most of their time practising 60mph reversing.
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My late Father purchased his first automatic car when aged 71, after driving manuals all his life. No problems in adapting whatsoever. His driving style arguably improved; in manual cars the previous few years he used to forget which gear he was in (usually too low) and motor along at high revs..!
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I jump around from auto to manual all the time.....never a problem. I've driven LHD over here and abroad and RHD abroad.....you adapt as soon as you leave the ship. I also had no problems moving from the BMW with it's left foot gears to the Velo with it's right foot ones. Likewise a bike with a left hand clutch to the current one with the left hand brake.
The only thing I do wrong for a few minutes is confuse the indicator and wiper arms between the Note and the Vitara........opposite sides. The Vitara has the indicators on the right...as is correct !
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I really don't care which side the steering wheel is. I don't mind rhd abroad and I don't mind lhd here. It just isn't a problem.
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I had the use briefly of one of those DaF Volvo 343s, with rubber band CVT. It made strange whistling and whining noises on the overrun. That was all right, and it would wind up to 80-plus given time, but it was a bit thirsty however one drove it and didn't handle at all well. In the end an idiot of a boyfriend of my eldest daughter crashed it, the damn wally. I wasn't best pleased but I can't say I missed the Volvo.
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I expect some of you aren't old enough to remember, but in the early 1980s there was a big hoo-ha over accidents related to the Volvo 340 'taking off on its own', including the incident that killed my relative.
The debate in the ensuing court case was partly about the position of the pedals and whether the wrong one could accidentally be pressed and partly about a technique used by some drivers to overcome the well-known sluggish take-up of the drive with the rubber band transmission, involving holding down the brake pedal while flooring the accelerator before releasing the brakes.
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So is part of the problem the process for assessing fitness to drive? It relies on self-assessment and the opinion of a GP, who may not even be qualified to drive. And it's all about physical attributes - eyesight, strength in arms and legs and so on.
Wouldn't it make more sense to have people's actual driving assessed by someone qualified to do so? That might also address the problem of, say, the widow who last drove 40 years ago suddenly having to deal with modern traffic conditions.
Of course, it would make more sense still for us all to have periodic re-assessments of our driving, just as aeroplane drivers do of theirs. And we all know why it won't happen.
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>>
>> Of course, it would make more sense still for us all to have periodic re-assessments
>> of our driving, just as aeroplane drivers do of theirs. And we all know why
>> it won't happen.
>>
Because logistically it would be virtually impossible and almost certainly useless.
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Don't know about logistically, RR, but I see the electoral problems: all the parties are afraid to antagonize the grey vote.
Not sure why you think it wouldn't do any good, though. We stepped in to stop my mother, then 77, from driving when her Punto began to look more like a piece of crumpled Bacofoil from all the static objects it had bounced off. Her GP was seeing her regularly in this period and never suggested she should consider stopping.
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>> Don't know about logistically, RR, but I see the electoral problems: all the parties are
>> afraid to antagonize the grey vote.
>>
>>
30 million licence holders, an extra 3 million tests a year to add to approx 1.5 million L tests. And that's assuming a 100% pass rate, add retests and you're looking at around 4.5 million minimum, plus the subsequent increase in examiners and the massive outlay on facilities.
And remember your L test, how you barely held it together on the day despite it not mattering all that much? Now take it again only this time if you fail you're going to lose your job, and if you do pass put yourself through the whole business again every five or ten years. And all for what, to get a handful of elderly dodderers off the road? Regular medical assessments from 65 onwards would do that.
Believe me, as an ex ADI I could fill a book telling you why you would not want to go down that route.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Sat 11 Oct 14 at 15:32
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I'm not proposing to retest 35-year-olds - even if my aside about aeroplanes may have given that impression. No, we're only thinking about oldies here, most of whom don't have jobs to worry about. (Although who knows when my generation will get to retire?)
My point is just that putting the onus on the GP doesn't work if it's not physical impairments that are affecting a driver's continuing fitness - and the thrust of this discussion is that mental factors have at least as much effect. A 20-minute review of practical driving ability every three years from age 70 wouldn't overstretch the system, and it would add some variety to the examiner's job. There'd be a test fee, of course, so it would be cost-neutral.
It's closely analogous to the MoT system. No-one questions that, or the principle that the user should pay for the test. What's the difference here?
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>> A 20-minute review
>> of practical driving ability every three years from age 70 wouldn't overstretch the system, and
>> it would add some variety to the examiner's job. There'd be a test fee, of
>> course, so it would be cost-neutral.
>>
>>
So you're putting the effort into re-testing the over seventies when the majority of accidents are caused by under the 25s?
Not logical.
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Apologies that it is the Daily Wail but it has some stats.
tinyurl.com/leo3ts3
There is a UK Licensed driver who reaches the age 0f 104 this week. The DVLA have not withdrawn it on any grounds but he does not actually still drive.
tinyurl.com/k8ef3p5
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Some years ago, the uni, where I worked, sent me to do a video interview with its oldest surviving student. He was 105 and had just stopped driving. I wouldn't have hesitated to be a passenger in his car. He was so alert that he was a real pleasure to be with.
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I think I agree with RR. Before we start trying to make policy it's helpful, nay vital, to understand the real problem and the numbers as opposed to perception and anecdata.
An elderly person putting a car through a wall/shop window or into a pond makes the national press. Item in mail just yesterday about 'car shaped hole in a wall'.
Those, mostly youngsters, that end up in the hedge bottom, or in the really high energy cases the fields, between here and next village every few weeks do not. Even those that are fatal, about one every five years, don't get beyond the Chronicle and Echo.
Oldies tend to limit their driving in recognition of their being unable or unwilling to cope with ever heavier traffic or new layouts. While she lived in Leeds my Mother would still drive familiar routes to Keswick or Scarborough but lacked confidence to tackle the M1. After moving nearer my sister she never went further than church/local shops. Wouldn't go to Sainsburys as that involved a gyratory - although it's a piece of cake once you know which lane to occupy - at least off peak. Gave up at 85 partly loss of nerve but also a recognition that her balance was becoming poor - possibly a circulatory issue.
The new widow who resumes driving after 40yrs was a seventies thing - women who'd driven in the war?. All the women in both mine and Mrs B's family passed their tests between 45 and 66 and drove all their lives. As the first generation of working wives they had to.
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There's a 3 lane roundabout near here in a section of dual carriageway. I'm in the middle lane going straight on, bloke alongside me to my left either also going straight on or about to turn left, not sure, little old lady in an anonymous far eastern hatchback to my right in the lane marked for turning right, accelerates and turns left across my bows and those of the bloke in the left hand lane...
Fortunately we both managed to emergency stop before T-boning her car. Traffic behind us also managed to pull up without hitting us.
I'm fairly sure she didn't even notice the result of her manoeuvre.
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Probably makes/made a living driving black cabs.
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Cabbie would've at least indicated before doing it.
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Correction, a cabbie would have indicated at the same time as doing it ;-)
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>> Correction, a cabbie would have indicated at the same time as doing it ;-)
And hanging out of his window to give you a mouthful of of abuse.
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>> And hanging out of his window to give you a mouthful of of abuse.
Yup, ghastly chaps. I speak as a former 70s minicab driver and lifelong occasional client.
Mind you they aren't all bad, not all of them anyway. Met a couple of good ones over the years, along with the screaming prats...
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Our family briefly had a nearly new late model 1988/E Volvo 340 CVT auto. It had an unignorable buzzer which sounded when the gear selector was inbetween positions - ISTR the issue referred to above prompted its fitment to all examples.
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>>> If you're concerned that an automatic might be too big a change for a late-in-life driver, consider whether the problem is in fact driving per se.
Yep that's the start and finish of it.
We are going through this with an elderly relative at the moment who has changed to an auto when they should have given up with good grace and allowed the family support to take up the slack.
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Faculties - Avant
