Friday, Who's Too Old to Drive?

Too Old to Drive

Yesterday we woke up to cold temperatures and grey skies.  It was 34 degrees today.  But we did just fine.  Bob and I took a ride into a Temple to run some errands.  Later, Bob put the Texas plates on the motorhome and I spent some time setting up my Baby Macomber loom.  I got about half of the reed sleyed before I decided to do a little reading.  I can work on it some more tomorrow--there is no rush.

When we were in the DMV a week ago we saw a man renewing his license.  He required a walker to get around and had an aide to help him.  He wore hospital socks with no shoes.  When it was time to have his vision checked he was at first unable to follow directions for the task; then could not see the line he had to read.  The DMV worker had infinite patience with him, and acted like this kind of driver was a normal experience.  In fact, only the fact that he was unable to see kept his license from being renewed.  I was rather glad he was not out on the road!

A few days ago an elderly woman came up to us in the WalMart parking lot.  She was leaning heavily on a cart that held her purse.  "Excuse me," she said with a trembling voice, "but I've lost my car.  Can you please help me?" She held out a key fob to her car, and after pushing it we could not hear her car horn.  She seemed disoriented and confused.  So Bob stayed with her while I went and found a store employee who came back with me and promised to help her.  Afterwards I found myself looking at all the busy traffic in the area and wondered how safe she was on the road.

Driving is such an important part of a person's life, giving them the freedom to go anywhere at will.  So when a person is unable to safely drive, it is difficult for society to take the keys away.  I think about what will happen when we are unable to continue to drive, and it's a scary thought.  Hopefully we won't have to deal with that for a long, long time!