The Elderly Driver

If teen-agers are dangerous drivers, so are their grandparents. And the remedy may well be the same for both: education. So thinks Bernard I. Loft, 49, associate professor of health and safety at Indiana University, who last week wound up a pilot project in geriatric driver training that may go a long way toward proving his point.

Back to School. High school courses in driving and traffic have been a solid success, argues Loft: boys and girls who have taken them are involved in 50% fewer violations and accidents than those who have not. "With teen-agers," he says, "the biggest problem is attitude, lack of maturity and judgment, not skill. But with senior citizens, maturity, judgment and attitude for the most part are extremely good. They need help in developing confidence, and they have to be taught their weaknesses and how to compensate for them."

Last month Loft began a training program for 14 women and five men between the ages of 56 and 75 who volunteered in response to a newspaper story. Each trainee received two 45 minute periods of driving instruction per week with a graduate student in Professor Loft's department, as well as a two-hour classroom session. The first classroom session was devoted to tests of visual acuity, including distance judgment, reaction time, ability to distinguish colors, see in the dark and recover from headlight glare. The remaining classroom sessions included handling the buttons and levers, everyday driving maneuvers, good practices in traffic, on freeways and under bad conditions. When the program has been evaluated, Loft plans to invite all Indiana high school driving teachers to one-day seminars on the plan, so that they can initiate similar driving education for old people in their own communities. "I expect this idea to spread," he says.

Lock the Doors. Graduates of Loft's first course seemed to feel that their time was well spent. Miss Elizabeth Means, 75, has been driving since 1923, but after all these years says that "backing worried me. Now I feel I have the right technique." And Henry C. Gray, 69, a retired mechanical engineer, who estimates that he has driven about 400,000 miles, discovered that his night vision is poor and he should do as little night driving as possible.

Gray doesn't buy all his instructor's recommendations, though--such as the practice of keeping the car's doors locked while driving, both to avoid being thrown out in case of an accident and to prevent anyone from getting into the car while it is stopped at a traffic light. "In the past I haven't felt the necessity of locking the doors," he says, "and I doubt that I'm going to change my ways in the future. Another thing they recommend is that you hold the steering wheel at 'ten and two o'clock'. Well, the spokes on my Rambler's wheel are at 'four and eight o'clock', and it's going to be hard not to catch them right there--for normal driving, at least."

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