I’m sat in a public car park waiting for my son who's attending a medical appointment and people watching, well driver watching actually. One thing I notice is the number of late middle-aged or elderly people who do not seem able to reverse into a parking space. One lady drove around the car park until she found a space she could drive into, waited in that space for 10 minutes until the space in front of her was empty, then drove forward into that, allowing her to exit going forward I surmised. Then 5 minutes later another person did exactly the same thing, them another. This inability to perform the most basic of moves worries me, what is their driving like in other situations? Are they a danger to other drivers or even pedestrians? I have known elderly people whose driving literally terrified me, my own mother-in-law for instance who also cannot reverse into a space, indeed she has to drive in dead-straight as she cannot manoeuvre going forward into a space. Yet I also have a friend who is 85 and is an excellent driver. At 62 years old and in spite having driven the length and breadth of the company multiple times, I know that I am not as confident or as good a driver as I was 10 years ago and despite my advancing age I believe we need to introduce a competence test for drivers when they reach 70. Not a full driving test but something that ensures you are not a danger to others or yourself. You would need to pass this to be able to retain your license, then retake every 5 years. ‘But you will take away people’s liberty’, I hear you cry. But what price that liberty; an accident, a serious injury, the death of a child? I remember once I witnessed an elderly gentleman reverse his car into another then drive off, causing not inconsiderable damage. I reported it to the police who informed me that this was quote 'common and that the gentleman probably didn’t even notice what he had done.' Enough said!
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