Another person killed by an elderly driver

Why not?

 

My question isn't about changing laws and loss of freedoms -- it is about whining assholes who won't let the rest of us live our lives in peace.

 

That sentence quite literally contradicts itself.

 

There's no correlation between increased speeds and increased deaths. In fact, it's the opposite -- average speeds have been increasing and the death rate on highways has been declining for as long as records have been kept.

 

So would there be a driving part to these tests for elderly or just a knowledge of laws? And what about some sort of "reaction time tests"?

And once you flunk them, is there some sort of a plan for transportation for them or do they all just wither away and die as vegetables stuck in their home alone?

 

Well now we are getting somewhere. I actually agree with this and would argue that many speed limits are set ridiculously low so that local and even state police departments can line their coffers by writing asinine speeding tickets.

 

There's some serious confounding factors in the "average speed/death rates" scenario.

I'd like to see limited speed increases as sort of a test run before going full-bore into it.

 

From the same people who tout red-light cameras as a safety measure, then shorten the yellow-light timing after installing the cameras. Nope, it's not about revenue.

There's also been tons of research showing speed differential is much more dangerous than speed itself. So the moron in the passing lane blocking traffic isn't only an asshole, he's a safety hazard.

 

I would like to participate in these test runs.

Not to get too wonky, but in a perfect world the speed limit would be set at what's called the 95th percentile speed -- the speed at which 95 percent of drivers are driving at or below. People tend to drive at a speed where they feel comfortable, regardless of the limit; the 5 percent are usually way over the 95 percentile speed. Anyway, in this perfect world, the 5 percent would be the only speeders law enforcement would be concerned with, and they could therefore spend more time dealing with actual dangerous drivers instead of someone driving 10 over an arbitrarily low limit.

 

My favorite are the highways which go from 70 or 65 down to 45 "near cities" even though they are 10 or 15 miles away from any actual city and thus there is no real reason for them to be down to 45 --- well, other than to generate ticket money.

 

Every five years, after 60 . . . every two years, after 80 . . . makes sense to me.