There have been four high-profile traffic accidents involving older drivers in the past few days. As we known, Victorian is the only Australia state which does not have compulsory testing of driving license held by older motorists. However, it does not mean that mandatory testing should be imposed on elderly driver in Victorian due to mandatory testing does not make the road safer, older drivers are more cautious and elderly driver promotes economics development.
Firstly, mandatory testing of older driver does not make the roads safer. Most of the states have the restrictions for elderly drivers except Victorian. For example, According to Australia government, In New South Wales drivers aged 75 and over must pass an annual medical examination or pass a practical driving test every second years. In Queensland, drivers over 75 must only drive with a medical certificate issued by a doctor. However, according to the VicRoad, Vic had the lowest older driver crash rate per number of license issued by comparing the crash rates of older driver across the country which surprised audience about the statistic. The statistic shows audience older driver in Victoria without legal equipment did not increase the crashes rate however it is safer compare to the other states in Australia.
Secondly, most of the drivers are more cautious and therefore there are safer than younger driver. Not only Judith Charlton writes that ‘older drivers actually aware of their own limitations’. For example, by choosing easy-to-manage driving environments or by choosing not to drive at night, but also professor Raphael Crzebieta from Transport and Road Safety unit at uni of nsw said’young people just don’t have a perception of risk, in terms of driving skills, in terms of crashes. The media affect our decision. The contrast of two opinions is obvious that older driver are more careful than younger drivers.
Thirdly, allowing driver to drive will promotes economic development. According to VicRoad seniors over 70 had 10 percent of Victorian licenses in 2012 and worse still. Australian the proportion of people over the age of 65 will increase from 11.1 percent in 2001 to 24,2 percent in 2051 which means there are more elderly driver in the road. If special conditiond imposed on elderly Victorian motorists. Many elder drivers will be taken licenses away .then, it is hard for them to go out and spending money on shopping centre coffee shops and so on because these are away from uptown which also prevent economic development.
On the other side, society think of older people do not need cars to travel or to work, public transport is available for older driver. Even though Victoria has a extensive and safe public transport system. Older driver can not easily travel for routine travel to shop and for social reasons because number of run relatively little especially on the weekend, it runs every one hour and finishes earlier which means it is inconvenient at night.
Last but not least, driving a car is right of older driver. Forbidden to drive due to the age is unfair. Should older drivers stay on the road will be a serious problem due to aging population. The government needs to work out a good way to help them driving safely.
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