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Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,

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Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbomb here with a classic episode of the podcast

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Speaker 1: for you. In this one, we explore the somewhat touchy

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Speaker 1: subject of driver competency and safety. Experts agree that in general,

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Speaker 1: more experienced drivers are safer drivers, but that doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: we should never retest after someone gets their license. Hey

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Speaker 1: brain Stuff, laurenvogel Bomb here. If you drive a car,

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Speaker 1: or sometimes take cabs or lifts, or have ever been

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Speaker 1: around cars, you've likely had at least a few frustrating,

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Speaker 1: more scary experiences with really bad drivers, you know, erratic

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Speaker 1: merging or U turns, or casual disrespect for stop signs,

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Speaker 1: speed limits or pedestrian right of way, or perhaps not disrespect,

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Speaker 1: but ignorance of In a twenty eleven study conducted by

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Speaker 1: GMAC Insurance, nearly one in five drivers weren't able to

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Speaker 1: pass a written test of basic driver knowledge, the sort

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Speaker 1: that licensed applicants take. But even though most people passed,

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Speaker 1: there were some glaring gaps in critical areas. Eighty five

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Speaker 1: percent of those tested, for example, couldn't name the correct

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Speaker 1: thing to do when approaching a yellow traffic light, and

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Speaker 1: only one in four knew how to calculate the safe

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Speaker 1: distance for following a vehicle. See the article version of

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Speaker 1: this story at HowStuffWorks dot com if you want to

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Speaker 1: quiz yourself. Requiring experienced motorists to regularly demonstrate their competence

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Speaker 1: isn't something that's ever been conducted on a widespread basis

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Speaker 1: in the US, where some states didn't even require novice

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Speaker 1: drivers to pass a road test until the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 1: Only one state, Illinois, has a law mandating road skills

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Speaker 1: tests for licensed renewals, and that's only for motorists who

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Speaker 1: have reached age seventy five. New Hampshire once had a

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Speaker 1: similar age related testing requirement, but repealed it in twenty eleven.

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Speaker 1: Pennsylvania randomly selects a small sample of the states forty

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Speaker 1: five and older drivers and requires them to undergo additional

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Speaker 1: medical and vision exams. Based on those results, they might

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Speaker 1: have to take a driving test as well. Only a

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Speaker 1: handful of other states Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, and California allow

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Speaker 1: officials to selectively require road tests for license holders whom

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Speaker 1: they have reason to believe might be unsafe. We spoke

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Speaker 1: via email with Andrea Henry, director of Strategic Communications and

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Speaker 1: Policy for the Iowa Department of Transportation. She explained that

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Speaker 1: in her state, quote, drivers with valid licenses may be

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Speaker 1: asked to demonstrate their driving ability prior to renewal due

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Speaker 1: to changes in their health. This includes physical and mobility conditions,

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Speaker 1: as well as produced vision and cognitive issues. Wild data

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Speaker 1: on how many retests are conducted wasn't available. Most of

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Speaker 1: those drivers end up getting renewals anyway, though many have

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Speaker 1: restricted privileges such as a lower personal speed limit or

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Speaker 1: daytime driving only. One obvious problem with regularly retesting experienced drivers,

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Speaker 1: who numbered around two hundred and ten million in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and nine, the most recent year for which Federal

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Speaker 1: Highway Administration data was available, is that they'd have to

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Speaker 1: get in line with all of those first time applicants.

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Speaker 1: That would create even longer lines of testing stations that

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Speaker 1: already have their hands full coping with nervous adolescents struggling

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Speaker 1: to perform complex maneuvers like the dreaded reverse two point

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Speaker 1: turnabout without hitting those little yellow cones. A lot of

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Speaker 1: those youthful license applicants end up coming back for retests themselves.

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Speaker 1: As of twenty eleven, in California, for example, forty two

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Speaker 1: point seven percent of applicants flunked the knowledge test, while

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Speaker 1: thirty two percent bombed out on the skills test. The

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Speaker 1: worst knowledge test performance was in Missouri, with a sixty

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Speaker 1: one point four percent failure rate, while mains would be

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Speaker 1: motorists did the worst in driving skills, with forty percent

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Speaker 1: not making the grade, and the US generally has driving

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Speaker 1: tests that are a lot easier than the ones used

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Speaker 1: by the rest of the world. In the Canadian province

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Speaker 1: of British Columbia, for example, would be drivers have to

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Speaker 1: undergo forty five minutes of testing on several different types

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Speaker 1: of road, and also must verbally describe what specific road

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Speaker 1: hazards are immediately beside their vehicles, one block ahead and

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Speaker 1: also behind them to test their awareness. There isn't a

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Speaker 1: lot of evidence that additional test testing over the years

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Speaker 1: necessarily would improve safety on the roads, As the Insurance

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Speaker 1: Institute for Highway Safety explains, studies have yielded conflicting results

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Speaker 1: on the question of whether age restrictions reduced the rate

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Speaker 1: of crashes. In Illinois, they did, but in New Hampshire

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Speaker 1: they didn't. The rate of injury causing crashes per one

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Speaker 1: hundred million miles driven actually is highest among teenage drivers,

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Speaker 1: and then decreases and levels out for decades before starting

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Speaker 1: to rise again slightly among people in their seventies and eighties.

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Speaker 1: That's not the pattern that you would see if many

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Speaker 1: people saw their driving skills or knowledge deteriorate significantly in

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Speaker 1: middle age. We also spoke via email with Jake Nelson,

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Speaker 1: Triple a's director of traffic safety advocacy and research. He said, retesting,

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Speaker 1: where if you fail the test you lose the license,

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Speaker 1: has been shown to have zero safety impact on the

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Speaker 1: drivers involved, and it has been shown to reduce mobility

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Speaker 1: by way of drivers voluntarily giving up their licenses due

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Speaker 1: to fear of getting them taken away, rather than any

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Speaker 1: legitimate concerns about their driving. There's no justification through DEA

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Speaker 1: data and research for testing or screening at a certain

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Speaker 1: age one. Gary Biller, president of the National Motorists Association,

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Speaker 1: which is a nationwide advocacy group, is similarly skeptical about

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Speaker 1: the value of retesting experienced drivers, he said via email.

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Speaker 1: Safety statistics consistently show that the accident rates of drivers

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Speaker 1: seventy years of age and older are not much different

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Speaker 1: than those in the thirty five to sixty nine year

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Speaker 1: age group. By contrast, drivers younger than thirty five are

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Speaker 1: at the highest risk of accident. That indicates a couple

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Speaker 1: of things. What is that experience behind the wheel is

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Speaker 1: one of the most important factors for safe driving? Another

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Speaker 1: is it state requirements for the renewal of driver's licenses

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Speaker 1: are reasonable. Those requirements vary state by state, but generally

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Speaker 1: include more frequent re licensing and vision tests once driver

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Speaker 1: reaches sixty five, seventy or seventy five years of age.

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Speaker 1: But Biller does think there could be value in allowing

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Speaker 1: officials the option of re examining certain potentially problematic drivers.

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Speaker 1: He said there should be an objective process through which

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Speaker 1: the life licensing agency could be petitioned to do an

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Speaker 1: evaluation of a given license holder based on firsthand knowledge

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Speaker 1: of family members, a law enforcement agency, or the courts.

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Speaker 1: In fairness, there should also be an appeal process for

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Speaker 1: the person who is in jeopardy of losing his or

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Speaker 1: her license or having it restricted. That approach might offer

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Speaker 1: some protection against the most clearly impaired potentially dangerous drivers

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Speaker 1: out there, but as for the drivers who violate the

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Speaker 1: rules because they think they can get away with it,

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Speaker 1: You're probably just going to have to continue to be

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Speaker 1: wary of them. Today's episode is based on the article

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Speaker 1: should licensed drivers be tested periodically? On how stuffworks dot com?

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Speaker 1: Written by Patrick J. Kiger. Brain Stuff is production of

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is

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Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,

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Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.