Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Bogelbomb here with a classic episode of the podcast
Speaker 1: for you. In this one, we explore the somewhat touchy
Speaker 1: subject of driver competency and safety. Experts agree that in general,
Speaker 1: more experienced drivers are safer drivers, but that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: we should never retest after someone gets their license. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, laurenvogel Bomb here. If you drive a car,
Speaker 1: or sometimes take cabs or lifts, or have ever been
Speaker 1: around cars, you've likely had at least a few frustrating,
Speaker 1: more scary experiences with really bad drivers, you know, erratic
Speaker 1: merging or U turns, or casual disrespect for stop signs,
Speaker 1: speed limits or pedestrian right of way, or perhaps not disrespect,
Speaker 1: but ignorance of In a twenty eleven study conducted by
Speaker 1: GMAC Insurance, nearly one in five drivers weren't able to
Speaker 1: pass a written test of basic driver knowledge, the sort
Speaker 1: that licensed applicants take. But even though most people passed,
Speaker 1: there were some glaring gaps in critical areas. Eighty five
Speaker 1: percent of those tested, for example, couldn't name the correct
Speaker 1: thing to do when approaching a yellow traffic light, and
Speaker 1: only one in four knew how to calculate the safe
Speaker 1: distance for following a vehicle. See the article version of
Speaker 1: this story at HowStuffWorks dot com if you want to
Speaker 1: quiz yourself. Requiring experienced motorists to regularly demonstrate their competence
Speaker 1: isn't something that's ever been conducted on a widespread basis
Speaker 1: in the US, where some states didn't even require novice
Speaker 1: drivers to pass a road test until the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: Only one state, Illinois, has a law mandating road skills
Speaker 1: tests for licensed renewals, and that's only for motorists who
Speaker 1: have reached age seventy five. New Hampshire once had a
Speaker 1: similar age related testing requirement, but repealed it in twenty eleven.
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania randomly selects a small sample of the states forty
Speaker 1: five and older drivers and requires them to undergo additional
Speaker 1: medical and vision exams. Based on those results, they might
Speaker 1: have to take a driving test as well. Only a
Speaker 1: handful of other states Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, and California allow
Speaker 1: officials to selectively require road tests for license holders whom
Speaker 1: they have reason to believe might be unsafe. We spoke
Speaker 1: via email with Andrea Henry, director of Strategic Communications and
Speaker 1: Policy for the Iowa Department of Transportation. She explained that
Speaker 1: in her state, quote, drivers with valid licenses may be
Speaker 1: asked to demonstrate their driving ability prior to renewal due
Speaker 1: to changes in their health. This includes physical and mobility conditions,
Speaker 1: as well as produced vision and cognitive issues. Wild data
Speaker 1: on how many retests are conducted wasn't available. Most of
Speaker 1: those drivers end up getting renewals anyway, though many have
Speaker 1: restricted privileges such as a lower personal speed limit or
Speaker 1: daytime driving only. One obvious problem with regularly retesting experienced drivers,
Speaker 1: who numbered around two hundred and ten million in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, the most recent year for which Federal
Speaker 1: Highway Administration data was available, is that they'd have to
Speaker 1: get in line with all of those first time applicants.
Speaker 1: That would create even longer lines of testing stations that
Speaker 1: already have their hands full coping with nervous adolescents struggling
Speaker 1: to perform complex maneuvers like the dreaded reverse two point
Speaker 1: turnabout without hitting those little yellow cones. A lot of
Speaker 1: those youthful license applicants end up coming back for retests themselves.
Speaker 1: As of twenty eleven, in California, for example, forty two
Speaker 1: point seven percent of applicants flunked the knowledge test, while
Speaker 1: thirty two percent bombed out on the skills test. The
Speaker 1: worst knowledge test performance was in Missouri, with a sixty
Speaker 1: one point four percent failure rate, while mains would be
Speaker 1: motorists did the worst in driving skills, with forty percent
Speaker 1: not making the grade, and the US generally has driving
Speaker 1: tests that are a lot easier than the ones used
Speaker 1: by the rest of the world. In the Canadian province
Speaker 1: of British Columbia, for example, would be drivers have to
Speaker 1: undergo forty five minutes of testing on several different types
Speaker 1: of road, and also must verbally describe what specific road
Speaker 1: hazards are immediately beside their vehicles, one block ahead and
Speaker 1: also behind them to test their awareness. There isn't a
Speaker 1: lot of evidence that additional test testing over the years
Speaker 1: necessarily would improve safety on the roads, As the Insurance
Speaker 1: Institute for Highway Safety explains, studies have yielded conflicting results
Speaker 1: on the question of whether age restrictions reduced the rate
Speaker 1: of crashes. In Illinois, they did, but in New Hampshire
Speaker 1: they didn't. The rate of injury causing crashes per one
Speaker 1: hundred million miles driven actually is highest among teenage drivers,
Speaker 1: and then decreases and levels out for decades before starting
Speaker 1: to rise again slightly among people in their seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: That's not the pattern that you would see if many
Speaker 1: people saw their driving skills or knowledge deteriorate significantly in
Speaker 1: middle age. We also spoke via email with Jake Nelson,
Speaker 1: Triple a's director of traffic safety advocacy and research. He said, retesting,
Speaker 1: where if you fail the test you lose the license,
Speaker 1: has been shown to have zero safety impact on the
Speaker 1: drivers involved, and it has been shown to reduce mobility
Speaker 1: by way of drivers voluntarily giving up their licenses due
Speaker 1: to fear of getting them taken away, rather than any
Speaker 1: legitimate concerns about their driving. There's no justification through DEA
Speaker 1: data and research for testing or screening at a certain
Speaker 1: age one. Gary Biller, president of the National Motorists Association,
Speaker 1: which is a nationwide advocacy group, is similarly skeptical about
Speaker 1: the value of retesting experienced drivers, he said via email.
Speaker 1: Safety statistics consistently show that the accident rates of drivers
Speaker 1: seventy years of age and older are not much different
Speaker 1: than those in the thirty five to sixty nine year
Speaker 1: age group. By contrast, drivers younger than thirty five are
Speaker 1: at the highest risk of accident. That indicates a couple
Speaker 1: of things. What is that experience behind the wheel is
Speaker 1: one of the most important factors for safe driving? Another
Speaker 1: is it state requirements for the renewal of driver's licenses
Speaker 1: are reasonable. Those requirements vary state by state, but generally
Speaker 1: include more frequent re licensing and vision tests once driver
Speaker 1: reaches sixty five, seventy or seventy five years of age.
Speaker 1: But Biller does think there could be value in allowing
Speaker 1: officials the option of re examining certain potentially problematic drivers.
Speaker 1: He said there should be an objective process through which
Speaker 1: the life licensing agency could be petitioned to do an
Speaker 1: evaluation of a given license holder based on firsthand knowledge
Speaker 1: of family members, a law enforcement agency, or the courts.
Speaker 1: In fairness, there should also be an appeal process for
Speaker 1: the person who is in jeopardy of losing his or
Speaker 1: her license or having it restricted. That approach might offer
Speaker 1: some protection against the most clearly impaired potentially dangerous drivers
Speaker 1: out there, but as for the drivers who violate the
Speaker 1: rules because they think they can get away with it,
Speaker 1: You're probably just going to have to continue to be
Speaker 1: wary of them. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: should licensed drivers be tested periodically? On how stuffworks dot com?
Speaker 1: Written by Patrick J. Kiger. Brain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.