BrainStuff Classics: Should We Retest Licensed Drivers Periodically?

brain Stuff, laurenvogel Bomb here. If you drive a car, or sometimes take cabs or lifts, or have ever been around cars, you've likely had at least a few frustrating, more scary experiences with really bad drivers, you know, erratic merging or U turns, or casual disrespect for stop signs, speed limits or pedestrian right of way, or perhaps not disrespect, but ignorance of In a twenty eleven study conducted by GMAC Insurance, nearly one in five drivers weren't able to

pass a written test of basic driver knowledge, the sort that licensed applicants take. But even though most people passed, there were some glaring gaps in critical areas. Eighty five percent of those tested, for example, couldn't name the correct thing to do when approaching a yellow traffic light, and only one in four knew how to calculate the safe distance for following a vehicle. See the article version of this story at HowStuffWorks dot com if you want to

quiz yourself. Requiring experienced motorists to regularly demonstrate their competence isn't something that's ever been conducted on a widespread basis in the US, where some states didn't even require novice drivers to pass a road test until the nineteen fifties, Only one state, Illinois, has a law mandating road skills tests for licensed renewals, and that's only for motorists who

have reached age seventy five. New Hampshire once had a similar age related testing requirement, but repealed it in twenty eleven. Pennsylvania randomly selects a small sample of the states forty five and older drivers and requires them to undergo additional medical and vision exams. Based on those results, they might

have to take a driving test as well. Only a handful of other states Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, and California allow officials to selectively require road tests for license holders whom they have reason to believe might be unsafe. We spoke via email with Andrea Henry, director of Strategic Communications and Policy for the Iowa Department of Transportation. She explained that in her state, quote, drivers with valid licenses may be asked to demonstrate their driving ability prior to renewal due

to changes in their health. This includes physical and mobility conditions, as well as produced vision and cognitive issues. Wild data on how many retests are conducted wasn't available. Most of those drivers end up getting renewals anyway, though many have restricted privileges such as a lower personal speed limit or

daytime driving only. One obvious problem with regularly retesting experienced drivers, who numbered around two hundred and ten million in two thousand and nine, the most recent year for which Federal Highway Administration data was available, is that they'd have to get in line with all of those first time applicants.

That would create even longer lines of testing stations that already have their hands full coping with nervous adolescents struggling to perform complex maneuvers like the dreaded reverse two point turnabout without hitting those little yellow cones. A lot of those youthful license applicants end up coming back for retests themselves. As of twenty eleven, in California, for example, forty two point seven percent of applicants flunked the knowledge test, while

thirty two percent bombed out on the skills test. The worst knowledge test performance was in Missouri, with a sixty one point four percent failure rate, while mains would be motorists did the worst in driving skills, with forty percent not making the grade, and the US generally has driving tests that are a lot easier than the ones used

by the rest of the world. In the Canadian province of British Columbia, for example, would be drivers have to undergo forty five minutes of testing on several different types of road, and also must verbally describe what specific road hazards are immediately beside their vehicles, one block ahead and

also behind them to test their awareness. There isn't a lot of evidence that additional test testing over the years necessarily would improve safety on the roads, As the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety explains, studies have yielded conflicting results on the question of whether age restrictions reduced the rate of crashes. In Illinois, they did, but in New Hampshire

they didn't. The rate of injury causing crashes per one hundred million miles driven actually is highest among teenage drivers, and then decreases and levels out for decades before starting to rise again slightly among people in their seventies and eighties. That's not the pattern that you would see if many people saw their driving skills or knowledge deteriorate significantly in middle age. We also spoke via email with Jake Nelson,

Triple a's director of traffic safety advocacy and research. He said, retesting, where if you fail the test you lose the license, has been shown to have zero safety impact on the drivers involved, and it has been shown to reduce mobility by way of drivers voluntarily giving up their licenses due to fear of getting them taken away, rather than any legitimate concerns about their driving. There's no justification through DEA data and research for testing or screening at a certain

age one. Gary Biller, president of the National Motorists Association, which is a nationwide advocacy group, is similarly skeptical about the value of retesting experienced drivers, he said via email. Safety statistics consistently show that the accident rates of drivers seventy years of age and older are not much different than those in the thirty five to sixty nine year age group. By contrast, drivers younger than thirty five are at the highest risk of accident. That indicates a couple

of things. What is that experience behind the wheel is one of the most important factors for safe driving? Another is it state requirements for the renewal of driver's licenses are reasonable. Those requirements vary state by state, but generally include more frequent re licensing and vision tests once driver reaches sixty five, seventy or seventy five years of age.

But Biller does think there could be value in allowing officials the option of re examining certain potentially problematic drivers. He said there should be an objective process through which the life licensing agency could be petitioned to do an evaluation of a given license holder based on firsthand knowledge of family members, a law enforcement agency, or the courts. In fairness, there should also be an appeal process for the person who is in jeopardy of losing his or

her license or having it restricted. That approach might offer some protection against the most clearly impaired potentially dangerous drivers out there, but as for the drivers who violate the rules because they think they can get away with it, You're probably just going to have to continue to be wary of them. Today's episode is based on the article should licensed drivers be tested periodically? On how stuffworks dot com?

Written by Patrick J. Kiger. Brain Stuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.