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I've come to the hardest part of trip-planning for me: the wait. Once I get the car inspected tomorrow, there will be naught to do but wait for the appointed hour. Oh, I'll still have to coordinate with my traveling companion and buy a few sundries for the trip, but the major logistics will be decided. There will be nothing for me to do but count the days and wait and pray that Roomie doesn't fall victim to the myriad elderly drivers who should have had their licenses revoked twenty years ago, those decrepit yet determined fossils who shuffle to their cars despite the fact that they cannot see over the steering wheel and possess the reflexes of an osteoporotic tortoise. For all the fierce family ties so prevalent in the South, too many folks are all too willing to let their aging relatives menace everyone on the road rather than undertake the responsibility of arranging alternative transit. I can't count the number of times we've been driving behind a car driven by an elderly person and seen them veer over the yellow lines or drift dangerously onto the shoulder or drive down the road at fifteen miles an hour because they're distantly aware of their inability to drive safely, yet unwilling to give up the independence driving brings.
And as someone perpetually bound to the whims and willingness of others, I understand that fear. Once you surrender your license, you're at the mercy of the public transit system, if it exists at all, the paratransit system, which has so many draconian restrictions and scheduling rules as to render it useless, or the mercy of your relatives, who have lives and schedules of their own and often resent the sudden imposition of becoming a taxi service. Nothing turns a good man into a tyrant faster than the specter of unwilling and unrewarded sacrifice for the sake of another.
While I empathize with that fear, that empathy does nothing to abrogate the unease I feel when I watch a car drift dreamily over the dividing line and see nothing but a puffy tuft of white hair floating above the headrest like a Dalian vision. I'm a firm believer in freedom of movement, but I am an equally firm believer in mandatory driving tests for all drivers every five years and tests every two years for drivers over seventy or any driver who has had more than one accident in five years. If you've had more than one DUI, then no license for you, ever. I'm sure that there are those who would scream that such a policy would be ageist and ableist. It might be. I don't care. Just because you were a safe driver in your thirties doesn't mean you are still a safe driver in your seventies, with your poor vision and diminished reflexes. And not every limper should be granted a license. If you have a pronounced startle reflex or severe spasticity, you should not be driving. If your first response to stimuli is to freeze, you should not be driving. If you cannot drive a motorized wheelchair in a straight line and without crashing into everything and the doorframe, you should not be driving. Depending on others for transport is embarrassing and frequently humiliating, and transit alternatives are often expensive. It's onerous and unfair and limits an already limited life. I know. I know. That was my life before I had a car and a Roomie willing to drive me anywhere I wanted to go, and it could be my life again if the car ever spits the dummy. It's horrible and frustrating and lonely.
But driving a car should only be done by those who can prove they can do it safely. If you can't, if you do it improperly just because you want to do it, want to cling to your independence, then you could hurt or kill someone. If you have to drive twenty miles under the limit because your reflexes can't handle a sudden stop or quick swerve, then it's time to put down the keys. No one deserves to die because you mistook the farmers' market for the turnpike and couldn't take your foot off the gas. Your right to drive ends with the endangerment of other lives begins.
And for the record, I believe that limpers should be required to complete a driving training and obstacle course before being allowed to use an electric wheelchair. Those chairs are heavy and can cause serious injury if they run into someone, and yet I've seen too many people tearing through hallways and down crowded sidewalks without a thought for anyone in their path, and I've seen too many people with severe coordination problems injure themselves or others because they want the freedom of movement but lack the dexterity to control a five hundred-pound wrecking ball. At the very least, those who drive motorized chairs recklessly should have their speed governors turned down and the joystick sensitivity adjusted until they stop barreling into people and then begging off because they couldn't help it.
And wow, how did I get from here to there? I meant to talk about pre-trip anxiety and adrenaline fog and ended up ranting about reckless drivers. Digressions, I has them.
And as someone perpetually bound to the whims and willingness of others, I understand that fear. Once you surrender your license, you're at the mercy of the public transit system, if it exists at all, the paratransit system, which has so many draconian restrictions and scheduling rules as to render it useless, or the mercy of your relatives, who have lives and schedules of their own and often resent the sudden imposition of becoming a taxi service. Nothing turns a good man into a tyrant faster than the specter of unwilling and unrewarded sacrifice for the sake of another.
While I empathize with that fear, that empathy does nothing to abrogate the unease I feel when I watch a car drift dreamily over the dividing line and see nothing but a puffy tuft of white hair floating above the headrest like a Dalian vision. I'm a firm believer in freedom of movement, but I am an equally firm believer in mandatory driving tests for all drivers every five years and tests every two years for drivers over seventy or any driver who has had more than one accident in five years. If you've had more than one DUI, then no license for you, ever. I'm sure that there are those who would scream that such a policy would be ageist and ableist. It might be. I don't care. Just because you were a safe driver in your thirties doesn't mean you are still a safe driver in your seventies, with your poor vision and diminished reflexes. And not every limper should be granted a license. If you have a pronounced startle reflex or severe spasticity, you should not be driving. If your first response to stimuli is to freeze, you should not be driving. If you cannot drive a motorized wheelchair in a straight line and without crashing into everything and the doorframe, you should not be driving. Depending on others for transport is embarrassing and frequently humiliating, and transit alternatives are often expensive. It's onerous and unfair and limits an already limited life. I know. I know. That was my life before I had a car and a Roomie willing to drive me anywhere I wanted to go, and it could be my life again if the car ever spits the dummy. It's horrible and frustrating and lonely.
But driving a car should only be done by those who can prove they can do it safely. If you can't, if you do it improperly just because you want to do it, want to cling to your independence, then you could hurt or kill someone. If you have to drive twenty miles under the limit because your reflexes can't handle a sudden stop or quick swerve, then it's time to put down the keys. No one deserves to die because you mistook the farmers' market for the turnpike and couldn't take your foot off the gas. Your right to drive ends with the endangerment of other lives begins.
And for the record, I believe that limpers should be required to complete a driving training and obstacle course before being allowed to use an electric wheelchair. Those chairs are heavy and can cause serious injury if they run into someone, and yet I've seen too many people tearing through hallways and down crowded sidewalks without a thought for anyone in their path, and I've seen too many people with severe coordination problems injure themselves or others because they want the freedom of movement but lack the dexterity to control a five hundred-pound wrecking ball. At the very least, those who drive motorized chairs recklessly should have their speed governors turned down and the joystick sensitivity adjusted until they stop barreling into people and then begging off because they couldn't help it.
And wow, how did I get from here to there? I meant to talk about pre-trip anxiety and adrenaline fog and ended up ranting about reckless drivers. Digressions, I has them.
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