TUESDAY
K A M L O O P S
THIS WEEK
Tuesday, November 13, 2012 X Volume 25 No. 90 www.kamloopsthisweek.com X 30 cents at Newsstands
Is
According to Stephanie Melvin, B.C.’s deputy superintendent of motor vehicles, 45,000 seniors are tested by their doctors each year. If they’re flagged by their physician, the drivers can be forced to take the province’s DriveABLE test — a series of in-office and on-road assessments. In 2011, Melvin said, about 2,500 drivers took the test. Of those, approximately 65 per cent failed.
AGE an issue behind the wheel? By Tim Petruk STAFF REPORTER
tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
In Royal Inland Hospital right now, two Kamloops women are fighting for their lives. One is 19. She has been in a coma since September, when she was struck by a vehicle while walking through a crosswalk on Fortune Drive. The other is 53. She is in critical condition after being hit by a car on Willow Street on Nov. 3. In both cases, police have said the drivers were men in their 80s. The two collisions are the latest in a string of crashes involving elderly drivers dating back to last year. Remember those two days in June 2011, when two separate storefronts were demolished by two separate vehicles driven by two separate — both identified by police as “elderly” — drivers? In the weeks that followed, two pedestrians — one
a six-year-old girl walking on an Aberdeen sidewalk, the other a 45-year-old man walking near a downtown parking lot — were hit in separate instances by elderly drivers. It raises the question — are too many Kamloops drivers too old to be behind the wheel? The answer is no, according to those charged with keeping our community safe. “It’s not age being a factor,” Kamloops RCMP Staff Sgt. Grant Learned said. “It’s making sure people have the physical and mental capabilities to drive effectively, no matter what their age. “You can’t cast aspersions on a person’s ability to drive simply by virtue of their age.” But, Learned admitted, health problems making driving difficult become more likely as a person gets older. “There is a recognition that as you get older, things
like your reaction time slow down,” he said. “But, it’s not automatic. It’s not every person. You’ve got to be very, very careful in tarring all seniors with the same brush. “You have a cross-section of bad-driving behaviour that fits every segment of driver.” However, age is a concern, at least according to the provincial government. In 2010, Victoria enacted a law requiring drivers to undergo a medical exam every two years once they reach 80 years of age. According to Stephanie Melvin, B.C.’s deputy superintendent of motor vehicles, 45,000 seniors are tested by their doctors each year. If they’re flagged by their physician, the drivers can be forced to take the province’s DriveABLE test — a series of in-office and on-road assessments. In 2011, Melvin said, about 2,500 drivers took the test. Of those, approximately 65 per cent failed. X See SENIORS’ A11
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