So is it the problem of suspending people who are medically unfit to drive, or because the govt is withholding info?
I for one agree that if your unfit to drive due to medical reasons, you should be off the road.
If you have dementia, syncope, or other medical conditions which increase the likelihood of an accident, you should be off the road, just like drunk driving.
Friend lost his license and could no longer teach motorcycling. The problem was that they'd misdiagnosed his condition as a stroke. No doctor wanted to sign off later that it wasn't. He was still trying to get his license back two years later. It would have been better for him, if it was a stroke. That was back in the Wynne era, so this is an ongoing thing.
So is it the problem of suspending people who are medically unfit to drive, or because the govt is withholding info?
I for one agree that if your unfit to drive due to medical reasons, you should be off the road.
If you have dementia, syncope, or other medical conditions which increase the likelihood of an accident, you should be off the road, just like drunk driving.
You get your license pulled because of one persons evaluation that you may have a condition. There's no follow-up, no second opinion and little to no recourse. In some cases they found that there was zero evidence to suggest the person had any condition (consider it a miss diagnosis) which could (and has taken as per above), years to disprove.
Meanwhile you had no license and if you are a breadwinner in the family, that's likely a big problem for most people.
You get your license pulled because of one persons evaluation that you may have a condition. There's no follow-up, no second opinion and little to no recourse. In some cases they found that there was zero evidence to suggest the person had any condition (consider it a miss diagnosis) which could (and has taken as per above), years to disprove.
Meanwhile you had no license and if you are a breadwinner in the family, that's likely a big problem for most people.
FWIW, I know of far more people that had the opposite experience. Family knows abuela is going to kill someone but wont tell her to hang up the keys and hope the doctor does it. Doc doesnt do anything and there is another year of terror on the roads.
I agree, there should be a better system. Doc can/should set a flag that triggers an appointment with another doc to follow up and determine if suspension is a reasonable action based on evidence. Docs dont like people second guessing their godlike powers though.
FWIW, I know of far more people that had the opposite experience. Family knows abuela is going to kill someone but wont tell her to hang up the keys and hope the doctor does it. Doc doesnt do anything and there is another year of terror on the roads.
I agree, there should be a better system. Doc can/should set a flag that triggers an appointment with another doc to follow up and determine if suspension is a reasonable action based on evidence. Docs dont like people second guessing their godlike powers though.
I thought it would be more a fear of lawsuits.
Imagine you clear someone, who then promptly dies of what you cleared them of, taking multiple people with them while driving.
I thought it would be more a fear of lawsuits.
Imagine you clear someone, who then promptly dies of what you cleared them of, taking multiple people with them while driving.
Maybe, but I know some people that clearly had dementia and reaction time of a sloth that never got flagged by their doctor. Back to my original plan of a driving simulator test as part of license renewal. Many people can drive down an open road without crashing, you need to put pressure on them to see how they react. That is where many people should lose their license as they are not capable of good reactions. That obviously doesn't catch syncope/seizures but it does catch those that no longer have the capability of thinking fast enough to drive. Simulator allows things to jump out or pilons all over the place to see what the driver does. Run over things and you're suspended. Fail the test three times and you need to wait a year to try again.
FWIW, I know of far more people that had the opposite experience. Family knows abuela is going to kill someone but wont tell her to hang up the keys and hope the doctor does it. Doc doesnt do anything and there is another year of terror on the roads.
I agree, there should be a better system. Doc can/should set a flag that triggers an appointment with another doc to follow up and determine if suspension is a reasonable action based on evidence. Docs dont like people second guessing their godlike powers though.
There are a couple of elderly widows in our neighbourhood and a couple of years ago one called another saying "I'll pick you up and we can go shopping". Picking her up stopped when she turned up the driveway, took out a bush and shoved in the garage door.
Another, a lovely lady, came home several times with side damage to her car.
An elderly lady left her son's place and drove home. Partly there, she ran over a younger woman out for a walk 400 feet from where I live. She ignored the screams and continued home, parking her car in the driveway and going inside. A pedestrian saw the woman's body and called 911. RIP Her plea was "I've never had a problem before."
I was out for a walk with my wife and then young daughter and crossing on a green "Walk" when we had to dodge a car, driven by a senior, rushing through making a left in front of us. He came back to ask why I threw a hockey stick at his car. When I told him he insisted he had the right of way. My clarifying language wasn't pleasant.
I also know two older drivers, 80+, that said they didn't feel they could respond to emergencies fast enough and gave up driving. Kudos. they're not all bad.
The problem is getting a government or association to admit they erred. When the reasons for pulling a license are as sketchy as HTA 172 it's a nightmare. If the driver is elderly they could die in misery of old age before the case made it through the courts.
Maybe, but I know some people that clearly had dementia and reaction time of a sloth that never got flagged by their doctor. Back to my original plan of a driving simulator test as part of license renewal. Many people can drive down an open road without crashing, you need to put pressure on them to see how they react. That is where many people should lose their license as they are not capable of good reactions. That obviously doesn't catch syncope/seizures but it does catch those that no longer have the capability of thinking fast enough to drive. Simulator allows things to jump out or pilons all over the place to see what the driver does. Run over things and you're suspended. Fail the test three times and you need to wait a year to try again.
That wouldn't be effective short term in the current system. Right now they need to go in and do a short dementia test. The place is packed. I don't see any room to put in multiple simulators. That also gets interesting as you may catch younger people with no medical conditions and handicapped people.
The Star's article claims that TOO MANY people are losing their licenses, not too few.
That wouldn't be effective short term in the current system. Right now they need to go in and do a short dementia test. The place is packed. I don't see any room to put in multiple simulators. That also gets interesting as you may catch younger people with no medical conditions and handicapped people.
The Star's article claims that TOO MANY people are losing their licenses, not too few.
I don't care about the Star's opinion. I agree the system is flawed. I agree that some people are losing licenses for bad reasons with little recourse (and CM's cloak of silence sucks).
Problem is that it looks like the previous government added this regulation.
Politics has entered the game.
Look what happened in Ohio.
The democrats immediately blamed Trump for repealing a regulation.
Now they're arguing over whether that regulation made a difference.
So is it the problem of suspending people who are medically unfit to drive, or because the govt is withholding info?
I for one agree that if your unfit to drive due to medical reasons, you should be off the road.
If you have dementia, syncope, or other medical conditions which increase the likelihood of an accident, you should be off the road, just like drunk driving.
I generally agree that anyone with a condition that puts others at risk needs to be controlled.
I'm never one to suggest gov't should unnecessarily restrict civil liberties, but I do believe that gov't plays a role in keeping us safe.
Better guidelines would help. 10 years ago I suffered an unexpected MI. My surgeon told me standard operating procedure is to suspend my license for 6 mos! He showed me the paperwork, said he wasn't in agreement with the policy, but his hands were tied. Then "OOPS", he dropped my MOT paperwork beside the bed, and walked out. I didn't lose my license, I was back riding a few days later.
Many of the folks I met afterward did lose theirs, it really sucked for them and their families..
For the over reaches and suspending people for misdiagnosis or just being heavy handed. The irony is the person will likely lose their job which means they also lose benefits and income.... which means it will likely make any medical condition worse or harder to treat.
Again, not the people who should be suspended due to diminished abilities or serious medical problems but the ones that shouldn't have or if it didn't takes years to get it back after something is immediately corrected.
Of course the other irony, people who know they likely have issues are less likely to seek medical help....
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