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Who should decide when you're too old to drive. Plus student solutions for stopping school violence. And a century old hospital gets ready to close its door. This. Is No. Good evening everyone. Traffic deaths are at a record low officials say tougher drunk driving laws a crackdown on road rage. Better highways and safer cars are the reason. But there is one negative trend an increase in deadly accidents among drivers age 70 and older. A comprehensive project is underway in Maryland to identify drivers at risk and develop ways to help them drive more safely. Marilyn correspondent Yolanda Vasquez has more on senior drivers in tonight's Maryland life. If you're in need of renewing your license and you're over the age of 55. Now the first exercise ball now you practice touching the screen.
You may be asked to participate in a research study that will help identify some of the problems facing older drivers. We're here not to take away licenses at the V.A. we're here to help people stay on the road for as long as they're safe. Dr. Robert Riley is the director of the driver research safety project which involves more than 30 different organizations. It's the first research effort of its kind in the country and that all goes well the project may be duplicated in other states. Right now there's there's no other concerted effort like this. That's putting everything together. Dr. Riley believes that now is the time to gather as much information as possible in regards to older drivers because in 10 years the first baby boomers will turn 65. This point in time we one in eight drivers is over 65. That's roughly 13 percent of our driving population in 20 25 about it will be one in five drivers will be over the age of 65.
That puts it up in somewhere between 20 and 25 percent of drivers will be over the age of 65. You're going to do one one. One of the primary goals of the project is to identify and assess the ability of older drivers. A battery of tests are given to the volunteers checking everything from their physical capability to their memory skills. I will be watching your trail so you can call this app to me as you go along you're going to be getting one test in particular requires the individual to connect letters and numbers in a chronological order. These letters are numbers are scattered over a piece of paper. That's a very good test to test memory perception and scanning ability. Since November of last year more than 2000 volunteers have participated in the study. Researchers think they have enough data now to wrap up the testing phase but they will continue to monitor all of the volunteers driving records.
And what we will do then is we will follow that group of people. Looking at violations that may occur in the future looking at crashes that may occur in the future. And then we can look at our test and see where the predictive of those events that occur. The number of older drivers involved in fatal accidents increased by 33 percent between 1988 and 1998 with the results of these tests Dr. Ali is hoping that they can identify those drivers who no longer belong on the road thereby reducing the number of crashes. If you eliminate or prevent crashes. You do. You reduce disability and that impact on the health system is a significant one. Many older drivers reach a certain age or have difficulty seeing and they often self were strict taking themselves off the road to avoid any problems. But for those who are in denial giving up the wheel means giving up their independence. Where can you go with that record now days. Marcia widen hammer visits the ricers town senior center
almost every week. Like many of her peers she's thankful that she can get up and go whenever she wants. If you'd ever come to a point where you might have to restrict your driving where you may have to curb back and maybe drive only like within a 10 mile radius. Maybe someday but I hope that that time has already come for Conny oil the 83 year old lost her sight in one of her eyes and had to give up driving. It was a wonderful time it's a wonderful thing. So do I and it's a terrible thing to not turned around to have to depend on people. Our society is sort of maybe. New thing in Independence comes with having an automobile and driving one of the other major goals of the project is to develop mobility alternatives for those who can no longer drive the Mass Transit Administration is looking into ways to expand services for seniors but it's going to take a group effort Dr. Riley says to improve the safety skills of seniors.
It's a big problem that it takes everybody working together to make it happen. In Baltimore you want to ask is NEWSNIGHT Maryland. Joining us in the studio now are Julie Rochon of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. Katie Smith Sloan of the American Association of Retired Persons and Dr. Robert Rowley of the Motor Vehicle Administration. You can call us with a question or comment the number's going to be on the screen. Dr. Ali how did the idea for this study come up in the first place. The study came as a result of us on the medical advisory board saying the people who we had to evaluate relative to their ability to drive safely and it became apparent that we saw a fair number of older people who through functional changes were having difficulty whether it be with memory or physical capability or visual apparatus. And as a result of that we thought we should start to try to study what some of the tests might be
that would be useful to to identify those to assess them and to get them in some form of remediation. So last year we started a year long study collecting data on people renewing their license. That that volunteering to be part of the study has no effect on their licensing. It's purely an opportunity for us to develop data and to study it and follow it over time to determine the validity and usefulness of the test. Now I have you reached the point where you feel you've collected enough data and now it's a matter of tracking the first phase of our collection is done with this particular group. We're going to follow them for a couple of years. There are some other aspects of testing that we're going to be working on and one of them is the usual field of view and that will go on for another year or so. This regiment What do you think or what does the institute think about the idea of
screening early drivers or trusting them. Well at this point in time there isn't a particular test that all researchers can agree has a lot of predictive ability in other words we don't know that there's a singular vision test or driving test or other sort of sort of capabilities assessment that's going to be very correct and on target all the time to tell us who's going to be in a crash later on. So as people are trying out different tests and more field tests are being conducted we're very curious to see what happens. We want to be sure that we're catching people who are indeed high risk drivers but not casting the net so wide that we're restricting the driving of people who don't need to have their driving restricted to slow What's the AARP position. They are very interested in improving the safety of roads for people of all ages. And we think drivers should be tested regularly throughout their driving career. We're very interested in what's going on in Maryland. We're very anxious to see if in fact we can come up with a test that will predict unsafe drivers. But we think we have to be plying those
tests to drivers of all ages so you don't think that they're necessarily. By virtue of biology in a person's age is there necessarily is some point where where the demand for some kind of screening is more necessary. Well I think certainly people's bodies change as they age and there are changes in their physical ability and changes in dexterity and mobility but nobody ages it the same way ageing as a process. And nobody is the same at any given age as as another individual. Let's take a call now Zoya is on the line from Fairfax County Virginia hello. Hi. Well my husband I have been hit by you know sitting in the offices and one with a really bad accident and you know I just do it every day I see it you know that there's just you know accurate driving just you know accuracy in. I think we all should take that upon ourselves to be tested once in a while and be sure that we are safe and that we got up our aid but.
Will even longer sort of backs up what you were just saying I would completely agree with you. Why does the insurance industry as a whole regard the risk factors for Elder drivers as compared with the other age groups. Well we know that driving risk in terms of crash involvement particularly fatal crash involvement goes way up after about age 70. Drivers at that point in time or are involved in more fatal crashes per mile driven than any other age group except for teenagers. The question is are they involved in fatalities and are they dying as a result of their ability changing or of their fragility Meaning are they more likely to die of injuries sustained in a crash than a younger person. And until we can separate out those two things ability from fragility there's going to be a lot of challenges for us in determining what causes an older person to die in a crash. Dr. Ali what kinds of things physiologically affect a person's driving ability as they get older.
Well vision and vision certainly changes with age illnesses such as glaucoma cataracts and macular degeneration all have an effect on one's ability to see and perceive and register a signal that helps you drive safely. Physical capabilities certainly your muscle flexibility in your neck and your ability to turn and observe traffic coming from the side. The the cognitive changes that occur. Some people are really the most difficult because for cognitive or memory changes with the dementia is like Alzheimer's. People really are not aware of those changes that have these illnesses and therefore it's a very tough job for them to accept their impairment. It's tough for the families that have to deal with it. And as a matter of fact we've just developed a brochure with the all Simers association that identifies
ways the family and the doctor and MDA all work together. But if you don't have to take it to that so far as the Alzheimer's or even or the dementia aspect of it just isn't there just a sort of natural. Slope a decline in cognitive ability as one gets older. Yes there is but you know it isn't always sufficient to be of any significance in terms of daily functioning or in terms of driving. Let me well is on the line from Baltimore City hi i welcome. Thank you. I am trying to be so I trying to get a question answered here. You say that the older people are the ones that create and cause most of the problems. How about these young people are 16 and up to about 25 or 30 years old. They create more problems out here than a little bit. I know I drive practically every day and there are people little
ones younger. Cutting in front of me taking off and doing all sorts of things. What happens when you're trying to get to the floor. The seniors want to know what to do with the younger ones. You know thank you I saw some nodding heads in here and I should take a crack at that one. Well let me let me tell you that Maryland is among the states that are actually doing wonderful things with respect to younger drivers we have a brand new law here that's called graduated licensing and what it does is it keeps a younger driver in the licensing system so that they can gain some experience in driving in some relatively low risk situations. Prohibits nighttime driving for example. It's a three step licensing process and graduated licensing is showing a lot of promise in this country and in other countries in reducing teen involved in crashes. The reason we restrict younger drivers is because they don't restrict themselves. They think they're invincible they think they're invulnerable they're never going to make a mistake and we know they will so we restrict them as a group because we can't tell who the bad actors are going to be with older drivers we have almost the opposite problem and that is
that they will restrict themselves to a point if they're not comfortable driving at night they won't drive at night. If it's better etc. but again there is a physical ability change there that we still have to deal with older drivers have problems at intersections for example there are overinvolved an intersection multiple vehicle crashes because a lot of information to process whereas younger drivers are overinvolved in single vehicle crashes often involving speed running off the road. So what. The doctor is doing and other people doing around the country is trying to take the differences in ability and performance and come up with some solutions for older drivers the same way that we think graduated licensing is a solution for younger drivers. I want to follow up on that just a minute Darryl from what chemical County is on the line Hi how are you. Welcome. I feel threatened when you start pointing towards older drivers since I'm over 55 years old. But I do realize that there is a concern for for people who get older in fact it should be a concern for all people I would think. And it's and the
respect that I would think if you were going to look at older drivers and say we should be retested or so forth. Why not and so it doesn't seem like you're pointing to works towards age. Why not say all drivers should be retested every five years. Or we look at all drivers that way our seniors are what I'm going to I'm going to be a senior soon I will feel less threatened. And then if you do if I if you do see that I'm having a problem. Yeah I reckon I should. And I'll try to do something about it but you just are coming after me for my age. It really frightens me about them as long feral I would agree with you completely and I think the key here is to find the kinds of tests that will really be effective to identify people who may be unsafe drivers tests that go beyond vision tests. What's the AARP is 55 a lot program about What's it what's 65 alive as a driver re-education program it's a Classroom program providing instruction in the rules of the road. Today's older drivers largely didn't attend formal driver education programs when they first got their license and this is an opportunity for them
to get back in the classroom and refresh their knowledge. And what kind of response have you gotten from it. We reach millions of people a year with 55 Alive courses all over the country. William from Dummer County Hello. Hello I'm 88 people. I'm still driving and I've had to study with my driving. I found that I was traveling back and actually doing just discovered that I was dozing. I must adjust to both my time and my usual for it. The time when you're using the car this time I was using the car but also the beverages so that I would have a beverage before any drugs that had some some caffeine or something and have a chat and some caffeine. And that helped helped a lot. I haven't had an accident
occasion in the last four years now. Way to go away and thank you for calling me. What's in the test that what. What kind of questions what kind of. Challenges do you do you do in this test the tests are made up of first one's physical capabilities such as walking reaction time for moving the foot from accelerator to break. His neck flexibility. We checked the immediate and delayed memory. Then we do test called the motor free visual perception test. Which requires one identifying a geometric figure that's completed at the top of the page in and unbroken lines at the bottom and how does this. Which one of the four diagrams looks like the diagram on the top. We do standing tests that help us determine ones ability to logically skin. A group
of common symbols we do the trails and the tests that you saw early which is another perceptual cognitive test and finally the useful field of vision that covers the full range of physical mental. And cognitive needs to be a safe driver. Paul from incoming County Hello Paul. Paul you there. Hi. It was Carroll County Carroll County excuse me. I'm 71 right. And I've been driving for 55 years and I'm wondering if the statistics show that it happens mostly on gently on city streets. Why couldn't you restrict people from driving like they can drive in the country. At Westminster here but they can't drive in a city that I would never drive to the airport now for love or money. It takes a lot of younger people to tell us about that. But what does the insurance industry. I had that I would like to comment because in fact as
we pick up people who may have some impairments and we're concerned about those very issues of expressway and urban driving we test them in those geographic areas around their home and if they CAN drive safely in those areas we give them a restricted license for five miles or a 10 mile radius so that in fact we are trying to do that. Is there anything involved in insurance. It rates or anything in terms of how far a person is driving or anything like that. But when you get an insurance policy they ask you about how many miles a year you drive that does go into your into your rate. But I think going back to the question what we know about older drivers is their particular driving situations in which they have probably been left turns are a very difficult situation about half of all fatal crashes involving 80 year old drivers involve multiple vehicle crashes at intersections compared to only about a quarter of the crashes involving drivers up to age 50. What we think is happening is there's so much going
on it's a lot to process. Now there are engineering changes that we can make to intersections that will help older drivers that will help everybody. Name a couple if you're a couple a dedicated left turn lane. Even better a protected left turn meaning that the traffic in the other direction is stopped while you're making a left turn and all red faced at the intersection where the the light is red in all directions for about three seconds which allows the older driver just a little bit more time to gather the information they need and to clear the intersection of anybody who might cause a potential conflict. Let me try to. So these are engineering changes that would be great for drivers of all ages. What about bigger print on the side. Absolutely I mean less signage just less confusing signage. Let me get one more call in Lisa from Harford County Hi Lisa. Hi. I'm concerned about the elderly. Life is I would say restricted and those that don't have family what type of services could the counties provide for the elderly. They don't have family that are restricted that you know just need to go to a store would have maybe for them want to restrict it in the rural areas.
Yeah because this is a tremendous change in terms of personal freedom when someone can't do that well in rural areas it is a huge problem to find transportation in suburban and urban areas there is public transportation there's paratransit there there's taxi service there are scheduled and unscheduled transportation services but there isn't necessarily enough of that. I think we need to to really take a hard look at that both in Maryland and in other states and figure out what it is we need to do. We think about that Dr. great mobility alternatives is clearly one of the major concerns as we come to understand impairments come to understand remediation and ultimately some people do have to stop driving and find an alternative is really one of the big issues for the Maryland consortium in terms of how we go about trying to solve the total state program. I want to thank you all very much for joining us this evening. Thank you. For more information on the AARP is 55 Alive program you can call 1 8
8 2 2 7 7 6 6 9. Next Monday on Marilyn life mandatory school uniforms is it a good idea. Could it make your child's school and he's safer. And speaking of safety stopping violence in schools. Coming up later on NEWSNIGHT Maryland students offering their solutions to this widespread problem. But first a local hospital is about to close its doors for the final time after a hundred and forty years of service. Jeff has the story in tonight's Maryland Bez. Don't go away. Some council members in Washington D.C. want to ban the breeding sale and ownership of pit bulls in the district. Residents who currently own pit bulls could keep them but would be required to have the animal spayed or neutered. Maryland officials say 300 to state public schools will share $750000 of technology grants. The money will be used for wiring classrooms purchasing hardware and software and training for
teachers. You may want to confirm your flight if you're flying on U.S. Airways during the holidays. Flight attendants are threatening to go on strike. The union says it won't give U.S. Airways any warning. Once a 30 day cooling off period and. Get ready to join the chase. This group of enthusiastic big letters and their band of feisty Beagles are hunting for the white cotton tail rabbit. But in this hunt the excitement of the chase might but kill. Nobody wants anything to happen that money. What that money will buy. This tag along with one of the best beagle tracking packs in the country. It's on the next outdoors Maryland and NPT production. Thursday night at 8:00 a one hundred and forty two year old Baltimore hospital enters its last month in business and hundreds of employees are still unsure of their fate. Jeff Saucony has two more more on tonight's Maryland bears.
Church hospital will close its doors by the end of the month. Its affiliated nursing home will shut down early next year. Altogether there are 800 employees of church and more than 600 of them could lose their jobs. The parent company MedStar Health has offered new positions to 180 people so far at its six other area hospitals MedStar officials say they have not received a formal proposal from a doctors group that was organizing to try to save the facility. Church home and hospital lost more than 3 million dollars last year. Maryland's biggest law firm has agreed to merge with the Chicago practice Piper Marbury's partners agreed over the weekend to merge with Rudnik And Wolf to create the nation's 11th largest law firm. The combined operational have more than 750 lawyers and the sun was shining a little brighter in Anna Randall County today after a solar energy company decided to move its headquarters there. The Baltimore Business Journal reports today that Frederick based solar Rex has
chosen space in a new building near BWI Airport between 25 and 30 employees will make the move in January. Solar X will keep its manufacturing operations at the distinctive building off Interstate 70 in Frederick. Solar X does business internationally and according to the eneral County Economic Development Organization the access to BWI was a key point of the company's decision to move its headquarters there. And Camilla that is today's Marilyn business. OK thank you. Stopping school Y once was the theme of a daylong conference in Baltimore County today. This time though the majority of those attending were not state and community leaders but those most directly affected by violence in schools the students themselves. They came from large schools in large cities small schools and small towns. Six hundred students from all over Maryland bound by a common goal stopping school violence. I think this is really what needed to happen all along and this is really where. The
answers are going to come from. I think the problem stems probably stems from families and from teachers not being an administrator's being too harsh and feeling. And students feeling like they can communicate. Solutions were reducing school violence range from here mediation to building self-respect to better communication among students teachers and administrators. The greatest thing that we do you think is that we are not you. Everybody will be able to speak you know if we want everybody. And you know we should have you know several meetings. Today's summit was prompted by student focus groups in May and June. They wanted to get have educators parents other adults listen to their ideas because they are concerned that there are problems in their schools and no one is listening to how they think we are to be addressing those concerns.
Among today's speakers Lieutenant Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend who told 383 state would provide individual many grants of $5000 to help implement their plans for stopping school violence. Also on hand Dr. Jane Hammond school superintendent of the county in Colorado that includes Columbine High School. In fact less than one percent of the violent deaths of youth happen in schools. But that's too much and we need to work together as a total community not just in our schools but how people treat each other and how do we create that community of security and safety. Perhaps one of the most impressive moments in this summit took place when every student here stood up and took a pledge against handgun violence. And I think this is the first step and in showing the rest of our nation the students are here in the forefront wanting to how each other might hope to unite all my students.
And have us working together as one against one. And following today's summit the students go back to school to come up with an action plan they implement it and the next spring there's going to be another summit to discuss just how successful those plans were in curbing school violence. Thanks for watching tonight. Tomorrow on NEWSNIGHT a Maryland AIDS in Maryland Why isn't it declining US fast in this state as it is across the country. Good night everyone good night.
Series
Newsnight Maryland
Episode Number
587
Episode
Older Drivers
Producing Organization
Maryland Public Television
Contributing Organization
Maryland Public Television (Owings Mills, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/394-09j3tzp1
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Description
Episode Description
NewsNight Maryland Show #587 Older Drivers
Series Description
NewsNight Maryland is a local news series that covers current events in Maryland.
Broadcast Date
1999-11-01
Asset type
Episode
Genres
News
News Report
Topics
News
News
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:29:40
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Credits
Producing Organization: Maryland Public Television
AAPB Contributor Holdings
Maryland Public Television
Identifier: NNMD 587 (MPT14767) (Maryland Public Television)
Format: Betacam
Generation: Master
Duration: 00:30:00?
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Citations
Chicago: “Newsnight Maryland; 587; Older Drivers,” 1999-11-01, Maryland Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 28, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-394-09j3tzp1.
MLA: “Newsnight Maryland; 587; Older Drivers.” 1999-11-01. Maryland Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 28, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-394-09j3tzp1>.
APA: Newsnight Maryland; 587; Older Drivers. Boston, MA: Maryland Public Television, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-394-09j3tzp1