Summary
At 85, Vonciel Gray decided to stop driving after a stressful experience, joining millions of older Americans facing a loss of independence. Her son, Kurt, a traffic safety expert, helps families navigate the difficult conversation about when to stop driving.
With an aging population, experts warn of a “mobility gap” as older adults seek alternatives to driving.
Joseph Coughlin’s MIT Age Lab explores how vehicle technology can aid or distract older drivers, yet acknowledges that tech can’t always replace the need for older adults to relinquish their keys for safety.
They need to treat the root of the problem by fixing up public transit.
That works if you live in a city. I live in a town of 8900, and my elderly father who developed epilepsy and can no longer drive, lives on his farm 20 miles away. Public transportation will not do anything for him.
In my state there are rural transportation buses. It’s not perfect, but they get used a lot.
My semi-rural county has a separate transit system for this population. You call on scheduled days to go to the grocery, pharmacy, medical center, etc. On pharmacy day they then pick up everyone who scheduled, at their house like a school bus, and go the pharmacy for however long it takes to let everyone do their business before returning them home.
Nice! Come to think of it there are some other transport services around here, as well. I tend to ride my bike most anywhere I want to go, so I don’t think about all the other options.
How does that work with doctors appointment. I doubt everyone could get it scheduled for the same day and it would take very long for everyone to have an appointment especially if there are tests and such.
The retirement community my elderly uncle lived in worked with a local hospital that would schedule all the appointments for the same day, around the same time. They had almost every specialty in the same building so the residents could see the various doctors they needed. But if you had your own doctor at a separate place, you could schedule it ahead of time and they would drive you there. However this was a high-end community that cost a lot, so I’m sure if cheaper places would offer the same options.
To be honest, I have no idea. I don’t know all the particulars, just the broad strokes and that my couple elderly neighbors that use it seem to really value it.
A town I grew up in had 9k people… Yet had several bus lines just fine. Why are you accepting excuses like that? I could have gotten on a bus from one grandparent to another 2 villages over (with a change).
You need to get it out of your head and stop saying “it can’t happen” like rest of the world hasn’t solved this decades ago. The sooner you realise you’re not special edge case, the sooner you’ll get close to what rest of the world takes for granted.
Maybe he shouldn’t be living on his own then.
Maybe he can live on his own as he may still be independent with other activities of daily living like cooking, walking to the bathroom, be able to put on clothes, etc.
Not being able to drive is one thing but maybe there are food delivery services, Uber/Lyft/Taxis and other non medical transportation, and for medical emergencies Life Alert, Ambulances.
Just saying there is a lot we do not know.
No, no, I read two sentences on Lemmy. That’s enough for me to know what’s best for everyone.
Maybe he does not.
Then what’s the issue? If he doesn’t then the person living with him should be doing the driving.
Unless they are also elderly and unable to drive safely. Then they should both be selling the farm and moving somewhere closer to town/services.
Nobody likes to sell the farm. But there’s got to be someone there to take care of it and him. If there isn’t, then yeah, sell the farm and he gets to move in with someone who can care for him, either family or an elderly care facility. (And you really don’t want your family in a care facility.)
maybe cities should be cheaper or live in care should be provided?
lol you just complained about capitalism
Oh I harp on the need for regulation and taxation all the time. it needs tight controls.
Public transport could do something for him if it was invested in more and we valued the community enough to provide better senior transport options.
Public transport does not need to make a profit.
I never said it needed to. In fact, I almost added into my comment “if we valued the community enough to operate at a loss” but didn’t think it was necessary.
I just wanted to add to it
It mostly certainly could.
So what do you do? My Mom lives in a very car dependent area and I haven’t found any options. While she doesn’t drive often, she shouldn’t at all. However I haven’t found anything besides Uber gift cards and she won’t use them (plus that’s expensive)
My brother in law and I drive him a lot. My mom makes him feel guilty for asking for help.
Well tell her to knock it off. Wtf
In my case, unfortunately most of us no longer live in the same state as my Mom. I have one brother remaining there and he does what he can, but there’s only so much we can lay on him
This. I’m in a town with a population under 2500, and the nearest city is around 30 miles away. Even the small local grocer that just carries basic goods is something like 5 miles away.
Your family has chosen to live in a place where public transit may not be effective. Your personal choices do not invalidate the benefits that public transport has for the large majority of people. Even if you don’t use it, you benefit from dropped emission levels.
It’s crazy how hard it is to show Americans that public transit helps with so many issues in our communities. We’ve had generations of people now who have never even ridden a bus. Our cities were demolished for cars so we’re building our way out of a huge infrastructure deficit in the face of a populace who doesn’t understand just how damaging cars are to everything around.