Spyke
viral.vegabond
piefed.social

Fucking what?! That's insane. If anything, they should have more tests. Also, why is 86 the upper cutoff?

71
Remember_the_toothreply
lemmy.world

According to the article, they bumped up the age for the driving test to 87. Drivers 79 to 86 just have to renew in person and take a vision test.

As for the deeper why, I think its pretty complex, but the short answer is probably that it's easier and cheaper for governance. I imagine it's simpler to throw the book at a driver after they mow down a kindergarten classroom than to navigate journalist interviews about why people of a certain age are having more trouble surviving because of a thing the government did to them.

Some alternatives would include increasing driving standards and having periodic tests, investing in public transportation so people aren't effectively trapped if they lose the ability to drive, funding more social outreach programs for those who can't drive, etc.

It's all just time and money that governments don't want to spend because it could be career suicide if their politician's donors don't like the resultant taxes. That little fact is the root of a lot more and bigger issues than just dangerous drivers.

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tmyakalreply
infosec.pub

States and local politics historically were not driven by political donors. We're starting to see that change this election cycle with some bonkers money pouring into primaries, but that's definitely not the normal.

So laws like this aren't about donors; they're about voters. Retirees are the largest and most active voting block in state and local elections. Young people don't turn up in the same numbers for mid-term and especially off-year elections, but old people always show up. You don't win elections by taking privileges away from the only people casting ballots.

3
ape_armsreply
lemmy.world

I looked up Illinois' most recent crash stattistics and found that 75 and older had some of the lowest crash rates, about 3x less crashes than 18-19 year olds, even with about 2.5 times more licensed drivers in the 75+ age bracket.

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zurohkireply
aussie.zone

There's more drivers in the 75+ bracket, but I don't see anything about accidents per miles driven.

If you drive ten times as much and get in three times the accidents, that doesn't make you a worse driver.

Those 80 year olds mostly aren't driving to work every day. Some are, it's the US after all.

10
ape_armsreply
lemmy.world

Noted. I'm not arguing either side, but it's possible that there is a bias against older people based on anecdotal experience. To you point though, there probably are many things that factor into the policy. If older people are driving less, they still are a lower risk to crash as a demographic.

4
partial_accumenreply
lemmy.world

Please stop sending traffic to CBS. They cancelled Colbert and are actively sabotaging 60 Minutes trying to turn it into a state propaganda machine.

To this point, I was wondering does anyone know a way in Lemmy so simply auto-block any stories posted from CBS news at the user level? I'm not asking for a community wide ban as we should each be able to make our own choices, but I'm personally not interested in giving CBS any traffic.

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Mike Dreply
piefed.social

Somewhat related I have a plugin for Firefox that won't let me go to any sites owned by Rupert Murdock.

Should be easy do for CBS.

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dan1101
lemmy.world

With all the zombies driving around this seems like a bad idea.

But I will say that someone driving 20 under the speed limit and making sudden maneuvers with no warning is less dangerous than a road rager. A bit.

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atomicbocksreply
sh.itjust.works

My friend in high school actually failed the driving test for “being too cautious”, you’re still a hazard for other drivers if you’re going too slow too.

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