Safe Speed Forums

This could go in any of about three different fora and I wasn't sure which was best, so Mods, if you think it should be moved go for it.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/4727383.stm
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Driver, 100, could lose licence

A 100-year-old motorist faces his driving licence being withdrawn despite 82 years of accident-free motoring.

Tom Soulby, from Wimborne, Dorset, is demanding to keep his licence, insisting he is fit to drive.

The retired engineer passed his last medical test aged 99 but admitted he had had a mild heart attack since then.

When his GP saw the Queen's telegram at Mr Soulby's birthday lunch he told him that he would be recommending his driving licence be withdrawn.

"It was a very big blow to me on that special day," said Mr Soulby.

"I had a luncheon at the King's Head and he'd come round and brought this card from the surgery but his name wasn't on it.

"After, he looked around and saw the Queen's telegram in my lounge and he told me he was afraid he had to cancel my driving licence.

"My licence is clean as a whistle. I haven't had an accident in 82 years."

Mr Soulby began motoring before driving tests were introduced and said he used to teach people how to drive.

A spokesman for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) said: "Drivers over the age of 70 every three years have to fulfil a self-declaration that they are medically fit to continue driving.

"The doctor cannot revoke it themselves but the doctor can inform the DVLA of the driver's condition and recommend to us that he may be no longer fit to drive in their opinion."
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Okay, I'm no doctor and really don't know if Mr Soulby is safe to drive or not. But what I'm bothered about is that there seems to be a very similar mentality to "speed kills" in that the concern seems to be over a number rather than the individual's real ability. He may well be unfit to drive, but that isn't something that can be automatically assumed by looking at the date on his birth certificate or noticing he's got a telegram from the Queen. As an aside WTH kind of doctor is it that doesn't notice a patient is 100 until they spot the bloody telegram when he rocked up at the party to give the guy a birthday card? I really, really hope that's just bad reporting.

Anyhow, that's really not the point. What is the point is that in this case there seems to have been an assumption that there's a magic number that can define being too old to drive. If Mr Soulby's heart attack, or any other medical condition, makes him unfit to drive then fine, that's the time to take him off the road. But handing over a card to someone on a specific birthday and saying "sorry mate, you shouldn't be driving anymore now" is not merely insensitive but also just plain daft.

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

story's in the tabloids "Wail" "Express" and "Mirror"

Mad Lad is probably better able to talk about the medical side of this and believe he has used this medical ethical loophole once as well - reluctantly when he asked my advice over it. (Patient was fitting as result of medication and recommendation was no driving for 12 months whilst his body recovered or something as I recall.)

But Ted's patient was unfit - albeit temporarily and refused to give up driving - and gave him little choice.

This case... guy drives just 1000 miles a year in old Metro and I admire the bloke - 82 years and no endorsements or accidents - and can appreciate he's in fine health. He certainly looks a lot younger in the photo showing him holding his telegram from the Queen. Love to know his secret.

But I think he has to realise he's not getting any younger - and perhaps it's time to think about taxis instead.

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Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

Incident IG metions was acutally harder to do than break terminal news. It was just for one year whilst we established why he convulsed - annd it's standard to issue a tempo health ban - to acertain cuase and if it does not re-occur withing 12 months - very likely it will not re-occur. Patient ws terribly upset. I even had to squash the bicycle option as a convulsion whilst riding a bicycle would also be dangerous to person and others. - but what we did do was arrange for taxi/bus aid for him. It was not easy and I took a right verbal hammering from my patient over it.

Problem as I read this - and I feel for the old fellow and looking at his photo and saw him on telly as well this morning: chap came across as being healthy - hope I'm like that at 100 years old - if I make it. But not his doctor and a heart scare at that age may have weakened him a little - and maybe more than the patient realises. But not easy for him after 82 safe blemish free years of nipping to the shops in a car - perhaps he should get a second opinion. But if I were him - I'd get social services to provide him with a chauffeuse! .

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Smily to penny.. penny to pound
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Yep, like I said, it could well be that Mr Soulby should stop driving, and if there's a sound medical reason for it, no probs as far as I'm concerned. Like if his last medical had come back iffy... or his next one for that matter. But the way it's been reported (and I accept that he media may possibly have made more of it than it really is) it seems that 100 is being treated as a magic number here for defingin what is and isn't a safe age to keep driving. Just the way numbers take on a similar magical quality when ringed in red and put on a sign . Putting it another way, and not necessarily talking about Mr Soulby here, does passing your 100th birthday make you more of a risk than being 99 years and six months? Or 95? I just can't see how any particular age can be used to draw the line. (Actually I'm a litle bit surprised that the medicals are done three years apart. I thought it'd be annually.)

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Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler - Einstein

That train of thought is all well & good, but if the guy is capable of passing a medical then why should he be penalised just because he has made it to triple figures?

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