Dr. Liisa Hakamies-Blomqvist is one of the world’s leading accident
researchers and Scientific Director of the Swedish National Road &
Transport Research Institute. Sweden, with its VISION ZERO POLICY,
is one of the safest countries in the world to drive and they don’t
have an age-based policy. We can remember her warning:

“Based on the generally accepted albeit erroneous idea of older drivers
as a high-risk group, age-related screening is often suggested as an
effective safety measure. The general idea would be to regularly “check”
licence holders after a certain age in order to exclude from the driver
population those with increased accident risk. This idea, jumping up again
& again, like a Jack-in-the-box, has support from many directions. Not
only has it some (simplistic) face validity but it also creates visions
of wonderful business opportunities. In the ageing Europe, the professions
vested with the screening tasks would get numerous new work opportunities &
anyone inventing a testing gimmick for driver risk and getting it included
into a pan-European standard equipment would greatly increase his/her personal wealth.”

May 4, 2015