In a recent issue of Time magazine was printed a brief article, though not well thought-out, concerning the rapidly-increasing number of elderly drivers in America. The article highlighted a couple who had gotten lost driving home, who ended up driving across two states before being found, as it happened, quite by coincidence, by a savvy police officer.

What troubled me about the article is that it focused entirely upon disability as a function of age. Certainly, the point has merit, no matter the circumstances or the activity of the elderly person. Still, while the aged as drivers should be scrutinized, there is no similar scrutiny for the rest of us. The issue that the article failed miserably to address is that the roads today are not made dangerous primarily by the elderly driver. The highways are made dangerous by the motorist driving too fast, too aggressively, too recklessly, darting in and out of traffic especially at high speed, driving twenty, as much as thirty miles an hour, sometimes more, beyond what is posted.

Not to put too fine a point on it, it is well documented that highways are also made lethal by the motorist distracted for an indefinite period of time. While the list of potential distractions while driving unfortunately is long, including reading a business report or a woman applying makeup (one woman lost her eye to a mascara brush when she collided with the car ahead), the distraction most frequent and that which is most feared is spawned by some function of  a motorist’s cell telephone.

In point of fact, the elderly usually do not commute or drive for business, nor do they telephone while driving. Elderly drive to doctor appointments, to buy groceries, to visit friends and family. Their travel mostly is local. Rarely are these motorists on the highways, the Interstates during hi-volume periods, or traveling long distances.

It is an easy trap to fall into for the spryer among us to become impatient behind a car driven by an elderly person, waiting endlessly, it sometimes seems, for him to accelerate to speed or make a turn, or just to navigate ordinary traffic. The horn and frenetic gestures, aggression, angry expressions, and loud, unkind words descend upon these people as our condemnation. Furthermore, I think it is safe to say here for the official record that elderly drivers are neither capable of nor predisposed to road rage. Incidentally, who among us has not become impatient, even infuriated stuck behind someone immersed in texting when the light turns green?

Insurance company statistics across the board honor Washington, D.C./Maryland as the harboring the most dangerous drivers in America. Anyone who lives here or has driven these roadways can quickly comprehend this accolade. Consequently, insurance rates here are understandably higher than elsewhere in the nation. However, it is not the elderly motorist who is responsible for driving either this statistic or the higher insurance rates.

Just this week, I drove south on Jeff Davis Highway, between Potomac Yard and the train bridge. Alexandria recently dramatically lowered the speed on this stretch of road from thirty-five miles an hour to twenty-five, with plenty of signage to this effect. Consequently, every one of the twenty-or-so motorists traveling this stretch of pavement with me that morning were, as was I, within a couple mph of the posted speed.

Notwithstanding, by all appearances, an increasingly-angry, progressively-frustrated woman driving her car directly behind me hugged so close the bumper of my van that I could see her face in my mirror only intermittently. Once an opportunity presented itself, she sped past me, offering both the racing of her engine and an ugly glare as her admonishment. Her new-found thrill of the open highway was cut short about three blocks later when she encountered yet more traffic at the first stop light to Old Town. Neither did his new roadblock stop her; she continued her campaign of aggression with the new group of motorists. Incidentally, the woman driving so aggressively was not elderly.

There is a longstanding feud between Virginia drivers and Maryland drivers. Drivers from Virginia historically are more sedate, preferring to motor safely and according to the posted speed. Maryland drivers, on the other hand, historically drive faster and, let’s not mince words, more aggressively. With voters apparently in favor of higher taxes at home, Maryland consumers have since descended upon Virginia retail establishments for goods and services. Consequently, Virginia roadways are clogged with impatient, angry, aggressive drivers.

Some states have enacted special laws governing the licensing of drivers above a certain age, including age-specific driving tests. While this scrutiny certainly has merit, if only to monitor the aging process as it pertains to declining motor and cognitive skills, legislators across the country, and the United States Congress, as well, seem to have suffered paralysis for what is now decades when it comes to acting to protect everyone’s security by refusing to outlaw the use of all functions of the cell phone by the operator of a motor vehicle. It is the conversation that creates the impairment, not the holding of the telephone.

In as much as we are not only predisposed, but hasty to look for and cast blame upon others for circumstances both within and outside of our control, it would behoove us to look first to ourselves for what we can control. Purging our nation’s roadways of the elderly to make seemingly-unfettered way for the impatient and aggressive, impetuous, reckless, rage-filled driver will not make these same roadways any safer. It only makes these roads younger.

Doren K. Weston