I have no idea why you’re thinking I’m anti-vax. I’m pro-vax. I’m also pro proving you can drive to drive, but we don’t do that in the US and the reason is in large swaths of the land, if you can’t drive you’re going to die alone in your house due to lack of food, medicine or other needed things. Because the only way to get them is to drive to the darn store.

But the other thing that isn’t teased out that I can see is how that riskier driving interacts with cities. That is, NY data is by population overwhelmed by the NYC area, and maybe Buffalo. But that’s by land area - you know, places people might drive - like 1% of the state. So when you’re likely to be the only car on the road, or one of a few - how does the risk change there from a public policy perspective?

So - we should compare fatalities from potentially poor driving to expected fatalities from being unable to get necessities where they’re living because they can’t drive. I’d argue if the latter is higher, then they should keep driving from a safety perspective across a state population.

Now, because I like arguing on the internet, I’ll pick apart your reply to me.

Letting blind people with dementia unsafely operate motor vehicles so they can run people over while trying to get to grocery stores and medical

You talk like most elderly drivers ought to be in an assisted care home - that they probably can’t manage to put on pants in the morning. Or would forget that they’re actually driving. Sure, for that extreme I agree, they’re a danger to themselves just living alone, forget about driving.

nor is it an acceptable stopgap till public transportation can pick up the slack. It’s gotta stop right now.

Ok, so if you read that - we’re going to take away the only form of transportation for these people and worry about fixing it later - that’s what lead to my initial reply. Do you dispute this? Am I making an unfounded leap of logic that many people need a car to get to a store and bring back food? And these people tend to not be in heavily populated areas.

I feel sorry for old people who have no other way to get around, I really do.

I think this part is way too broad a statement. To me, it reads like you mean anyone that could be designated as old. You certainly were not as clear in the first post. I’d argue your problem is you’ve been focusing on age rather than driving ability in all your replies. There are plenty of younger unsafe drivers. And instead of acting ageist, you could have focused on tested driving ability. But you didn’t initially, and are now pivoting in the second post like I should have read this out of the first post, though also berating me from reading into your posts.

Note too that there’s a lot of waffling between your stats on being 65+ and your various characterizations as dangerous. I imagine if you actually defined your terms there I might agree more with you. I really thought your characterizations

Letting blind people with dementia was hyperbole because if that is what you mean exactly - I don’t think we actually let blind people drive. By policy anyway, IDK about enforcement - and in any case that’s so anodyne a point as to make me wonder why you even posted. So I was left inferring from the stats you posted, which again all seemed to be completely about age and not at all about ability.

I firmly believe the reason the US makes it so easy to get and keep a drivers license is because the states don’t think there’s an alternative for enough people that trying to change that would get them voted out. So not having a solution to offer is also just saying you want to complain into the internet that the world isn’t perfect according to you. Again, no shit.