Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Driving and Individual Liberty versus Potential Liberty

When I began writing this post it was going to be about how frustrating elderly drivers can be and how difficult it is to pass legislation regulating them. I had just listened to a program on NPR about making roads safer that had focused specifically on the elderly. As I’m sure is obvious to most people, many elderly drivers are a menace on the road and, according to this show, demonstrate a considerable drop-off in road safety after the age of 75. On the other hand, the problem with improving that situation is that the elderly consistently vote (unlike equally unsafe teenagers) and no legislator wants to upset old folks.

As I’ve considered this topic, however, it has occurred to me that the issue is really about freedom. Elderly people oppose laws that restrict their rights because those laws would allow them to do fewer things.

What’s interesting about this debate is the fact that the elderly, by virtue of their opposition to new laws, seem to be aware that those laws would limit their privileges. This in turn represents an acknowledgement that they may in fact be unsafe. Yet despite the fact that stricter rules would make roads safer, elderly people still oppose them.

Clearly, elderly drivers who oppose new laws value personal freedom over general safety. For what it’s worth I think that’s a fair position to take and one that I share in some instances. (For example, I hate airport security measures and would gladly accept the risk of terrorism if it meant a less invasive screening process.)

However, the issue isn’t as simple as restricting or maintaining elderly drivers’ right to their car keys. If the elderly were merely annoying on the road the issue wouldn’t be that difficult (freedom versus annoyance seems like an easy choice). Instead however, when elderly drivers drive recklessly they often hurt or kill other people. Obviously, if someone is dead or limb-less their freedom has also been significantly reduced. In fact, a dead person has quite a bit less freedom than an old person who can no longer drive.

Thus, the issue of elderly driving seems to revolve around two kinds of freedom that I like to think of as “real freedom” and “potential freedom.” In the first case “real freedom” is the actual, demonstrable ability of a person or people to do something. An individual elderly driver, for example, will absolutely lose some freedom if laws are tightened and it's easy to know exactly who would be affected by new laws. “Potential freedom,” however, affects nameless people who statistics say have been saved. Once a new law is enacted it's usually impossible to identify specific people who have been affected. In other words, potential freedom abstractly affects someone, somewhere, somehow.

Though these labels are just my own invention I think the idea is an important one because it provides an excuse for real-world political and social action. An elder driver might believe that they won’t hit someone, despite the fact that they have a slower reaction time. They won’t miss a stop sign because their eyesight is bad. But they will lose their license if new laws go into place. Therefore, they oppose them.

The problem with this, however, is that it weighs two unequal things. The inability to drive would surely be frustrating, but losing the right to be alive is also a much bigger deal. How many real, flesh-and-blood drivers should lose their licenses in order to preserve one nameless, hypothetical person? Statistically speaking, we know that people will die but without a name or a face they seem less important than grandma and grandpa.

Personally, I believe that the elderly should have stiff regulations imposed on their driving. I don’t think that their inconvenience is worth risking unnecessary lives. However, I recognize that it is difficult to balance freedom with safety, especially when we’ll never know whose lives are saved. Elderly driving is also only one example of this dilemma. Airport security is another, as are security measures in schools and public places, smoking and alcohol laws, weapons laws, and a multitude of other issues. (Come to think of it, the entire ideology behind libertarianism is based on an assertive, and I’d argue painfully simplistic, assessment of the relationship between real and potential freedom.)

In the end, then, this post is less about how frustrating elderly drivers are and more about the difficulty of ensuring that people are safe while they exercise their rights. In a country like the United States, where the word freedom is pretty much synonymous with “good,” these are hard questions indeed.

4 comments:

  1. About elderly driving laws:

    What about a law that says once you're over 70 you have to come in and take vision and reaction-based tests every two years or something like that? Or get a 'doctor's note' saying they wouldn't be a danger on the roads. Then it's not too much different than, say, someone with diabetes who wants to drive who has to take extra tests before being allowed to.

    I like your idea of real versus potential. Like the drunk driving laws. Whose rights are more important? I know where I stand on that, but it's a similar situation.

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  2. I like your thoughts. I agree that there should be stricter measures in place on elderly drivers. There are things like state-funded programs that help elderly people get around. If we could encourage and promote options like that to balance out all the discussion of "lost freedom," perhaps the elderly wouldn't see it as such a problem.

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  3. While you have a valid point, Jim, I think there are still greater road hazards than the elderly. Cliche as it is, cell phones in any form are an undeniable distraction. At least old people have two hands on the wheel and can stay within the lines, at least from what I've seen.

    Plus, I am a huge proponent of rights for them ol' people. Maybe they should only be allowed to drive during certain hours of the day. Maybe they should be retested each year starting at age 75.

    I am willing to sacrifice a little safety so our elderly can keep some rights. I don't think there's enough of that give-and-take in our democracy today.

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  4. I wonder if part of the problem, too, is that elderly people feel restricted with laws about driving. I have a grandmother that is 94; I am very close to her, and we talk about these kinds of things all the time. She willingly gave up driving for three reasons: she was scared to death to drive on the road "with all those idiots out there"; she was afraid she'd get sick while driving and get hurt; and she was afraid she'd hurt someone else. She was about 90; before then, she was one of the safest drivers I knew. But giving up driving was a big issue for her because giving it up meant giving up her independence. Now, she has to rely on other people to go to the store for her (awkward when she needs personal items), take her to the doctor (at least three times a month), and take her to do anything she wants to do. Now that she's growing sicker that's not a huge issue because she'd much rather stay at home than go out. But when she gave up driving, it was a big sacrifice for her.

    Elderly people are in a tough spot because their bodies are slowly shutting down and they are becoming more needy physically (and sometimes mentally). They know what it's like to be young and free and healthy, but they don't have that anymore. In a way, they become like children. The difference is children don't know they are children (or they don't care), but the elderly know that they can't do things and they have a hard time letting go of the freedoms they have enjoyed for so long. Driving is a huge mark of independence in our society (most teenagers can't wait for that day when they can drive and have that freedom), and it's hard to give that up.

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