Thursday, December 4, 2014

The Blues of the Elderly Driver

Through my 40+ years of being a bicyclist, there have been a number of times that I've voluntarily given up driving a car and have used my bicycle as my primary transportation. These periods have always been the happiest times in my life, and I think it proves, at least for me, a tie between physical exercise and my ability to objectify life and enjoy it more. To "objectify" life simply means to have the ability to look at things as they are, as opposed to through "self pity" or "overdramatic" views.

When I can honestly look at things the way they are, I have no choice but to be happy, with the ideal family, health, career and religious pictures in my life. Anyone in my situation would have to be insane to not be happy. With exercise, at times when I have bicycled like a lunatic, it has been easier to be happy, to see life as it really is.

The times that I have commuted by bicycle are many:

  • From when I graduated from high school in 1971 for about a year in the Denver area.
  • When I lived in Tucson and Bisbee Arizona in the early to mid 1970s
  • From 1978 to about 1981 during the White Poison Strike (I'll have to blog about the White Poison Strike some day lol)
  • From 1984 to about 1986 in East El Paso
  • After Bonnie and I got married, I bike commuted through the early 1990s when we lived in Denver
  • After a long break, I did it for about 8 months in 2011 and 2012


There are probably quite a few more times that I've done it. But, I'm over 60 and my life has been long, and memory fades. But I would say a good estimate would be that over 2/3 of my adult years I depended on cycling as my primary transportation.

I think I'm reasonably comfortable with the idea of doing it again. If you've read my blogs over the past couple of years (I have around 150 or so dedicated readers – I don't know who they are, but I know they're there lol) you know I've thought seriously about going back to a car-free or car-light lifestyle again.

Something else has come up that may force the decision. Gradually, over the past 15 years or so, my driving ability has deteriorated. I'm not afraid to admit it – I'm a poor driver. I've discovered that I cannot process information as quickly as in the past. Traffic situations where I used to be able to make a split-second decision and go now give me trouble. I have to look at everything, think things through, make a decision, and proceed. Common traffic situations now confuse me. The result is that I drive more slowly, afraid to proceed at a normal speed. I discovered that driving the speed limit frequently frightens me.

Additionally, I'm having trouble with details. My mind wanders and I miss intersections where I was supposed to make a turn. Just this past Friday night, at about 11pm when I was driving downtown, I made a left-hand turn and came within inches of hitting a pedestrian. He had the walk signal, and was crossing within the crosswalk perfectly legally; I just didn't notice him. He had to jump back to avoid my car.

I see a lot of elderly people driving, and many of them drive slowly and unpredictably, and I think dangerously. What I see in my own driving echoes what I see in them. I have become the older person that blocks traffic because he is too frightened to go the speed limit. It's me. Damn.

Well, the happy thing is that if my driving deteriorates any further, I have an out. I have something in the wings that is within my comfort zone, that I have spent a good portion of my life doing already.

And that is, of course, using my bicycle and/or public transportation instead of a car. I could not possibly live in a more convenient location to do this. I live just a ten minute walk from the big Eastside bus terminal, which has an express bus leaving for downtown (where I work as a Greyhound Manager) every 14 minutes all day long. Additionally, the distance from home to work is only a little over 8 miles, which is well within my current bicycle riding range.

But there's a difference between going car-free because you have the option, and going car-free because you're getting too old and can no longer drive safely. That's hard to swallow.

I don't think I'm going to give up driving yet, but if my ability to drive deteriorates any further, I may have to just for safety sake.

It makes me feel sorry for the elderly people that continue to drive dangerously. Either they cannot admit to themselves that they have become poor drivers, or they actually don't realize it. Plus add in the fact that they may not have an out – bicycling – that I have. It's like being trapped.

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