A petition launched in Portugal is causing controversy. It seeks to ban the over-75s from driving, suggesting that the current safeguards in place (regular checks by a doctor) are not enough.
Petition promoter, Nélson Manuel de Oliveira Ferreira, refers to “unacceptable situations”, citing as an example the case of elderly people driving the wrong way down a road. He posits: “These are not isolated cases; they are clear signs of incapacity”.
Ferreira’s point is that, with age, there is an inevitable “cognitive, visual and motor decline”, which negatively affects reaction times, perception and judgement. As a result, driving becomes “dangerously unpredictable”.
Renewing a driving licence requires the submission of a medical certificate attesting to a driver’s abilities, but Ferreira argues that this does not prevent a driver from, some time later, “becoming unfit to drive and continuing on the road as if nothing were wrong”.
The trouble with this petition is that it will infuriate many people – and although Mr Ferreira may be making perfectly valid points, there is already a system in place to ‘weed out’ seniors who have lost their capacities to drive. To bring in a blanket ban smacks, say many, of discrimination.
Noticiasaominuto adds that a report by the European Commission for 2024 does show that 31% of the deaths on the roads in Portugal were aged 65 or more, but then exactly the same percentage applied to the 25-49 age grouping (when these are the smallest percentage, in age terms, of the population: 21.6%).
Observador is carrying a podcast on this petition – and social media commentary has been scathing. As one commentator points out: “There are 30 year olds who drive a great deal worse than the majority of 75-year-olds. All this has to be seen on a case by case basis…” Which is almost certainly what will continue happening.
The petition was launched, by coincidence perhaps, on April 1. It is not rapidly collecting signatures. It is inching towards perhaps 500, and will need another 500 again before it could be considered by a parliamentary commission.
To reach the stage where it could be discussed in parliament, a petition needs 7,500 signatures.
This petition’s text gives no clue as to the reasons for Mr Ferreira’s focussing on over-75s, and not older. This country almost certainly has thousands of drivers over the age of 75. But he does seem to believe that it is senior citizens who are putting the lives of others at risk – something that cannot be borne out by statistics.
To give Mr Ferreira his due, his petition does call for ‘mobility alternatives for old people’ (without specifying how these would operate).
Source: noticiasaominuto/ Observador Facebook
