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NEW GROUP CALLS FOR “SAFE ROADS NOW”

Urges Action on Road Safety and Driver Retesting

 

BOSTON – Today, 10 organizations and individuals working together as Safe Roads Now urged Massachusetts leaders to act on road safety and driver retesting in a comprehensive and timely manner. The group – including AARP Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Association of Councils on Aging and Senior Center Directors, and Elizabeth Dugan, Ph.D., author of The Driving Dilemma: The Complete Resource Guide for Older Drivers and Their Families – proposes to expand on Senate Bill No. 2043, An Act Relative to Driver Impairment, which establishes a commission to address the broad issues of road safety.

 

Spurred to action by legislative proposals aimed solely at age-based driver retesting, Safe Roads Now believes such a narrow focus will result in costly changes that will do little to improve safety.  “We urge policy leaders to address the issues of road safety and driver retesting – in a careful, comprehensive, and timely way,” says Deborah Banda, AARP Massachusetts state director. 

 

“The current system for driver renewal and testing is antiquated in that it is not designed to evaluate a driver’s functional ability and does not account for the gains in human longevity,” says Elizabeth Dugan, Ph.D.  In Massachusetts, at five year intervals, drivers may renew licenses by phone, mail or online without any testing; at ten year intervals, drivers must renew in-person at the Registry of Motor Vehicles and pass a vision test.

 

In letters, sent today, to Governor Deval Patrick, Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray and Chairs of the Joint Committee on Transportation, Senator Steven Baddour and Representative Joseph Wagner, Safe Roads Now says, “We believe that none of the bills currently pending before the Massachusetts legislature goes far enough to address this issue in a comprehensive manner.  Ideally, we would like to see a new law in place that truly corrects deficiencies in the current system.

 

“We propose to expand upon the framework outlined in Senate Bill No. 2043, An Act Relative to Driver Impairment.  A clearly defined timeline and specific areas to address must be incorporated into a redrafted version.”  These areas include:

 

• Evaluate testing methods that focus on a driver’s functional ability and detect functional impairments.
• Review state license renewal processes that have been updated recently, such as California and Maryland.
• Define programs in addition to those offered by the Registry of Motor Vehicles to identify unsafe drivers such as existing efforts by law enforcement and opportunities with Councils on Aging and senior centers.

 

“We are looking to expand upon Senate Bill No. 2043 so that the commission can come up with the most comprehensive solution to road safety and driver retesting, but within a specific timeframe,” says David Stevens, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Councils on Aging and Senior Center Directors.  “We want to look at the innovations that have been implemented in other states – and update the current driver testing system in a way that weeds out unsafe drivers, while not breaking the bank.”

 

Following are the initial organizations and individuals working as part of Safe Roads Now:  AARP Massachusetts; Alzheimer’s Association Massachusetts/New Hampshire Chapter; Massachusetts Association of Councils on Aging and Senior Center Directors; Jon Bailey, TRIAD Officer, Waltham Police; Juergen Bludau, MD; Elizabeth Dugan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School; Massachusetts Silver Legislature; Elin Schold-Davis, Coordinator, Older Driver Initiative, American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc.; Nina M. Silverstein, Ph.D., Professor of Gerontology, University of Massachusetts Boston; and, Robert Stern, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine.

 

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