Here's a recent example:
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news...fe_then_s.html

 

When I become governor, here will be the rules.
All driver's retake their road test on their 75th birthday and every five years, there after.
A doctor's note certifying that the driver has good reflexes and reactions required when driver turns 85 and every two years thereafter.
Insurance companies create a separate pool of drivers aged 75 and above and require those drivers to share the risk (not with the general population). This will drive down the cost of insurance for everyone else and drive up the cost of insurance for the older drivers. Some (hopefully) will give up driving when it becomes too expensive.
I'm sure AARP will lobby against me, but these folk should NOT be driving.

 

>>Insurance companies create a separate pool of drivers aged 75 and above . . .

Good ideas. I'd even stiffen the testing requirements and apply some of them to any driver who receives more than 1 moving violation in a 2-year period.

I doubt your separate insurance pool would save anyone else money, though. While aged drivers have accident rates that approximate young males on per miles driven basis, they drive so many fewer miles their low insurance rates are actuarially sound on a per driver basis.

 

Two weeks have passed now since I posed this question, and there have been no reports posted, so far.

Yet less than 9% of the respondents to this poll voted for the floor mat.

In the mean time, Toyota has finally issued the related recall for the TCH - and significantly it addressed only the floor mat problem - no other.

There is some kind of a disconnect here. Does Toyota have a much narrower view of the possible causes than we do ?

Two thoughts occur to me:

1. Perhaps most respondents answered the poll generally (all incidents, all cars); so maybe we could use a new poll seeking responses related SPECIFICALLY to the TCH.

2. Maybe I could draw more response to the question if I post it in a separate thread. I'm going to try that.

 

Toyota has hundreds of engineers, thousands of hours of testing and tens of thousands of data items to process....all we have are hunches, thoughts, guesses and ideas as to what the problem is.
I'll put my money on Toyota's assessment.
No disconnect, IMHO.

 

Yeah ! I was actually hoping that results of a TCH specific poll would SUPPORT your view.

The results of the current one do not seem to.

 

As long as you do the same for the under-25 population. Over-medicated seniors are no more a hazard than self-medicated teens or 20-somethings with Michael Schumacher fantasies and delusions of immortality.

 

Under 25 year olds pay a premium on their auto insurance (seniors don't...I believe).
In some states 16 (or 17) year olds can't drive after dark nor with more than one person in the car.

 

Senior surcharges are experiential (i.e., claims and accidents bring them on.) Compensating factors that reduce risk are typically lower annual mile count, and relative lack of exposure in 'high risk' times (e.g. rush hours).

Don't get me wrong - indication that a given person is an incompetent driver (moving violations, DUI, DWD, wrecks, etc.) should result in surcharges. But making the surcharges based on arbitrary criteria is patently unfair, and doesn't accurately price risk.

 

Frodo, I don't disagree with you, but I've seen too many old drivers effectively create an accident with the way they drive, but end up either the not at fault party or not involved at all. While surcharges may not be the way to go, I fully support regular medical checks based on age. There should be a mandatory physical every 10 years till 40 and then the gap decreases to maybe once every 2 years after 65 or 70.