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AAA and SOV Poland host safe driving course for seniors
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Bill Davis examined a pamphlet before the start of the AAA Safe Driving Course for Mature Operators at Shepherd of the Valley Poland Campus.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.AAA East Central safety advisor Lori Cook spoke to senior drivers about ways they can improve their driving skills at Shepherd of the Valley Poland Campus.
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Neighbors | Tim Cleveland.Senior drivers attended the AAA Safety Course for Mature Operators at Shepherd of the Valley Poland Campus.
By TIM CLEVELAND
With more and more seniors continuing to drive as they get older, AAA decided to conduct a class to educate them on ways to improve and keep their driving skills sharp.
On May 19 and 21, AAA and Shepherd of the Valley Poland Campus hosted a Safe Driving Course for Mature Operators. The class lasted from 10 a.m. until noon when there was a lunch break. The class resumed at 1 p.m. and lasted until 3 p.m. There will also be a class in August.
“We probably started this course about four years ago, partnering with Shepherd of the Valley here in Poland,” said AAA East Central safety advisor Lori Cook, who conducted the course. “There was a demand for it. AAA is approved by the state of Ohio to deliver this course and on top of it they can get an insurance discount. With an aging population, we see the need for seniors to improve their driving. They have good judgment and good abilities and things change as you get older. How do we modify that? We like to get them to recognize that. You can re-adjust your mirrors so you can eliminate your blind spots, get you hands off the top of the steering wheel at 10 and 2 and now we recommend 8 and 4 so you avoid the airbag altogether.
“Think about where you go and when you go there. You and I have to go to work and we have to be at certain places at certain times. They necessarily don’t, so if it’s too bad out go tomorrow, or take a different way. If you don’t like driving the Ohio Turnpike at 70 mph, take another route to get there. Take the surface streets where speeds are slower and you’re more familiar and you’re more comfortable. We try and give them a lot of updates on vehicle technology, on being in better communication with their doctor and their pharmacist in regard to medications that might affect your driving and so forth.”
Cook explained that senior drivers keeping their hands at 8 and 4 instead of at 10 and 2 has many benefits.
“It’s less fatiguing. You’re out of the deployment area of the airbag,” she said. “Most people don’t know that. If your hands are at 10 and 2 and if you’re in a front-end collision, the airbag deploys around 140 mph so you certainly want your hands out of the way. We want them down here [at 8 and 4] where you can still do push-pull-slide steering because seniors really don’t need to make hand-over-hand turns and use these big muscles in their shoulders. It’s just not necessary. I always tell them to save their energy for the decisions you’ll have to make, not the physical act of driving a car.”
One of the attendees was Bill Davis. He said he was anxious to attend the course.
“I am extremely curious as to what AAA is going to present,” he said. “It’s a two-day event and I have tried in this area and the Columbus area to get the Department of Automobile Vehicles to institute resolutions that senior citizens should have a test on mobility and eyesight once they hit 50, say once every five years. But for that test, I’ve been arguing, they should have a discount on their automobile insurance. I haven’t been successful; I’ve had a lot of flack about it.
“I think everybody will agree that the human body slows down when you start getting past 40. What I think about that, is those that have mobility problems how quickly can they put their foot on the gas pedal, or make a turn left or right to miss something. They’re putting themselves in danger, plus whatever they come into contact with. There’s enough idiots on the road without having a handicapped citizen.”
Cook explained what lessons the course consisted of.
“We have classroom today. AAA’s Safe Driving for Mature Operators curriculum is based on eight different modules,” she said. “We’ll go through half of that today. We’ll talk about driving being filled with risk and how to do risk management. That’s a relatively new concept. We’re going to talk about their vision today and how to compensate for different losses of vision. We’re going to talk about communicating with other drivers, whether it’s keeping your windshield clean or using your turn signals more. We also talk about margin of safety, the space between you and other vehicles on the road. We go through your car, we go through you the driver, we talk a little about medications, fatigue, road rage.
“Typically this population isn’t engaging in road rage but we want them to know how to deal with it. We cover the entire gamut of everything a senior driver would need to know. This course would certainly benefit anybody, not just a mature operator.”
Cook said she had extra work for the attendees to do on Tuesday during the break from class.
“They’ll actually get homework tonight in the form of change your steering wheel, change your mirrors, change your head restraint between now and Wednesday,” she said. “When you drive, I want you to tell me how that worked so that me as an instructor, I get the feed back on what I need to tweak with them.
“The realization is somewhere down the line you and I and everybody else is not going to be able to drive. I think most of these folks would like that to be their decision. They don’t want their doctor or the police or, God forbid, the judge to decide when they should stop driving.”