Growing Older With Driving

Growing older is something that is going to happen no matter how hard you try to “not” act your age. As a side effect of growing older, one of the unfortunate things that we often have to experience is a dulling of our reflexes. For example, if you have ever driven with an older person, typically you can observe how their response time is not always as sharp as that of someone who is younger (though this is certainly not always the case).

Recently, I had to drive somewhere with my grandmother when I noticed that her driving was beginning to make me nervous. At one point, she was driving in the wrong lane because her wheels were very clearly over the line, thereby cutting into someone else s lane. In a situation like this, what do you do? Do you correct the person who is driving? Do you wait for another driver to honk at you? Or do you simply sit back with your eyes closed and hope that you don t get into an accident? In that particular case, I chose the third option.

Being 78 years old and still sharp as a whip, my grandmother is fully able to take care of herself and is not shy about telling people how much she enjoys driving. Driving, in her case, is freedom. It allows her to get out and explore the area that she lives in. She can go shopping on her own, and it gives her a sense of independence that many of her other friends her age have since lost a long time ago. But how do you tell someone that their driving makes them nervous? Is it simply a product of getting older?

I shudder to think about how my driving will look if I am lucky enough to reach the ripe old age of 80 years old. It is something best to not think about. With my parents or brother or boyfriend, I am not shy at all about telling them how awful their driving can be at times. If I feel that they are following someone too close or are about to change lanes dangerously, sometimes I will let them know that it s probably not a good idea. Don t get me wrong; I am NOT a backseat driver by any stretch of the imagination, which is probably why I don t want to seem like one to my grandmother.

I guess that my grandmother s driving makes me nervous because I am nervous for her. I worry that she is going to get herself into an accident one day simply because she was not paying attention or didn t have the reflexes to react to someone elses bad driving. This is someone who doesn t use her cell phone and doesn t even listen to her radio when other people are in the car and she s driving. That being said, she s following the rules of trying to be as alert as possible, although it s still not having the intended effect that it ought to.