Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
I think the restricting old people argument saves lives in a way that doesn't show up in statistics, because even low-speed/minor-injury car accidents canhave severe consequences for the elderly.
Story time: I had a great aunt who shouldn't have been driving in her eighties. She had an at-fault t-bone accident in an intersection. The other driver wasn't injured, but she had a broken hip. That wouldn't have counted as a fatality accident in any statistics, but it definitely precipitated her death. She never walked again, and was released from the hospital directly to a care facility where she died shortly thereafter.
Her long-time family doctor had signed her medical release previously, which was ridiculous, but I feel bad for Dr's needing to be the bad guy on that stuff - it really should be a gov't test.
So in that case, while it wasn't a direct fatality, the cost of repairing two vehicles plus a long hospital stay plus a few months in long term care add up to a pretty significant societal cost. Even if you assume she would have died shortly thereafter from something else, having her not drive would have saved society a bunch of money and her a bunch of pain and suffering.
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She likely didn’t have a life insurance product at that time that the change in risk from her not dying would have affected the probability of payout.
I am way down a rabbit hole of disagreeing with Iggy that insurance companies would pay for some of the retesting because it would reduce their costs. While your above example is likely a benefit of medical testing for drivers license renewals it it’s unlikely to change the profitability of insurance companies.