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Surviving Life - After - Driving
Volunteer Counselors Speak Out
Peer Counseling
Elders themselves can play a key role in assisting high-risk older drivers
reduce risk and transition to alternative transportation.
Here are two innovative examples:
Transportation Support &
Information Network
The Santa Monica-based, non-profit Center for Healthy Aging (CHA) developed The Transportation Support & Information Network in 2005, funded by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. This pilot program is testing the effectiveness of a network of
trained volunteers who respond to older drivers at risk of losing their license, those notified they will lose their license, and those whose license is unexpectedly revoked due to exam failure or arrest following a car accident.
CHA
has trained volunteer responders who first address the loss to one's sense of independence by providing understanding and emotional support. They assist individual callers in planning how to get around using a database of transportation alternatives in the caller's neighborhood. Accessed through an existing 800 number, in collaboration with the local DMV, volunteers have provided quick, effective counseling to numerous older driver in transition.
CHA also developed "Let's Talk About Driving," a series of classes designed for families, caregivers and friends worried about the safety of an aging driver, as well as interested older persons facing decisions about driving.
Driving Decisions for Seniors
When Ethel Villeneuve was 72, she awoke one night with a startling realization: "I'm not going to be able to drive the rest of my life." This sobering truth inspired Villeneuve, a former social worker, to create Driving Decisions for Seniors (DDS), in 1987. This support group helped mature drivers learn alternative means of transportation, and provided a resource for elders who needed to talk to peers about their driving.
Villeneuve's DDS was the nation's first
driving support group created for seniors by a senior. It operated
at full capacity at Campbell Senior Center in Eugene, Oregon, for
thirteen years. Although DDS is no longer in operation, Ethel
Villeneuve's insights on aging and mobility remain invaluable. We
offer some of her wisdom below, gleaned from a
1997 article in AGING TODAY.
Villeneuve says many seniors inappropriately
equate their years of driving experience with competency. "I've
heard it a thousand times, mostly from men. A seventy-year-old
driver will say, ‘I've been driving since I was seventeen. I think
my driving is fine.'" This distorted self-evaluation of driving
ability often translates into more serious traffic incidents if it
remains unchecked.
Villeneuve advises family members to ride
with older drivers to accurately evaluate a their fitness to drive.
"Everyone knows that mobility loss can build to major family crises.
But families don't talk until things are really out of control."
Villeneuve found that many older drivers
equate the need to ask for transportation assistance with personal
inferiority. "I've been through it myself," she explains. "I know
what it's like to depend on people. There's a skill involved in
asking for assistance when you need it."
Villeneuve recommends using positive
language to dispel negative attitudes about the loss of driving
privileges. "You use the correct language and you learn to ask the
right people for assistance. We don't use the word ‘help' because
that sounds helpless. The whole idea is that you stay in control of
your life."
Examples of positive language include:
instead of describing the issue as dangerous and exceptional, as in
"If I stop driving, it will kill me," consider using language that
describes the situation as uncomfortable but not atypical, as in "If
other average people can work these things out, so can I."
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