Maine, With Road Safety in Mind, Seeks Volunteers to Chauffeur Seniors Around

AUGUSTA, Me. — In rural, rugged Maine, where houses can be miles apart and public transportation is spotty at best, having a car can be a matter of survival.

And in a state known for its independent-minded inhabitants, the privilege of driving seems more like a natural right.

That explains why the reaction was so virulent when a state panel issued a report suggesting that all motorists over 40 take tests to ensure they are mentally capable of driving. Many took it as a threat to their freedom and the idea was dropped.

“If you take away our driving permits, you take both our legs away,” 87-year-old Frank Duffy of Bangor said at a public hearing. “It makes me mad. I’m scared of this task force.”

There’s a flip side.

In the last two decades, the number of drivers over 65 has doubled. The National Safety Council said older drivers have a poorer record than their middle-aged counterparts, when the number of miles driven is taken into account.

Maine’s Legislature created a task force to assess the transportation needs of older people--with safety of all drivers taken into account. The tests for drivers over 40 was a preliminary proposal.

“I don’t think you’re going to see a test for cognitive ability of drivers until you see testing for cognitive ability of legislators,” said a task force member, state Sen. John O’Dea.

The task force changed its tack after the over-40 testing suggestion was abandoned; it rallied around a proposal that borrows from a tradition as old as taking Granddad for a Sunday ride.

A pool of volunteer drivers would be organized so a fleet of chauffeurs would be on call to give seniors rides when they need to get to the store, the doctor, a relative or to run other chores.

The panel hopes that creating such a network would encourage drivers who shouldn’t be behind the wheel to stop driving, without restricting their mobility. The volunteer drivers might be freed from certain liabilities so they would be willing to offer their services.

Admitting you should stop driving isn’t an easy thing to do, said Kathy Freund, chairwoman of the Task Force to Study the Safe Mobility of Maine’s Aging Population.

“For some reason, we think we’ll drive forever,” she said. “The time we should stop driving is something we approach, but never get there.”

Dorothy Abbott, 91, said she has always enjoyed driving. She used to make frequent trips more than 400 miles south to New Jersey but now restricts herself to 30 or 40 miles from her Portland home.

To keep her skills sharp, Abbott has completed a safe-driving course for seniors. Also, “I don’t drive after dark, I drive more slowly than I used to, and I think I am more careful.”

The volunteer driver proposal will be taken up by the Legislature. In the meantime, the American Assn. of Retired Persons has agreed to provide a $25,000 grant to Freund for a more detailed look at transportation alternatives for seniors.

She envisions a database of volunteer drivers who could be contacted through a toll-free telephone number. Users might be able to accumulate credits entitling them to rides in a number of ways.

For example, older people who decide to quit driving could trade their cars for blocks of credits. Younger motorists who volunteer as drivers could accumulate credits for use in their later years.

Motorists could chalk up credits by purchases through certain credit cards, said Freund, who believes any successful program would be run as a business, with users paying for the service once their credits run out. That would free the state of any financial burden.

“I’m trying to develop a very consumer-oriented service people would choose,” said Freund, who would like to set up a demonstration project--the nation’s first--in a year.