FishFace

I don't understand how regex comes into it? Sounds tricky though!

It's a shame that you're so quick to express skepticism but so reluctant to do any research of your own, because the facts are a bit embarrassing with the exact same trend in the USA as in the UK.

Driver safety peaks in the 60s, and only moderately worsens after then. The large increase in fatal accidents, by the way, is clearly a result of older drivers being more vulnerable in a crash - because the chart at the bottom doesn't show any such large increase for passengers and others.

I'm interested to know if this changes your mind.

It predates the Victorians by some centuries, in fact!

You can just say "a group of X called a Y" about anything and people on the internet will believe it.

That doesn't affect the ability of older drivers, only the number of them.

In fact, since one reason very old drivers might get more accident prone is because they stop driving as much and lose some of the skills, you would expect that, if older Americans really persist in driving more as they get older (you haven't provided any evidence that they do) they would retain those skills and be less accident prone, not more, so would be safer, and less at need of re-tests, than their UK counterparts.

Focusing on the driving safety of the elderly is a classic example of Saliency Bias. A 20-year old kid wrecking his car is nothing unusual so you don't remember it when thinking about safety. An 80 year old who can't even remember which way to turn the wheel getting in a wreck is unusual and extreme, so it's more salient. Getting stuck behind an elderly driver gives you the impression that they're a bad and hence unsafe driver, which contributes to this.

The Israeli government has declared this comment anti-semitic and offensive.

Unfortunately they weren't able to show how it was false.

The problem with "self-driving" tech punting you into the oncoming lane is that you may have no time to react. Reaction times are non-zero, also when reacting to your own car doing something unexpected.

Fact is that if you want to spend some money, time or political capital on improving road safety, targeting older drivers is not where you should focus your efforts. The fact that it frequently is, is due to ageism.

In the absence of forthcoming data (hint hint), what factors do you think differ between the UK and USA which affect the ability of very old/very young drivers?

This is your regular reminder that it's generally not older people who are high-risk drivers: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/628ce5c7e90e071f68b19dfa/02-image-2.svg

Drivers get safer until about 70, and only get less safe than your average young driver when over 86.

There is a perception that older drivers are an absolute liability on the roads, which I can only assume stems from impatient people who get frustrated when stuck behind an older driver going more slowly than they'd like.

Really, you can't think of any reason to be upset that you're required to take an exam that you then pass?