Persuasive Essay On Elderly Drivers

Introduction
The aging process is one that comes with many obstacles to our daily lives. Illnesses are developed, handicaps are acquired, and simple, everyday capabilities, such as seeing and hearing, slowly become less and less unflawed. Muscles and bones begin to lose their strength, and reaction times begin to decrease. In order to be a safe and capable driver, one must be able to both see, and hear, their surroundings, as well as be able to quickly, and efficiently, react to any sudden obstacles in those surroundings. Whether or not elderly drivers are able to do these things is a topic for much debate. Many believe that older drivers should be tested on a yearly basis. Others believe that driving is a right that should not, and cannot,

Approximately one in three people in the United States between the ages of 65 and 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing (National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders, 2017). Hearing can impact driving because the person will not be able to pick up on “distractors” such as car horns, people yelling, and the hustle and bustle of everyday traffic. There was a significant interaction between hearing impairment and distracters, such that people with moderate to severe hearing impairment had significantly poorer driving performance in the presence of distracters than those with normal or mild hearing impairment (Hickson, Wood, Chaparro, Lacherez, & Marszalek, 2010). Most people with significant hearing loss wear hearing aids but can forget to put them on or think that they are “too good” for hearing aids. Some elderly people feel embarrassed to admit that they cannot hear well which leads to anxiety and feelings of loneliness and desperation. If a mandatory annual exam was done to check their hearing, they could monitor their hearing loss and save themselves and others from an avoidable