As the baby boomer bubble pushes into its eighties, we are driving into a demographic wall.
Interesting, I am one of those boomers. my insurance runs out Monday and I am selling my vehicle. This is by choice as I am going blind. I absolutely refuse to be one of those old farts that kills people by driving because they want a pack of smokes or some candy.
My scooter arrives in 2 weeks. I already have my pirate flag, and lots of cool stickers ready for it.
Hell yeah. Maybe even put a figurehead on the basket and go full pirate ship.
Those scooters look fkn fun
Hopefully! As a joke I was going to put my dash cam on it. I want to see confused people looking. Also wrote the scooter salesman on Friday asking if there was a snow plow option. Can’t wait for his reply.
Here is the scooter I am getting.
https://www.pridemobility.com/pride-mobility-scooters/victory-10-4-wheel/
You can get this baby on 3 wheels haha
Hehe, I am too rotund for 3 wheels, need 4 I am 5’10 and 270lbs. I would’ve gone for the all-terrain speedy one, but they’re almost triple the price.
This seems like stochastic terrorism combined with impunity.
It is kind of fascinating how the generational war is so lopsided. The peaceful solution, since they refuse change, is to flee and to abandon.
The world they created for themselves. Stupid shits.
I know exactly one boomer that supports public transit over cars.
No… the boomers were born and it was already that way. Could you please re-evaluate your knee-jerk hatred and maybe get some historical understanding? When was the car invented? When were highways built? How old were the boomers then?
JFC
We bulldozed the cities to make way for cars. Boomers built car centric cities and voted for car centric infrastructure despite all evidence showing this was a really bad idea. Instead of improving public transport, they elected to add more lanes and remove aidewalks to the tune of millions or billions. Every time. Again and again. Through the entire US and honestly, world
Yeah those Boomers really were the ones voting for redlining, the Eisenhower Interstate system, and bulldozing minority neighborhoods for freeways. Sure were a lot of Boomers running things in the 50s and 60s when these were at their height…
To add, the shift to car centric began with jay walking laws in the 1920’s. A quarter century before the first boomers were born.
Car centrism didn’t happen instantaneously after WWII. it was strongest in the 70s and 80s. It’s still strong now we just build it better.
If we had robust public transport for everyone, this wouldnt be as big an issue.
Dont forget that it is not generation vs generation, its the 1% vs the working class.
I love it in when so called leftists ignore the huge petite bourgeoisie class that has voted for more and freer capitalism for decades. Sure, just ignore class traitors. I’m sure it will work out.
And a friendly reminder that boomers own far more than billionaires and as such are very much invested in the system. Your poverty allows them retirement.
You’re not wrong but let’s start addressing wealth concentration with the trillionaire, and billionaires first. A lot of boomers may be millionaires but the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is a billion dollars.
also, let’s not forget that propaganda is most effective if you have a little bit of wealth and are afraid of losing it
Fact check: 1,000,000,000 - 1 ,000,000 = 999,000,000. But if you apply normal rounding rules… 😉
I’m sure millenials own more than billionaires, and gen X, and gen Z once they all reach adulthood.
Perfect age for running a fucking country. Hire them to the US gov immediately. They’ll fit right in.
Yeah, just give them the nuclear codes and they can go straight to fucking shit up.
There’s already an octogenarian with the nuke codes as it is…
Or you can view it as living in a system which may, and often does, compel all of us to eventually visit potentially deadly violence on someone else.”
I was just Watching Dead to me, which is a show about good people doing horrible things, and two of the three seasons settle on accidentally killing someone with a car.
That is to say the question “how do we have a character remain sympathetic after they’ve killed someone?” is “easy! we’ll put them behind the wheel!”
Just as the question,“How do we make this bank-robbing villain sympathetic?” is answered by “make them have to pay for their child’s treatable illness.”
We could build a better society just around making writers’ jobs more difficult.
I laughed aloud at “We could build a better society just around making writers’ jobs more difficult.”
We could even name the bills after the villains they were designed to prevent. The Thanos Act would guarantee free birth control to everyone.
That one’s going on the wall
yes, my 84 yr old mother, had a stroke in her eye and lost most of her sight in that eye, still drives no matter me telling her often not to. How she keeps her license seems to revolve around Doctor shipping, as the oldies all know the doctor to go to to get their license renewed.
She’d never take public transport if it was at her door, so you’d need something better than just good public transport, like banning everyone over 75.
My old man was legally blind and he spewed some serious invective when I took his keys away.
Having only one working eye doesn’t make driving impossible in itself. Yet, this requires training for the proper perception of distances in depth and a sufficiently working remaining eye.
What training do you think this requires? A functional eye is enough.
or make meth to pay for cancer treatment
The Heisenberg Cancer Treatment Act.
“may”?
There is always the possibility of the end of humanity.
Or for that matter another pandemic that mainly affects the elderly.
Japanese dashcam videos are a preview of what horrors to come.
Japan has passenger trains.
It will be much worse.
I don’t think it’s the train drivers but the passengers, especially come rush hour where the squeeze can be awful at the big Tokyo stations.
And yeah, level crossings can also be dangerous for drivers with poor perception and timing, they’ll just try to drive through thinking they can beat the train.
I meant: Japanese people can just take the train when they’re too old to drive themselves, the coverage for passenger services isn’t bad.
In the USA even if you don’t want to drive anymore, if no one can drive you you have no other way to get around in most places… so many more people drive and will keep driving.
Japanese people can just take the train
Given the rate of how many railway lines in Japan are being closed year after year due to falling ridership and increasing operational costs, buses and busways are supplanting the railways, and even then their timetables are also limited. Which leaves either an informal taxi service or caregivers having to do the driving for them, if they cannot be convinced to move to a care facility.
As I said in another comment elsewhere, the increasing frequency of accidents involving elderly drivers in Japan have become a serious talking point among Japanese, the popular consensus being the idea of placing more restrictions to such drivers, such as more driving examinations and how long before those drivers are no longer licensed to drive.
true, in car heavy cities, even with alot of bike/bike lanes. older people drive cars still ive seen 70-80 year olds still driving.
I’m sure it’s impossible to run more trains (/s)
Japanese dashcam videos are a preview of what horrors to come.
Throwing down a terrible stereotype here, which in my 60+ years, has turned out to be more true than not, …but older Japanese men and women are notoriously bad drivers… esp. the old men in hats.
Holy hell, do not EVER wear a hat when you drive. It sucks the ability to control a car right out of you… God’s honest, I have seen that one play out over decades and it’s frightening and it’s real and I do not know why.
A sane person would think this could maybe help encourage people to push for bus routes
Nah, the narrative will then be “just wait it out, they’ll be dead soon, crisis over” ignoring the generation getting old right behind them
But then all the n words and mayheehans will steal the transportation! —boomers
It is not just a boomer thing.
You’re absolutely right. I have a whole long list of specific health issues that mean I absolutely should not be driving, but holy hell, the amount of people (of all ages) pressuring me to get a license like I’m just lazy or refusing to ‘grow up and become an adult’ is BONKERS!
These are people that see how extremely often and ridiculously I full-on run into or sideswipe things while walking. They see how often I pass out, or my vision goes black. They want me behind the wheel of a speeding two ton death machine!? Car culture is wild.
I do feel awful being a burden on those around me who can drive, though. We don’t have any public transportation or a walkable city (not that I can walk far anyway, lol.) Trust me; if I could drive, I fucking would!
Also… Both my parents have seizures (that are NOT under control) and continue to drive, even though they definitely shouldn’t. My father has had them while driving and woke up in a ditch multiple times. They’re not boomers, either.
I met a ~26yo girl who told me I wasn’t in the same stage of life as her because I didn’t have a car…
By any other capitalistic metric, I was more “advanced” in life… But I didn’t have a car 😱 (comparing money is dumb, just making a point)
I totally get you. I’ve experienced similar! It’s super weird.
Unfortunately, in american culture, to a lot of people “having a car” means “being grown up” and “not having a car” means “not being grown up.”
It’s a childish mentality really, and indicates that that 26 year old hadn’t done any “growing up” in approximately a decade.
It reminds me of horse-riding barbarians.
Do these people not realize that there are in fact standards that prevent people with certain health problems from driving?
Only if their doctors report it or it’s painfully obvious at the DMV, from my understanding. We live in a very backwards Trump-ian red state where being able to drive - even if they obviously should not to any reasonable person - is seen as their ‘God-given constitutional right!’ like with guns. Especially since there’s no public transportation here. They’re more worried about the inconvenience to the person needing their license taken away (‘how are they gonna get to their doctors or their pharmacy for the treatment they need for their conditions?’) than they are about the innocent people they may take out when they start seizing or mix up the pedals on their drive to their doctors office. It’s a whole weird solipsistic cultural thing that I find difficult to explain.
Like, me? I obviously should not be driving, like mentioned in my previous comment (for more reasons than I listed.) I recognize that and don’t want to hurt others (which is considered weird here,) so I don’t. But I guaran-fucking-tee you I could get my license easily if I tried and I couldn’t see my doctors doing the work to get it taken away from me.
There’s also plenty of people who have had their licenses taken away - whether for medical reasons or DUIs or too many traffic violations - but still drive… Also super common here.
Sorry this reply is so long 😅 it’s something I feel strongly about + my brain is broken, like I mentioned, so I ramble, lol. 😅
Nah, I appreciate your comment. It’s hard when the answer to “should this person be driving” is ‘maybe,’ when they’re right on the edge like that. That’s something I don’t have experience with because I became unable to drive quickly enough that I couldn’t even if I wanted to.
I definitely relate to your feeling of “why would I want to put other people in danger” though. I stopped driving long before I technically had to because I didn’t want to be unsafe.
In what fucking world is it ok to avoid jail because you’re fucking old. If she’s too old to go to jail then we need an option to euthanize elderly criminals.
Would it make you feel better if it was actually because she was wealthy?
I mean i saw that bit too I’m just sick and fucking tired of everyone but regular motherfuckers not going to jail.
You’re right but the headline punched my rage ticket.
My 95 year old mother in law picked me up at the airport and still goes golfing each week pushing her clubs around the golf course. I trust her than most kids on the road. However, She is much different than my 80 year old mother where the doctor took away her handicap pass because she kept hitting cars in the parking lot.
People don’t want to accept it, but we really should be testing drivers more frequently. We don’t, cuz car brain society, but we should.
Should tie it to retirement age. Once you no longer need to get to your job every day, get tested more often. Plus people often start losing mental clarity when they no longer have anything to keep them occupied and for many that’s their jobs.
Who could have possibly seen this coming??
Good, insurance premiums are about to go up, like all of them, health, auto, death by boomer insurance…
This fucking terrifies me. My mom is 79, living in the most rural place ever, wtf is she gonna do when she has to give up her license? P.s. if anyone else has been in this situation what did you do?
If you live somewhere that you have to drive to take care of yourself and you can no longer drive, you can no longer take care of yourself.
You move to where you can either take care of your self or be taken care of.
This is correct, but moving costs money. Which my mom doesn’t have any of, and I have little to spare. It’s going to be a big issue when she’s not able to take care of herself
You two should be discussing this now.
She will need to sell her house and car and a chunk of her belongings and move in with you or on the same street or apartments or whatever. She needs to decide what to sell and what to give to whom, now while she still has her faculties and mobility.
When you get old, you’re doing good until you aren’t and then you never are again. You two should have a plan that you can just execute.
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately our relationship isn’t great and we are pretty estranged. My husband and I live in a 2 bedroom condo with one bathroom, small even for just us two and our cats. So she can’t move in with us. My sister is no contact with her. So yeah. The situation is messy.
Oh, well in that case let her figure it out. My parents kicked me out at 18, and at this point I wouldn’t talk to them if they attempted to reach out. I worry that they might, confronting death or needing physical daily assistance. I hope for their sake that they have whatever they need to do, planned out already.
You’re not responsible for your mother.
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There aren’t a lot of options here.
Either a church/neighbors take turns taking care of her
Her family takes care of her
Or she moves somewhere where she can walk/cab/state assisted transport to where she needs to go.
The US has shit for elderly safety nets.
I would assume if she’s that close to the wire she doesn’t own her own house she could sell and is already taking advantage of whatever welfare is available to make sure she doesn’t end up in a ditch.
My grandma moved closer to people that could help her and where she was more mobile without a car.
My girlfriends grandma is 90 and she rides her e-bike almost daily. But we have some bike lanes and a grocery store is nearby.
Maybe locally organised carpools?
My dad stopped driving at 80 but he remained living on the farm.
If he needed to go somewhere, there was always a neighbor happy to help out.Dad went to the car dealership and spent $10k on a reasonably good 2nd hand car that he never drove - it would only get used if he needed someone to drive him somewhere.
Using his own car that he pays all the running costs and maintenance on made it much more comfortable for him to ask a neighbor/friend/family for help.
There’s a few options: you drive for her, she moves into a senior community, she moves in with you – which is how it used to be – or none and a fender bender (or worse).
has she gotten into accidents? i know people almost 70, already a couple accidents this year alone, mostly at nighttime. i notice they also drive ALOT slower on the freeway too,
