The next time you see someone driving a car with an Illinois license plate, you may want to be extra cautious. By July 1, Illinois Road Safety and Fairness Act It has officially come into force, removing the previous requirement for elderly drivers to pass a driving test before renewing their licenses. The vote to pass the bill into law was also not close at all. Nearly 70% of state lawmakers signed on as cosponsors, and it passed unanimously in both the Illinois House and Senate before being signed into law by Governor Pritzker.
To be fair to Illinois, it has not eliminated driving tests for all elderly drivers. Instead, it The age for mandatory driving test has been increased From 79 to 87. As long as you are under 79, you must renew your license every four years, and this can be done online. Drivers aged 79 to 86 no longer need to pass a driving test to renew their license, but they must renew it in person every four years. Then, when they turn 87, it becomes an annual renewal with a mandatory driving test.
As you can probably imagine, state lawmakers claim they had good reasons to stop requiring driving tests for drivers over 80, but it’s not, “We’re afraid of AARP,” or, “Big storefront repairs have us in their pockets.” Instead, they point to data from the Illinois Department of Transportation showing that the crash rate for drivers 75 and older in 2023 was “lower than every age range for drivers between 16 and 74.” It’s hard to believe, but IDOT says it’s true.
If you see something, say something
However, there is another component to the law that could help prevent Illinois from turning into “Fast and Furious: Cadillac Drift.” Illinois was previously one of only five states in the US with no mechanism to allow family members to report their relatives as unsafe drivers. Now, if you feel that cognitive impairment, physical ability, or other medical problems no longer limit a relative’s ability to drive safely, you can report it to the state. Illinois will then review those reports and decide whether to take further action.
Theoretically, this would remove the mandatory driving test as well as remove unsafe drivers from the road. How this plays out, however, probably depends on how effective the state is at taking away licenses from people whose families report them. How a new law is enacted and implemented is usually as important as the text of the law itself.
It will be important to watch and see if the crash rates for elderly drivers change (and if so, by how much), as well as keep an eye on whose licenses Illinois actually wants to take away, and who is allowed to drive. Will they be more lenient on people with political connections? Will certain demographics of drivers see more aggressive enforcement? Can you trust that the same decision will be made no matter where your elderly relative lives? Sadly, we won’t know until someone gets enough time to look at the data and write a report.
Senior driving laws are complicated
If data shows that drivers 75 and older crash at a lower rate than younger ones, how did they get the reputation of being such bad drivers? Part of the explanation probably relates to the fact that stories about crashes involving older drivers tend to be quite dramatic in the news. But Illinois’ decision to focus on the crash rate per 1,000 drivers may also paint a better picture of how safe older drivers are.
For example, CDC likes To look at fatalities per 1,000 crashes, and when you run that data through Analyst 9000, the results show that when they crash, the deadliest demographic are drivers who are at least 70 years old. This is a nationwide study, not Illinois-specific, so maybe older people in Indiana are special? On the surface it seems absurd, but look deeper IDOT report on 2024 crash statisticsAnd you’ll find that the overall fatal crash rate is 0.18, while the fatal crash rate for Illinois drivers 75 and older is below average at 0.13. This is less than half the rates for 18- and 19-year-old drivers (0.27 and 0.29, respectively), and close to half of what we see with drivers 30-34 (0.23).
However, the biggest issue when it comes to dealing with older drivers is that we built America around cars, not people. Driving is an essential part of life in most cities across America, and whether you’re old, disabled, or just a bad driver, you have no other options. This is not a big secret either. Bad drivers are encouraged to hold on to the keys longer than necessary, and every time someone tries to encourage cities to make some changes that might improve the lives of non-drivers, they are constantly attacked as anti-American communists who hate freedom.
Whatever you think about Illinois changing its testing laws for older drivers, we can probably all agree that dangerous, unfit drivers should not be on the road regardless of age. But if you’re also offended by the suggestion that we make it easier to live a full life without a car, what alternative solution do you have? Change nothing and hope the problem will fix itself?
