14 · SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2017 free, interactive driving evaluation called Roadwise Review, which caregivers can help loved ones take to discern function in areas including visual acuity, flexibility, memory and visualization. The test takes 30 to 45 minutes. Both of these assessment tools can help drivers and caregivers identify areas of concern and learn ways to reduce a driver’s risk when on the road, and AAA rec-ommends seniors revisit the tests each year. For seniors who want to take their continuing road education a step further, AAA offers the Roadwise Driver course that can be taken either online or in a classroom. “Some of these folks probably learned to drive only from a family member or on a farm,” Miller said. “A lot of times they didn’t have driver education in the schools.” The course not only cov-ers topics specific to driving and aging but also looks at new vehicle technology and offers the most up-to-date safety and driving tech-niques. For Pennsylvania resi-dents, completion of the eight-hour course means a minimum of five percent reduction in insurance premiums for three years. Drivers can take a four-hour course after the three years in order to maintain the discount. In addition, AAA offers a program called Roadwise RX that can help seniors learn how their medica-tions might affect their driving. It also offers CarFit, which was developed by the American Society on Aging in collaboration with AAA, AARP and the Ameri-can Occupational Therapy Association, as a way to help seniors position them-selves and equipment such as mirrors to optimize safe driving. “We want to make sure they’re not too close to the steering wheel and far enough from the airbag, that they can reach all the controls and know where the controls are, that they can get in and out of the car with ease,” Miller said. For instance, Miller said, many seniors are used to setting their side mirrors so that they can see part of their car, but they now teach drivers to adjust mirrors in a way that they barely see any of their own vehicle in order to elimi-nate blindspots. Another tip they teach is adjusting the brightness of the dash-board lights in order to improve vision while driv-ing at night. Miller uses the example of throwing open the blinds in a well-lit living room at night hoping to see a deer on the front yard. It’s hard unless one wraps his or her hands around their eyes to block the surrounding light. “But if I turned out the lights inside the house, your eyes can adapt, and you’ll be able to see the deer pretty well,” she said. “When the dash lights are bright, it’s like having a light on in your car. And that works for all drivers.” One thing that Amy Lane has noticed during her work as a certified driving rehabilitation specialist for The Adaptive Driving Program at the University of Pittsburgh is that older drivers often tend to make their own modifications for safe driving. That includes staying off the roads during heavy traf-fic times or not venturing into congested areas such as Oakland or downtown GETTY IMAGES Organizations such as AAA and AARP work to keep older drivers on the road safely, and AAA offers Roadwise Driver courses that can enhance seniors’ knowledge and provide other benefits, such as lower insurance premiums. Pittsburgh, driving only during the day and driving only in good weather. “They’re picking and choosing and planning ahead, and those are all good things,” said Lane, who does evaluation and training with people from every age group who have physical, neurological, cog-nitive, age-related or other impairments that could impact their ability to drive safely. “They know that if they’re calling for snow next week, or freezing temperatures, they’ll do their grocery shopping ahead of time so they don’t have to go out.” Some modifications can actually lead to problems, however. For instance, Lane has seen clients who wouldn’t put their right turn signal on at a red light until it turned green because they didn’t feel comfortable making a right on red but didn’t want drivers behind them to honk or get angry. It’s understandable, she said, but if a pedestrian enters the street to cross TRIBUNE-REVIEW FILE PHOTO Avoiding high-traffic areas or busy times of day is one modification many seniors make to their driving habits. believing the driver is going straight, it could cause an accident. If caregivers are concerned that a loved one may be slipping in his or her ability to drive safely, they should ride along with them, Lane said. Adult children have a tendency to always want to drive mom or dad to lunch or church or wher-ever they might go, but it doesn’t hurt to periodically feign a headache or give another reason why they’d like mom or dad to drive without saying it’s an evaluation of sorts. Driving behind a loved one also can give caregivers a sense of whether the per-son is staying in his or her lane, obeying stop signs, using turn signals and oper-ating the vehicle safely. Also, caregivers should take note of the outside of the car and look for unex-plained scratches or dents.
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