Editor:
I was pleased to read Guy Gentner’s letter regarding how the DriveABLE Assessment (DA) for seniors’ driving ability is to be abolished (“Fight for seniors pays off,” Dec. 8).
I also was caught in an unjust situation. Prior to the actual touch-screen DA, which is supposed to measure memory, attention span, reaction time, spatial judgment and decision-making, 80-year-old drivers in B.C. were first subjected to a Driver Medical Examination Report (DMER) administered by their family doctor. In the DMER, there are several memory tests, the first of which I failed. I mean really, who can name 30 items on a supermarket’s shelves in one minute?
I then became a candidate for the DA. In the interim, my research yielded several issues. One: the DA was developed at the University of Alberta and called the Simard MD assessment, and two: a study by Wernham, Jarrett et al. was published in the Canadian Geriatrics Journal, June 14, 2014, where the authors, all geriatric physicians, studied a group of 57 geriatric patients with mild dementia, or cognitive impairment for driving ability, and success on the Simard MD.
The authors concluded there was no association between the Simard MD and the subjects’ ability to drive.
Owing to staffing problems, I never did take the DA, but was sent straight on to the driving test. The examiner kept remarking what a good driver I was. His report cleared the way for me to continue driving for the next two years.
So yes, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Gentner. Both the DMER and the DA were not only unfair and unjust, but they were also invalid based on faulty assumptions.
Frank Brown, Gibsons
