Currently in the UK the driving licence expires when you reach 70 years old. At that point, if you want to carry on driving, you need to let the DVLA know if you have any medical conditions which might affect your driving. For example, if you have been diagnosed with dementia, Parkinson's disease, any condition which affects your eyesight, epilepsy or type 1 diabetes. The thinking is that these conditions might affect you while driving and possibly make you unsafe on the road which might be a possible threat to your own, or others safety.

This is currently under review and the DVLA have been in talks with Driving Mobility about the possibility of fitting a tracker to cars of drivers who are over 70 which restricts the hours when they can drive, and the distance.

This sounds pretty scary for the future of driving in the older years but there is an argument which says that it could actually extend driving years by putting limitations in place so that people can drive for longer with certain conditions albeit only within certain hours. It's obviously a trade off but is it worth it, it would seem that in a nutshell, you would be able to drive within a certain distance of your home in some cases and within certain daylight hours, but not lose your licence entirely if you were suffering from certain medical conditions.

Edward Trewellha, the CEO of Driving Mobility says: “A lot of older drivers stick within their own locality - they go to the shop, the doctor's surgery, go and see a granddaughter down the road, probably on minor roads with which they are familiar. “That would mean that they were driving safely within their familiar environment.”

Currently this is just policy in the crucible and is being discussed as to it's viability, practicality and efficacy. Once a policy has been hammered out there should be a request for input from the public and industry stakeholders so hopefully everyone will be able to have their say. Watch this space for when that may be, but meanwhile, what do you think of it as an idea?

Let us know at [email protected] or drop us a message on Facebook.