A few weeks ago in my area, we had an old lady (mid 70's) reverse into a car... and then a cafe and then a patron in said cafe. Now the guy she hit was mostly unscathed, but she did a fair amount of damage to the other parked car and also the storefront. As I later found out, it's also not her first car accident in recent years, just the first that had a victim. She lives on a property 30 mins out of town. She shouldn't have been driving at that age in her state, but she also needs groceries to live. It's her fault for driving while unable to draw a clock, but it wasn't her fault that she needed to drive at that age in that state. Her adult children are over 1,000km away, her late husband moved them to a farm in the 90's, her government doesn't want to invest in elderly care.

There's not a lot of options for some people. Drive until they do something to lose their license. Once that happens, they would lose all independence and will likely have to move into a nursing home. In this case, she can afford a decent retirement home. But what if she was a perpetual renter? What if she had fewer to no assets? What if she was slightly less fortunate?

We live with an orphan crushing machine, yes. But that machine will happily also crush the elderly. It's a travesty that some people are allowed to drive, but it's more of a travesty that they have to drive.