Camille Giglio
There have been several letters to the editor in the Contra Costa Times recently about elderly drivers and their potential for causing accidents on the road.
The discussion was kicked off with a guest editorial by a Richard Harsham. He suggested rather bluntly that whenever an elderly driver was seen behind the wheel it was cause to whip out one’s cell phone and report the older driver to the police thereby turning other people into politically correct tattletales. By the way, the age at which these elitists consider a person to an “at risk” driver starts at 60 years. Most people have not even begun thinking of retiring from work yet much less retiring from driving.
Now an article has appeared (1-21-06) written by Andrew Scharlach, Professor of Aging at the UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare. He has a greater command of the English language than Harsham, presumably soothing everyone’s ruffles and appearing to defend the right of older citizens to continue driving. But upon closer examination he is supportive of Harsham’s mandate to get older citizens out of their cars and onto the bus.
Buried in Scharlach’s fine rhetoric are two important, core goals. 1) “We should require (he means mandate by law) health care providers to report to the DMV all individuals who are judged to be driving risks, regardless of age, based on clearly defined screening criteria.” He wants the medical profession to be tattletales. Actually I thought they already were doing that especially if patients reported episodes of unexplained fainting spells.
2) “We need to revise zoning laws to encourage development of neighborhood businesses and services. It should not be necessary to drive a 2,500 pound vehicle to cross 6 lanes of traffic just to get a carton of milk or go to the doctor.”
The only way this could be done is if neighborhoods were reconfigured to become self sufficient compact entities enabling everyone to receive all services without ever leaving the immediate area or crossing a main thoroughfare.
What Professor Scharlach did not explain in his article was his direct connection in masterminding all this reorganization of the community and it’s driving and living habits.
Along with his duties as a Professor of Aging, (how does one teach aging? Can a person flunk aging?) Scharlach is employed by the California Public Policy Research Institute to conduct surveys and develop reports on findings. In this capacity he was commissioned to complete a statewide survey of older citizens and report on the needs of the aging Baby Boomer cohort of California citizens for community services to aid in the aging process. This report was mandated by passage of a Senator John Vasconcellos piece of legislation, SB 910, in 1999. This statewide survey of elder citizens was to evaluate needs based on housing, transportation, health care, economics, end of life planning. This survey was completed in 2003.
Beginning in 2003 a partnership of government agencies and tax funded, private community services agencies began meeting in relative obscurity, circumventing the Brown Act, to plan a Project entitled Contra Costa for Every Generation. This project based on the findings of Scharlach’s survey intends to use Contra Costa County and its citizens as a model for the reorganization of cities and communities throughout the state. This is Hillary Clinton’s “it takes a village to raise a child” extended to cover every citizen from birth to death.
The planning stage of this Every Generation Project is now completed. The initiation of goals and objectives has now begun. One of the first objectives is getting older people out of their cars and onto public transportation. Therefore, the manipulative articles in the media under the guise of news or commentaries.
In the minds of the people planners this makes sense. Our state’s population is aging. The Baby Boomers have a love affair with their cars. To the environmentalists cars are a major source of environmental pollution and the paving over of mother earth with tar and cement. Therefore, drag older people out of their cars by shaming them or creating such intense pressure and public awareness of older people on the road that it becomes unbearable. If this doesn’t work?
Phase three of Project Every Generation is legislation and local ordinances. These elitist planners are serious and so must you be in order to maintain your right to guide and plan your own life.
posted by Diane Lily @ 3:30 PM
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