The coming tsunami of elderly drivers is a challenge that automakers, policy makers, insurance companies, healthcare advocates and everyone else has seen coming for decades. But American society remains far from prepared even for mid-decade, when about one in four U.S. drivers will be 65 years of age or older.
Traffic deaths rose in the middle of the last decade thanks in part to the scourge of texting while driving. The figure declined for the last few years due to more automated safety features in cars and, last year, because of the falloff in driving amid Covid-19 lockdowns. But it isn’t hard to imagine fatalities spiking significantly in the next few years as record numbers of Americans enter the years after 65 when drivers…