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Driving tests are
not just for seniors

Not only should drivers over the age of 74 be required to take yearly driving tests, they also should be forced to sit on pillows while driving.

So said a (somewhat insensitive) friend who complains that because of gravity and shrinkage on the elderly, cars often look like they are being driven by remote control.

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld noticed the phenomenon in which you often see only the top of a head and knuckles on the steering wheel in cars ahead of you.

"In Florida they drive LOW and SLOW," Jerry said.

I have not begun shrinking yet. In fact, gravity seems to be doing little to control my expanding girth. Yet, as a future low and slow driver, I resent the idea that oldsters don't belong on the road. When I reach the point when I'm aged and shrunken (God willing), I plan to be as big a menace on the highway as I am today, even if I have to sit on an apple crate to see the road and push the gas pedal with my cane.

I can't wait to yell "Outta my way, sonny!" to the idiot 65-year-old holding up traffic in front of me.

If we are going to require anyone over 74 years old to take a yearly driving test, as is being proposed in the state Legislature, then yearly driving tests should also be required for the following groups:

» Anyone under 25 years old. These young whippersnappers cause more accidents than any other drivers. They talk on their cell phones while eating plate lunches, while speeding along in their hermetically sealed SUVs. Hello? You're in a car, not the office.

» Come to think about it, anyone driving an SUV.

» Anyone between the ages of 25 and 50 who has ever had any kind of traffic ticket.

» Anyone with more than three moving violations or 14 stationary ones.

» Anyone who's received a ticket for misuse of an onramp or driving more than two consecutive miles with a turn blinker on.

» Anyone between the ages of 50 and 74 who has ever used the phrases "Now, where did I leave my glasses?" "Did you see that what-cha-ma-call movie last night staring what's-his-name?" or "I know I needed something at Safeway, now what was it?"

I suspect that under these very fair guidelines, every driver on the road will have to take the driving test every year.