Get those old folks off the road

This is not "odd," it's actually logical and I would expect it to appear on an econ blog, not on the "Oddly Enough" ticker in my Gmail. Basically, for those too lazy to read the link or the title of this post, Japan is offering incentives to people over 65 to get them to give up their drivers' licenses. This makes a lot of sense and I have been arguing for this for years. I think that there should be a re-testing mechanism in place as well, but overall I really like this idea. A car in the wrong hands is a death machine, so the fewer death machines on the road, the better.

This problem of old people on the road was most forcefully driven home for me when an elderly driver drove into the lobby of my hotel at the Fashion Mall in Ft. Lauderdale sometime in the late 1990s because he or she could not tell the difference between the gas and the brake pedals.

Eric, you're welcome for the gratuitous Florida reference...I hope you enjoyed it.