A bill from Scottsbluff State Senator John Harms requiring drivers older than age 80 to pass a brain function test to ensure they’re physically and mentally capable of driving drew some 2 hours of testimony at a hearing Tuesday before the Legislature’s Transportation and Telecommunications Committee.

Harms told the committee he introduced the bill in light of U.S. Census Bureau predictions of more older drivers being on the road over the next 20 years…with the number of 80-plus drivers jumping from 21,000 to 53,000 by 2030, and AARP Nebraska estimating that the state will have some 130,000 residents over 80 by 2035.

Harms said other states already have extra requirements for elderly people to renew their licenses, although he believes Nebraska would be the first state to require a cognitive test. He also said he would be open to the bill being held over to next year to allow more study between sessions.

Bonnie Dobbs of the University of Alberta, a leading researcher on medically-impaired driving, told the panel that Nebraska doesn’t have an older driver problem, it has a medically-impaired driver problem.

Dobbs said almost 25% of Americans between 80 and 89 suffer from some type of dementia, so testing to uncover such problems start at 80 makes sense…but she also said starting them a few years earlier wasn’t a bad idea.

She pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that show that nationally, fatal crash rates start increasing for drivers after they turn 75 and rise significantly after age 80

Only 2 people testified against the bill. One was 76-year-old Jack Sample of Grand Island, a retired state driver’s license examiner.

Sample said the bill was prejudiced against old people and that the worst drivers he saw as a license examiner came in all ages. He also said that a relative or family doctor should decide when it’s time to take away the keys of an older driver, not a license examiner.