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The story
According to an article by freelance writer Shusuke Sakuta contributed to Merkmal, 95% of senior drivers want to keep driving, while family members are pushing back with “please stop” — leaving parents and children split right down the middle. On 5channel’s News Express+ board, the article sparked a thread full of real-life stories about how to actually get a parent to stop driving and how the licensing system should change. Some posters described giving up their cars after moving to urban areas, while others pointed out that for people in rural areas or elderly people living alone, a car is a lifeline for hospital visits and shopping. Opinions split between blanket age-based license restrictions, hopes pinned on self-driving technology, and simply talking it through as a family.
“I still want to drive” / “Dad, please stop” — Believe it or not, 95% of senior drivers want to keep driving! What is the “age to stop driving” that’s splitting parents and kids right down the middle? | Merkmal
2026.9.18
Shusuke Sakuta (Freelance Writer)
Source: merkmal-biz.jp / Original article here
What people said
Growing population keeps prices low and transit convenient, and hospitals, government offices, and public services are solid.
Even better if you're near a train station.
There are 7 train stations within walking distance of my place, including one on the Yamanote Line.
Shopping streets, supermarkets, department stores — all within reach.
My car's just for leisure now.
I built my house here specifically with old age in mind.
Still riding my motorcycle though.
Honestly, a motorcycle might be better — if you crash, you just die instead of hurting someone else.
What am I supposed to do?
Can't exactly tell them to stop.
I just wish they'd hurry up with low-speed self-driving cars for the elderly.
Make them stop. They're basically killers-in-waiting.
Get your wife to say something.
Or does she just not say anything about it?
My father passed away, but after he hit 75 he started bumping into things and even had a head-on collision — his driving and judgment really declined. Once riding with him gets scary, maybe gently bring it up, or watch the dashcam footage together. It's a hard thing to say, though.
If you still want to drive, start over from the license center.
Just do that every 3 years.
More likely to fail the written exam than the practical one.
No way an old-timer hits 90 points at that reaction speed!
Between me, my wife, and my two nephews, we've got plenty of "legs" (cars) covered.
Taxis show up fast, buses run often too.
Property tax is ¥340,000 since we're in Tokyo though lol.
If that's only about ¥30,000 a month to live in central Tokyo, that's dirt cheap!!!!!!
With so many elderly people, it'd spawn whole new industries.
Taking licenses away purely based on age seems wrong to me.
We let them keep the license itself since it's their only form of ID, though.
The My Number card (Japan's national ID card) works fine for that.
A lot of municipalities don't even issue paper health insurance cards anymore anyway.
Same here — we got him to stop driving, but he begged to keep the license itself.
Apparently passing the dementia screening and holding onto it is a point of pride for him.
Safety only slightly better than a motorcycle, as a tradeoff.
Something like that would cost about the same as a kei car (Japan's compact car class), so it wouldn't sell.
I'd guess in about 3 years, new cars will be legally required to have full self-driving features.
Might be doable on highways only, but ordinary roads have way too many unpredictable variables — that's basically impossible.
Not sure about the elderly ratio, but back in the day both the number and rate of accidents, serious injuries, and deaths were higher.
A lot of people complain about mandatory safety-assist systems, saying "don't jack up the price with features nobody needs," but they've probably contributed a lot to the drop in accidents.
https://www.nippon.com/ja/ncommon/contents/japan-data/2173843/2173843.png
No way our lawmakers would ever do anything that pisses off the auto industry… so what are we supposed to do?
Tesla's full self-driving cars go accident-free even on roads packed like a pedestrian mall.
Can't account for scammers who deliberately step in front of cars, though.
Going accident-free is kind of easy when you think about it — just never move unless safety's guaranteed.
Walking to the hospital is rough for elderly people, but they can still get there driving an automatic.
It really is like a substitute pair of legs.
Her husband passed away and her kids live far away and are independent now.
She says without a car she'd have no way to get around — she even drives to the supermarket that's just a 10-minute walk away.
Thing is, elderly people often can't ride bicycles anymore either.
If everyone quit driving together, society would adjust accordingly — like being able to run more buses.
Right now it's the opposite: people drive so they don't use the bus, so bus routes get cut.
Keeping a car costs a fair amount, so relying on buses and the occasional taxi would easily pay for itself.
If relatives are going to object, they should be the ones providing the care instead.
Stop saying childish things like that forever.
Having the sense to figure out how to live without a car is what being a responsible adult means.
"I can't do it" isn't a real answer.
Wanting to drive just means wanting a way to get around, right?
If self-driving cars were available, people would use those instead.
10 years from now, huh… I'll be 76 by then (´・ω・｀)
That'll only be a thing in major metro areas.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
In Japan, cognitive function tests have been mandatory when renewing driver’s licenses for drivers aged 75 and older since a 2017 law revision — a system already in place to assess individual judgment rather than impose a blanket age cutoff. What divided opinion in the thread was less about that testing framework itself and more about how to strengthen it (license expiration with mandatory retesting, restricting seniors to driver-assist-equipped vehicles, etc.) versus the reality that “life isn’t possible without a car” in rural areas. City dwellers, who can assume robust public transit, tend to encourage surrendering licenses, but for elderly people in rural areas or living alone, a car is a lifeline for hospital visits and shopping — a structural problem that a simple uniform age restriction won’t solve. Hopes for self-driving technology also came up, but practical use on ordinary roads still faces technical and legal hurdles, leaving family conversations and the spread of driver-assist systems as the realistic near-term answers.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (News Express+) thread “[Car] “I Still Want to Drive” / “Dad, Please Stop” — 95% of Senior Drivers Want to Keep Driving: What Is the “Age to Stop Driving” Splitting Parents and Kids?“.
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