Joel Rose

There really is not a ton of evidence either way.

But there is one study that came out last year from the University of Iowa College of Public Health.

I talked to the lead author, Kara Haman, and she wondered how those changes were affecting road safety.

So she looked at some data and what she found troubled her.

Hammond's research looked at two decades of data from 13 states, more than 19 million drivers who were involved in crashes.

Seven of those states loosened their relicensing policies during that time.

And in those states, the study found an increase in crash rates among drivers between 65 and 74.

Now, I should also add, Haman is very sympathetic to older adults who do not have good alternatives to driving.

She says we really need to think of better ways for them to get around and not just about taking away their mobility.

In some ways, changing technology in our cars is already making a difference.

There are more older drivers on the road.

They're driving more miles.

And yet we are seeing crash rates decline.

In part, that could be because of the safety features in our cars that are getting better.

And that might be helping older drivers to compensate for some of the loss of vision and reaction time that are inevitable with age.

And it's possible that we could see that accelerate if self-driving cars do become a bigger part of our lives.

Yeah, we did an online call-out asking our audience for their experiences, and we got a lot of responses from a lot of adult children who told us it often falls to them to decide when it is time to take the car keys away from an aging parent.

And that's how I met Jacqueline Hamilton.

Hamilton agreed to share her family's story, so we all sat down in her living room, West St.

Paul, Minnesota.