The lifetime driving license may soon be over. Medical examinations could soon be compulsory to be able to renew it.
Passing your driving license test and keeping it for life may no longer be systematic. Apart from the possibility, which already exists, of having your license canceled for having lost all your points, a new regulation being studied at European level risks undermining the ad vitam æternam ownership of the little pink paper. Thus, it could well be that in a fairly short period of time each driving license holder will have to fulfill certain conditions to keep it.
Today, in France, you cannot lose your driving license for health reasons. However, in some of our neighbors, such as Italy, Spain or the Netherlands, more or less thorough medical examinations are compulsory from a certain age – from 50 for Italian motorists – to maintain the right to drive a vehicle. Europe would like to harmonize its regulations regarding driving licenses within the 27 member countries. If the question initially arose mainly for seniors, responsible, like younger drivers, for numerous road accidents, the implementation of exams for the entire population now seems to hold the rope.
This trend was validated at the beginning of December in the highest levels of the EU. Concretely, if the current text were ratified, each driver would have to undergo a medical examination every 15 years, and every 5 years from the age of 70. For example, a young driver who obtains his driving license at age 18 may have to undergo a medical examination at age 33.
If the results are good, he could continue to drive his vehicle until his next compulsory test set 15 years later. As we write these lines, while amendments can still be made to the initial text, what would this medical examination look like? Engine tests? Assessment of reflexes? Nothing of the sort. Only an eye test would be required!
This may seem minimalist for testing an individual’s ability to drive a car, but each member state could have the possibility of making medical examinations more complex. We could then imagine that the examinations would be more thorough for people of a more advanced age, the physical capacities of a 75-year-old woman or man being a priori no longer the same as those of someone of 35 years. One thing is almost certain, a motorist will be able to have his driving license revoked in the near future, and no longer just for a question of points.