What if Russell Weller, the 86-year-old driver who accidentally killed 10 people and injured more than 40, could have read e-books and helped libraries and schools without even leaving home? That’s what I was thinking when the Washington Post reported that “he has been engaged in his community as a volunteer at schools and libraries and has a mind that still seems sharp.”

So was Weller actually on the way to the library when his Buick inflicted mayhem in a packed farmers market in Santa Monica, California? I don’t know. But he could have been. How to keep his mind active and keep society safe?

The safety record of older drivers “is becoming a huge issue,” according to Susan Ferguson, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “They’ve been driving all of their lives and won’t want to give it up. The elderly are going to represent more of a problem on the road than they currently do.” Yes, we should install better road signs and otherwise make the highways friendlier to the elderly. Special transportation services could play a role, too, in saving lives, making it easier for the most dangerous drivers to surrender their licenses.

But shouldn’t we also focus on ways for the elderly to be more comfortable at home and in their own neighborhoods, so that they needn’t rely so much on automobiles? I love the idea of book vans. But they are hardly a complete solution, given the limited scope of their offerings, not to mention the fiscal issue. A well-stocked national digital library system could help–with a wide assortment of e-books not just for the young but also for the rest of us, including those too old to drive safely. Imagine if a group like the AARP got behind TeleRead. It would be one way to improve the lives of young and old simultaneously.

E-book tech is already good enough for the elderly to use. In fact, for many older people, digital books are better–because PDAs and the rest can enlarge the words for age-weakened eyes. “You can increase the type size with a single click,” the AARP magazine observed. Published in the issue dated September-October 2000, the article does not mention the latest advances in screen resolution. What’s more, the best is yet to come, and our libraries should be preparing now. My own mother, who, by the way, gave up her car years ago, hadn’t any trouble using my Dell Axim PDA to read a few passages from a biography of Thomas Edison. She’s an incurable Luddite who can barely tolerate an answering machine, but she conceded the possiblities here–especially if she could easily find what she wanted, from a large selection. TeleRead territory.

Beyond reading e-books and enjoying other online material, the elderly could also volunteer to help Project Gutenberg and local Friends of the Library–and scan in e-books, especially those by local and regional authors. Not to mention genealogical information. What more, with help from librarians and others, they could also help run local electronic bulletin boards for schools and civic groups.

Obviously we all want to drive as long as we can, and I am not saying: “Let’s stop making efforts to improve the roads for elderly drivers.” Also I’ll remember that, at least for the now, the elderly are less of a threat as a group than teenagers are. They have more accidents per mile than the young but do not drive as much. Still, as the Insurance Institute has noted, the risks will grow as America ages. Beyond that, studies show that the elderly are far more likely to die from injuries in crashes. So, while keeping seniors on the road as long as prudent, let’s not forget those who, regardless of larger signs and the rest, will never be able to drive safely again.

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