"Where do you place your hands on the steering wheel?" Safety adviser J.J. Miller asked the 13 people attending a recent AAA Mature Drivers Program in Bethel Park.
A few put their hands at the 9 and 3 positions of a clock. A few more put them at 8 and 4. One man, looking a bit embarrassed, acknowledged driving with one hand at about the 7.
"People used to be taught to put their hands at the 10 and the 2," Ms. Miller said. "Then it became the 9 and 3. Now it's the 8 and 4."
The reasons are two-fold: The shoulders relax and the elbows rest comfortably on the rib cage for more comfortable ease and control of steering. The position also places you 10 inches from the steering wheel, so the air bag can deploy and do its job if needed.
Even though senior drivers have years and years of experience behind the wheel, the Mature Drivers Program aims to keep them driving safely through their later years.
"As a person ages, there are new obstacles you have to counteract: vision deteriorates, reaction time slows, and it takes more effort to do things they normally did," Ms. Miller said.
There is no way to reverse those changes, but it is possible to slow their advance. "The best thing we can do is change behavioral patterns," she told her class. At the same time, older drivers need to learn to use tools put in place to help them.
The Mature Drivers Program, a brainchild of the Mature Driver Task Force of Pennsylvania formed in the 1990s, is open to any driver at least 55 years old. As an incentive, people who complete the two-day, eight-hour program qualify for a 5 percent discount on their auto insurance. After three years, they must requalify by taking a one-day class.
But, surprisingly, students interviewed after the first day found themselves more interested in what they'd learned than the discount.
"The first thing that brought me here was the insurance," said JoAnn Zanilla, 61, of Bethel Park. "But then I thought I'd learn something that would make me more aware."
She liked Ms. Miller's advice on how to watch out for bicycles and other potential hazards and clarification on when it's legal to turn left on a left-turn lane equipped with an arrow. (When the arrow goes out, it's still OK to turn left if the light stays green and you yield to oncoming traffic, Ms. Miller said.)
Walter Jandrasits, 67, of Mt. Lebanon, said the discount was useful but that his motivation was for the class itself as he enjoys driving, including long distances.
"I learned a couple things," he said. One was a different way of setting side mirrors to reduce the size of a driver's blind spots on each side of his vehicle.
To set the side mirrors, Ms. Miller said the driver should lean left into his window and adjust the left mirror so she can see just a sliver of the back color panel of the car. Then the driver should lean right as far as she can and set the right mirror the same way. "I'm going to try it," Mr. Jandrasits said.
The mirror adjustment was among the new behavioral patterns Ms. Miller taught them on the first day of the class. Another was a new way of measuring the space and time needed to adjust for anything coming into your path of travel: Look ahead as far as you can and pick a stationary object, then count by one-thousandths from "one thousand and one" to "one thousand and twenty." If a driver gets to the object before she hits "one thousand and twenty," she is not looking far enough ahead.
"You need time for the thought process," Ms. Miller said. "The brain is fine, but the foot is slower from the gas pedal to the brake."
Among the tools older drivers should learn to use: PennDOT puts down new lane lines twice a year, using wider-than-standard lines made more visible with more luminescent paint, Ms. Miller said. If a driver sees a road where the lines are fading, she should report it.
Another tool: Steering wheels on newer cars have indentations as hand-holds at the 8 and 4 positions.
Ms. Miller said the Mature Driver Task Force of Pennsylvania was founded in response to controversies about the capabilities of seniors on the road. The state ranks second only to Florida in older population, she said.
The members of the task force included the state Insurance Commissioner, AARP, AAA, PennDOT, the Bureau of Licensing, the Department of Aging, and other health officials.
"When the course was developed, it was designed to make you safer and safer for the other drivers as well," Ms. Miller said. "The 5 percent [insurance discount] helps the economy and is an incentive to come here."
During the first day of class, Ms. Miller also talked to the students about tools for communicating with other drivers. Besides the obvious horn and turn signals, they include headlights (flash them to warn someone needs to dim his headlights), four-way emergency flashers, brake lights and the mirrors (when passing on the left, if you can't see the face of the driver in his left mirror, you're sitting in his blind spot). Also still useful are hand signals out the driver side window.
Other pieces of advice:
• Get your eyes examined, because eye doctors can see things like cataracts coming on before you do.
• Along with looking straight ahead, remember to scan from side to side, too.
• Be especially careful in school zones around arrival and dismissal times. "You may not see kids well. Watch for the little ones: You'll see feet before you'll see their heads when they're coming between cars."
• Clear your windows of all decals, ball caps and hanging objects. It's the law, and those items create additional blind spots.
• Turn down bright dashlights so that you can just barely see the indicator panels at night. "You'll see better."
• "Most tailgaters are speeders. You should be able to see the wheels of the car in front of you when you stop."
• Don't use a cell phone or eat or drink while you're driving.
• Watch for unsecured loads on pickups and other trucks.
The course costs $18 for AAA members and $25 for non-members. For more information, call 412-365-7211.
First Published: March 24, 2010, 8:00 a.m.
