Share your driving experiences
Are you an older driver with a ‘driving’ experience to share – good or bad? Victoria’s Council on the Ageing (COTA) wants to hear from you. COTA Victoria and the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission are launching a campaign this week surrounding age discrimination on Australian roads.
Are you an older driver with a ‘driving’ experience to share – good or bad? Victoria’s Council on the Ageing (COTA) wants to hear from you.
COTA Victoria and the Victorian Equal Opportunity & Human Rights Commission are launching a campaign this week surrounding age discrimination on Australian roads.
Chief executive of COTA Victoria, Sue Hendy, tells DPS News that stories about older people being treated poorly on the road has been reported in media coverage for years.
“We’ve raised the issue with the Commission and have now engaged in a joint activity with them and are asking older people to tell their stories – and then we will review these stories and have the Commission write a report,” Ms Hendy says.
Hoping to bring about policy reform and awareness, Ms Hendy says both COTA and the Commission want to identify the problems in order to address them and then “mount a campaign”.
Describing older drivers’ rights as “absolutely essential”, Ms Hendy says losing a drivers licence during old age can bring a sense of “disconnection” for society.
“The point at which people can’t drive any longer just disconnects them from so many things… and if older Australians are losing their licences because of ageism, then that is an abuse of human rights,” she says.
Click here if you have a driving discrimination story to share or if you are seeking more information on Victoria’s Council on the Ageing campaign.
