EU Parliament votes
Will there be health checks for seniors behind the wheel?
February 28, 2024, 7:10 a.m
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Some EU states already have them, but in Germany there is strict lobbying against them: mandatory driving ability tests for seniors. The EU Parliament should clarify these and other questions about road safety. In the end, many 17-year-old Europeans could be happy.
Will drivers have to have their health checked regularly in the future? The EU Parliament is addressing this question and agreeing on its negotiating position Reform of EU driving license rules away. German MPs are critical of such regular investigations, but they already exist in other countries. The purpose of the examinations is to check whether you are still physically fit to get behind the wheel.
The responsible rapporteur in the Transport Committee, Karima Delli, initially demanded much more than health checks. She had found a majority in favor of this in the EU Parliament’s Transport Committee, but after cross-party criticism, the French Green MP had to say goodbye to several other proposals.
There are no special driving licenses for SUVs
According to the MPs, this was about a special category of driving licenses that should be introduced for heavy cars such as SUVs. According to the information, the possibility that individual EU states could introduce night driving bans for young drivers is no longer up for debate.
In the negotiations, the EU states will work to ensure that there will be no such mandatory tests. They had already decided on their negotiating position last year. Once Parliament has decided on its position, negotiations on a final compromise can begin.
The revision of the rules is based on a proposal from the EU Commission that was presented in March. The proposals sparked a debate about whether older people pose a risk on the road. The investigations are only part of the project. Among other things, it is also about whether accompanied driving from the age of 17 should be possible across the EU in the future.
The new requirements are intended to make road traffic safer and fewer people die in accidents. According to EU figures, more than 20,000 people die on the roads in the European Union every year. The number of traffic deaths should actually be halved by 2030. However, the development does not currently look like this: after a significant decline during the corona pandemic, the number of deaths recently rose again.