think that the way it was done may have some good affects. >> do you remember the age it was? >> i think it was 80. older than 79?

comment about the mab once you taupe case it's difficult to close one. as we work trying to address driving risk, i think one of the barriers might be, we've had kind of a don't ask, don't tell policy in many different do mains in our policy. we aren't responsible. and i was just wondering is there a policy suggestion or as

if a professional stepped ups and takes on talking about the e risk they're not -- can't close the case or can't send it on to the next responsible party? >> i'm not quite sure how you posed the question. should reoccur. i think there's a nuance to i'm not understanding. concern. i think they're going to crash the next week and come back and say why didn't -- what was your responsibility of having not

flagged or been so responsible for that person. >> you mean for the mva or for the jurisdiction? >> well, i think the mva is one area and i think we also see that in health care with physicians, with medical providers. the fear that if they've brought it up, that they're somewhat libel. >> it works all different ways. one can have litigation from all directions. i think there's a lot of clinicians out there that are very nervous that on the one hand you talk about keeping a doctor, a clinician parblete relationship going and on the other hand you're wondering that am i going to be libel even though the state doesn't require physicians or other clinicians to report somebody, am i going to be libel when the record eventually shows as in cases that have been reviewed

on the national level tt, gee, the last time this person or the last time they saw their clinician, clearly someone at some point should have questioned was there an ability to drive here. >> thank you. >> we're not in favor, by the way, of clinicians having to report people to the mva. we are very much in favor of all laws that allow for immunity for reports that come in good faith for clinicians. >> thank you. >> thank you. aaa. >> foundation for traffic safety, and i'll be representing questions from the alliance of automobile manufacturers also. unfortunately, i think the people before us stole our thunder but i'm going to ask they question because it has a different spin.

can you list a few of the liabilities? and are there any states that have or are there or should there be laws in any states -- protegs to maintain basic wellness. but there are other states out there that they provide anonymous reporting as lng as you sign it for family members. you can't just be rereferring

your neighbor because you don't like them. you need to provide basic good information. law enforcement often don't know how to make that referral so that's why we've been making sure there's good training out there. social services are oftentimes more concerned about making sure that the client is taken care of rather than -- they're concerned about the well being of the individual as opposed to the potential for them to lose their license. so there are a lot of barriers out there. but if you have a good referral program that make sure that there's a full investigation that goes through for each individual that is referred in. it's not that bad. >> i would just add to what carl said, too, that

particularly for physicians, having legislation that gives immunity to prosecution to physicians is a big thing to get them to report. it's not the only thing but it is a very important thing. and the confidentiality of reports. and that varies greatly across the states. what we think ideally is for a state to have legislation in place that both provides confidentiality and immunity from reporting. and that's just not the case in all states. when we asked about this, you know, in terms of reports being confidential, i think we had six states that said they were without exception. and then there were 16 more that said they're confidential unless subpoenaed or requested by law or some others who said they're confidential unless the driver requests them. i mean, there's a legal position that a dmv will say there's a report about you, we

can't prevent you from requesting it. and so it's sor sort of a gray issue in terms of what you can do. beyond the legislation that's in place in a state, i think it's very important that the state dmvs have an effort to make that legislation known to the physicians, to the law enforcement, to the public, whoever. because you can have that legislation and even some of the dmv people we talked with did not know what the legislation was in their state. but you can have that unless they know about it then it really doesn't make a big difference there. so that's where we're sort of in trying to encourage some things like full reporting, makeup forum for reporting. readily available from a dmv website. having that information available. and on that form state what the legal requirements or what it is so that people can readily find this information and feel

confident when they're feeling out the form. and this goes for family members, law enforcement, whatever. >> can i make the comment. i believe at last count from a g.a.o. report that came out two years ago, i think there were nine states that had requirements that physicians report unfit drivers or driver who they have concerns about to the licensing agency. the problems was with most of those states, which is well identified and i can't wait to see jane's report but in the transanlitic study that was done a few years ago, most of -- some of those states that required reporting by physicians were so amore fuss that if you have particularly a practice and you had a large number of just older people in that practice, that if you

wanted to comply specifically with that law you would almost have to hire a part-time person to be sending in because it was just very, very vague. a state, i think a state that has a good law that we know a lot about is, if you're going to have a mandatory reporting law is delaware. let's say i'm driving on the way up to new york and i have a seizure and i go to the hospital, that physician who takes care of me must send a letter to the state that i'm licensed in, whether it's missouri or washington state, california, or maryland and say yesterday i treated carl for a seizure. that's a pretty discreet episode that definitely requires taking someone's driving privileges away for a while to make sure that condition is controlled. but if they're going to be reporting laws mandatory, they

can't be amore fuss, and unfortunately the reportly the report that kathy put out shows that four or five states were very, very vague. >> i just got to lead to another question that we have. so have or should medical advisory boards from all the states have a standardized data base in which reviews are entered into for researchers or for policy makers to review? just to get a better picture of what the overall population is. >> go back to dr. garber. we've got to start talking to each other first. that would be the holy grail i think eventually is one where we all are talking to each other, we're all doing things in a very consistent fashion and that we have a data base of input and outcomes. and then we can keally be talking from science.

jane alluded to this before, i believe. that when you look at science for the decisions we're making, as noted i have the privilege to be on the medical review board of the safety administration and they do these very large literature revise on various subjects, and it starts out with the classic we entered all of these different terms, we came up with articles on the subject, and then it whittles down to we came down to eight studies that had anything to do with this and driving. none of them had anything to do with commercial truck drivers. and of the eight studies, one was of good quality, three were of moderate quality and four were less than that. so we just -- what you said just would be the holy grail eventually for what we're ding.

>> if we're going to do that, let's throw in an active code so the outcomes can be factored in. >> so have states looked outside the u.s. for potential model programs that could be used by the states? >> well, we're definitely looking at what's going on in canada. and particularly in regard -- because canada has certain advantages that we don't. their driver licensing authorities are inextricably linked to their health insurance companies. so they're able to get some really good medical information and look at the crash risk of individuals who have medical conditions. so we're really looking forward to being able to hear some of the results of those studies. and in terms of other driver

licensing opportunities, we have 51 here. that's probably enough to go by otherwise. >> and i would just add, i think the -- what the canadians are able to do really is something we should be looking at from a d.m.v. perspective it's very difficult to get d.m.v.s, for example, look to european programs. you know, they do things a certain way in their state and they do things very differently in europe. so a lot of what's going on there may or may not be applicable in our state. and ink our states are best i think some of the program that have been the most successful have been things like the maryland project and the california efforts where they see a near by state doing something that has worked well for them, and then can we get other states to try this model. and i think that's the most

successful model to try to build on. >> i agree that our canadian colleagues are doing a lot that we are paying attention to and we will continue to pay attention to. we also have to make it our business to pay attention to what's going on in the e.u. and there are a lot of good reports that are coming out of a university in australia. so part of our job is to, with this great world of communication that we're in now, we really don't have an excuse not to know what's going on elsewhere. we just have to find that time to find out all the different models and variations that are out there. >> i'd like to acknowledge some work that's been done with regard to medication labeling and its impact on driving. the fretchdepped a system. i'm not sure whether it's going to be adopted throughout the entire system but it's real innovative that we should look

closely at. >> and for a last comment, what rules can should insurance companies play in identification referral of drivers for screening /assessment? and could this be tied to a continuation of coverage when claims are filed or traffic i fractions identified? and, lastly, would state mandates be required to make this happen? >> i'm looking for a life line here. that's a really challenging question. and i don't even know where to begin to answer that. i think it would be wonderful, for example, if health insurance were to contribute to driving assessment, the that was discussed earlier today.

except i come up with good ideas. i don't necessarily find ways to implement them in terms of that. go you have any other -- any help for me? >> i think you gave a good answer. >> that's it for our table. thank you. >> thank you. and we'll go to the last panel and the last table. >> barbara with the governors highway safety association. and with me is tom from amva. first of all, i'd like to thank dr. soder strom for helping me have my father reviewed and evaluate bid the maryland medical advisory board and helping to have a successful resolution of his driving problems. it was several years ago. and if it weren't for carl, i think he would have continued to drive when he shouldn't

have. so thank you. >> i need to make a quick comment. that anything that happened relative to your father has nothing to do with me. since we are colleagues, it was referred to the right person and i didn't even actually know the outcome. so thank you. >> some day i'll tell you. i guess my first question is to dr. stape lynne. as i understand it, you did a federally funded study with the maryland m.v.a. on fitness to drive and you came wup a protocol which i understand was successful. why hasn't this protocol been adopted by other states? and what tr challenges to adoption? >> well, i certainly can't speak for other states. the barriers to adoption are political, they're financial, there are -- there are lots of

barriers. i think that, unfortunately, what's likely to happen in this country is that the adoption of screening procedures will be driven by some media event. i think that what has been learned in maryland provides a set of tools to sort of have on the shelf that are being continually improved because as has been noted on this panel, maryland is using functional capacity testing within the do main of its review of medically referred drivers. there is, in addition to the work that was done earlier in this decade in maryland, there are -- there is ongoing work to obtain new population based samples. there is another study about to be launched that will add several thousand more drivers using the same set of fumpingsal screening measures again prospectively looking at their safety outcomes over a period of a couple of years.

so we are accumulating what will be within a couple years from now probably close to 4-or 5,000. that gives you enough to have in each of those odds ration yo analysis enough of those who had at-fault crashes and were above a criterion candidate cut point on one or more of your functional measures. so at that evidence builds, i think the acceptability of using that tool will probably grow as well. but ultimately, i'm afraid what will drive the implementation of screening will be some sort of catastrophic event that gets a lot of media attention. and i should say, i really don't mean to appear as an advocate for screening so much as someone who is resigned to the fact that we are incremently moving to that direction. and when something occurs that

triggers that change in policy, we want to know as much as we can so we can make the right choices. >> question for jane. has any state looked at the concept of graduated delicensing, and is that something that is desoying of further research? >> we did not find any evidence of that. that's something that's sort of near and dear to my heart. it was a phrase i think that pat introduced back in the 1980s. she was the first one i know that really looked at young drivers and said, well why don't we at the other end of the age spectrum talk about graduated delicensing. in practice, some of the states are doing that. i think the initiative that comes closest to that is the offering local or tailored

drive tests. and this is something that i will in cans and something -- kansas and a couple other states, they offer the option of for drives who are unable to pass the standard license renewal requirements, the testing, the road test if it comes to that or whatever. in iowa it's set up so that if you fail that test two times, you've got one more try. and you can opt for a local drive test. and for that, the examiner goes out and you take a road test just in the area, the streets, the roadways that you most need to drive on near your home. and if you can show that you can drive safely in that environment, then they will license you with all these restrictions. so it's just the level of restrictions that you can only drifere during the daytime on these routes, you can't drive on eight-hour trips to florida or whatever. so in a real practical sense,

that is sort of a graduated delicensing. and what we're in the process of just really starting an evaluation of that because it was an initiative that we did not want to necessarily promote strongly to other states until we knew that it didn't have any other significant safety outcome. so we are still evaluating it and getic started. but what we've been told that in practice it really is a stepping stone down from driving, that people cannot qualify for their full license or maybe for iowa and kansas i think it's both two-year reentrepreneurials by the time age 70 and over. they require for this and they may do it one time, two times, but they though they're going to be stopping driving. so it is in a sense a sort of graduated delicensing, and i think it may be a good solution. we're looking to evaluate it more closely. >> doctor, you said that not all states have medical

advisory boards and they're not all robust medical advisory boards. what can be done to encourage states to adopt or implement medical advisory boards? and what are the barriers? >> well, i think one of the things that you get what you pay for. and we in maryland we pay our doctors a certain amount of money. it's not a lot of money. in fact, i consider the fine men and women that are on board when they're in their busy practice, i consider that the amount of money that we pay them is really nominal and what they're doing for us is a great deal of public service. and i appreciate that. but you, a little money can go a long way. it's important i think that --

another thing is that when you have a medical advisory board, if it's presented right, it's an incentive. it's very much an hon tor be on it in some states. that's a kudo. my brain is a lttle fried right now and that light is very bright, and i can't think of any other brilliant idea right now. if something pops in my head, i'll get back to you. >> thank you. >> barbara. i mean, marsha. >> i just want to add one thing there. that certainly i support the medical advisory boards and think every state should have one. but i would note that right now we're about 15 states that do not have medical advisory boards. and it's not like they have nothing in place to deal with medical issues and driving. they often do have good

procedures and policies in place. i mean, california, colorado, ohio, oregon or some of those states that do not have functioning medical advisory boards. but, for example, they will routinely -- the two issues that medical advisory boards typically deal with are the policy issues on helping to set state policies regarding licensing, and then also review of individual cases. so some of these states, for example, for policy issues when they come up to having policy, a policy needing to be addressed or they're reviewing their guidelines and such, they will call in specialists to help with that. they may have physicians on staff that help with that and help with decisions and all. so they do have other ways of dealing with that. and the same thing for reviewing individual cases. some of the states may, you know, rely heavily on the drivers' own physician but also they may have their own physicians on staff or someone they can refer to.

so i just don't want to leave the impression that the states without the medical advisory boards aren't dealing with the issue at all because most of them have found some way to handle it. >> thank you for that clarification. final question to the doctor. there are so many unknowns and so much more research that needs to be done on this issue. and given that, how can we convince the d.m.v to make mobility a higher priority? what arguments can we use to convince them to pay more attention to this issue? >> again, i wish this was going to be a rational process. i mean, the demographic argument is certainly a strong one. i think when someone drives through the front wind oo at the licensing agency offices we saw a couple weeks ago, that certainly makes a strong point.

but those kinds of events of course should not drive the argument. i don't know. i think bringing attention to the not just the -- i don't want to call it a problem because overall older drivers are probably the safest group of operators on the road. when there are issues related to age, it's not certainly because of a lack of skill or any sort of protensety for risk taking. these are people who have been skilled drivers and have learned tactics and strategy over a whole lifetime. so for a select few, a loss of the abilities needed to excute those safe driving skills learned over a lifetime that's important. and it is expensive relatively to identify those few people. how important is it to save x number of crashes, to save x number of injuries and fatalts? i don't know if those injuries and fatality savings in

themselves are a sufficient argument. then i'm afraid we ultimately are going to be left with the media deciding that this is an issue that needs to be in the forefront and essentially having public opinion drive the policy process at the state level. >> not unlike other highway safety issues. >> indeed. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i have just one quick question. there's a pretty good body of literature that shows that the single best preticketor of havi an accident is having had a previous accident. and that's for everybody, for teens, for adults, for older drivers. unfortunately, a lot of the property damage only accidents and a lot of the onroad incidents we've found are not reported for medically relate issues, medical condition that

is may involve older drivers. so how do the m.v.a.s, how do you guys best get referrals from those types of instances? those are in fact some of the best predictors that we've had. how do you get that information? how do you ensure that you're getting accurate information on those types of incidents? >> in maryland, we get about 1400 cases referred by the police each year that run into that are at a traffic scene where something has occurred in which they think there may be a medical issue involved. our analysis of 500 of those cases show that most of them do involve a crash. another way that drivers come to the attention of the maryland driver wellness division is if they have a certain number of points that

accrue relative to their insurance company. so in kind of an indirect fashion, if you're involved in a number of fender benders and getting your car fixed an awful lot of times, they have a system where they'll just notify the driver wellness division that works hand in glove with uso say we want to let you know that this person has a seemingly inappropriate number of crashes in the -- or incidents in the last period of time. >>hank you. i just wanted to follow up on a couple of points that were made during the discussion. first, which is somewhat of a followup on dr. garver's question. i know with respect to young drivers there often is an effort to try to attempt when ever there is a police contact

to identify times when ever there is a police contact with a young driver. they get stopped for some reason or another but not given any sort of citation. is anything like that done with older drivers? has there been any research on police contacts with older drivers that don't necessarily lead to a citation or result from an accident? >> we published a paper on that subject last year. it turns out that when police encounter drivers at a traffic incident, we looked at whether they, if there was a violation involved in this contact with the driver, whether they gave a ticket. in addition to referring them to the m.v.a., because of the concern of a medical condition. it turned out that if you were a younger driver and by younger

driver i believe in this case it was 55, more often than not you got referred and you got a ticket. where as, if you were an older -- i'm sorry 65. but if you were 65 years of age or older, if you had a violation associated with this incident, you got referred but you very frequently didn't get the ticket. and that's an important -- and we would encourage -- nitsa has a very good program for police. we would encourage that the police person gives that older driver the ticket for the violation that was involved with the traffic incident, because this is the finest generation. these are people that are rule obeyers, their traffic records have been fine. this is really the first time they've been in the crash. and sometimes we bring in people for interviews with a family conference or something and their advocate, their

spouse, their kids, say, well, come on. it couldn't have been that serious an episode. the policeman didn't even gism them a ticket to start with. so we think that police officers, if they are going to refer drivers that have -- for whom they have a medical concern, to give them the ticket in addition to referring them. but the bias goes in the direction of not giving at least, in our small study, of not giving the older driver the ticket they absolutely deserve plus the referral. >> absolutely. and then the final question. there was a discussion earlier about imposing driver license restrictions. and i think you mentioned a number of the kinds of restriction that is are done. what about compliance with other classes of drivers? we know driver license restrictions or suspensions are often not obeyed. what about with older drivers? is there any indication that they tend to obey license

restrictions more? or are they like younger drivers? >> the insurance institute study that i cited earlier looking at iowa data and licensing restrictions did tend to find that they did comply with those restrictions that they had on their license. and again, i think this goes back to sort of the generation that they are. they do tend to be compliant with restrictions and all. i know with a er stories about taking away a license and older drivers may continue to drive and all, but i don't think that is the norm. and that's something we're going to be looking at in much more detail. lauren is going to be doing for a study that's gotten under way for nitsa looking at both the safety effects and the compliance with the restrictions. >> what i hear you saying though potentially is it's something that we should continue to look at because this generation may be different. >> and it may be changing as we get up there. yes, it may change. >> we baby boomers weren't

always compliant. >> a little head stronk. >> thank you, madam chairman. rrl i'm curious, mr. -- dr. sodor strom, this is a little off topic but because you talked about your involvement with the fmcsa's medical review board, i was just curious if you could share with us what you think a couple of the kind of strongest accomplishments of the mrbr that have translated into action or policy changes at fmcsa. >> i have to tell you, i'm a new member to the board so i'm not -- i've just been involved basically in several meetings. the board has mandated to have five members to it, and three

retired and so we haven't met for quite a while. i'm not sure, i know they've made a lot of good recommendations sfaffs obstructive sleep apna and some other issues. but i'm not sure if a lot of those recommendations have been followed through with. but they're good recommendations. >> ok. thank you very much. ms. wag anywhere, you and i had a little bit of a side bar conversation yesterday after the session because i think that you have some information about some pedestrian fay talts and i just want to give you an opportunity to share that. >> why, thank you. the question yesterday was related to what are the additional risks that older people have as pedestrians. and in terms of the fatalities that we see out there right now, older people represent 18% of the pedestrian fatalities as

opposed to the 13, 14% of the population that they are. so they are definitely overrepresented. most of those fatalities are happening in urban-ish areas. that could be urban-suburben and they're much more likely to be intersection related crashes than a younger person will have. so that means that the counter measures that we have to use will be much more intersection related, and that includes the engineering that needs to go into places as well as making sure there's good enforcement to make sure that people are not running red lights, for example. as well as making sure that the individuals themselves, both the drives and pedestrians have good education so they know what those risks are and what is the proper behavior that's expected of them. >> thank you.

mr. stapelen referred to the concerns that probably we all have and we often see this in the aftermath of a major accident, is that there's a response that sometimes comes. and sometimes the response tends to be swift, sometimes it takes a little longer. but the quality of the response depends on how much data and information is there really to support the decisions that get made. and so i gs the good news is that we have 51 little incubators of trying to figure out what works. but i guess the bad news is that we also have 51 different incubators of trying to figure out what works. so i would ask ms. stuts, you lked about yea. and they have certainly -- iowa and they have a different model than throughout the country. can you help me understand, and i'm sure each of you has an

experience in a different state that you could talk to. what has prompted a state like iowa to take on the restrictions that certainly had to be a difficult lift for them, maybe not politically popular for a certain group of people. what was the impetus for them to be able to do that? and in other states where they've made some tough decisions, if the other panelists want to help us understand how these changes occurred. >> it's a good question. for iowa particularly, i do not know exactly what prompted them to do this. it is something we need to find out because as we move to try to promote an initiative in other states, we need to know how did this come about, what parties needed to be involved, what pieces in place. it could have been sent something as simple, all states have the option of putting restrictions on licenses. so it may not have been a

particularly difficult legislation or anything that they had to pass. it was more of an internal policy of encouraging to really make any use of that ability that they had. and thinking about it in terms of older drivers. another issue that's closely relate to that, for example, is that almost all d.m.v. examiners, the line examiners have the option of asking drivers to take a road test. that is something that is available to them. but states may vary greatly in terms of the extent to which the examiners take advantage of that. and i think a lot of it boils down to, which is what kind of direction they get from their head of their driver licensing, what, how important that person sees older driver or how they communicated, how they train their examiners and such. and in the case of iowa, they have kim, who is jus -- has

always been right at the for front of doing things for older drivers. so in thatituation particularly it really involves a champion there in the state doing that and someone willing to take it on. >> i want to reinforce what jane just said about having a champion. the efforts in maryland that have been referred to here a number of times were in large part driven by the activities or the involvement of the then administrator ann fairo and the head of the -- and has been carried on by dr. soder strom. so having champions makes a difference. but iowa they were early adopters of the highway design for older drivers and pendsstrans. and you have to believe in large part it's driven by demographic. because after florida, iowa and pennsylvania, two more northern

states, have the highest proportions of older persons as drivers in their states. >> if i may add, iowa was very concerned about the severe lack of transportation tions that they were able to provide, so that they recognize that they had to do something and if they could let people drive a couple more years, then they were not going to be a burden in other areas. >> i would also like to acknowledge that we have been very fortunate that literally for 63 years we have had administrator and administrator in maryland that see it is value of a medical advisory board. and when we think about fiscal cuts, we're always, we feel, very confident, and we know

right from the top that there's a valuable resource to the state. and that's continues through the current administrator. >> thank you all. and my last question has to do maybe with a kind of trying to encaps late or try to sum rise the issue. is this challenge that we have in front of us, is it about older drivers or is it about doing a good job handling medical issues? are they is the same thing or are they different things? >> in an aging society, certainly you're going to have a greater prevalence of medical issues and medications that are going to treat them which are

going to result in these functional issues that we're both concerned about with respect to traffic safety. i don't really see how you can tease them apart for the foreseeable future. i mean, the medical conditions certainly are a trigger. but ultimately it is function that has been underscored here and other panels, that we care about. and it's not just medical conditions and medications but normal aging. normal aging causes a decline in a lot of these key abilities as well. not to usually as severe an extent, but i don't think you can just say age is not important in this discussion. >> chairman, the 2003 event by the ntsb, they used five examples of cases to kind of stet stage for discussion. and i don't believe that any of them involved older drivers. four involved epilepsy and one

involved a driver who had a hypo glice mick episode. so i think you're absolutely on target. it's about health and driving, which is the issue right now, that you're leading the charge on right now. >> i would sort of add to counter that a little bit that when you talk about getting information out to the public and helping the public understand the problem and communicating with even law enforcement and such, that it is important or helpful to focus in terms of aging drivers. because that is a target audience out there. that's the one you want to get the message, you want to communicate with. and i'm thinking a lot because, for example, a number of states and those that seem to be the most progressive are states that have really put together coalitions of interested parties to address the issue of

aging drivers medically at risk drivers, whatever. but very important parties to bring to the table along with the m.d.v., bring your occupational therapist in, bring your state divisions on aging. they're the ones that have all the information on alternative transportation and other resourcors for people. bring together aarp because they have all kinds of resources there. aaa. so, you know, i don't want to just ignore the fact that -- i don't want to talk about things in terms of just aging drirse. but i think -- dr drivers. but i think it is important to know those are the ones that we need to bring in and educate with and i think it's helpful to bring them to the table. >> thank you all so very much. this has been a great final panel to wrap everything up for us. and i want to particularly thank all the parties for

sitting through these sessions. you all to did a fan tantist job thaiing on point, staying on time and actually asking questions and not making statements, which is always a challenge when you have an open mike. so thank you all so much for being so professional and for representing your organization so well. we know that all of you all are partners in this effort of education and advocacy. and so we appreciate what you're doing. so before concluding, i have a few house keeping reminders. as i mentioned in the opening because of our time constraints we simply couldn't include and accommodate everyone who wanted to participate in our forum. so any individuals who wish to submit any comments may do so until november 30. so please check the website for the particulars. we will be posting a written transcript of the proceedings on our web site.

and also, an archives fkiveed video of the proceedings will also be available for a short period going forward. on behalf of my fellow board members, and i see member roseskind was here from the beginning to the end, i would like to thank the panelists and part ees for their participation. certainly our discussions over the last two days have been excellent and they're going to help inform the safety board and our staff as we move forward. my appreciation also to sha lease hawes who is in the back for sharing her documentry with us. the stories of martin and herbert certainly personalize the issues for all of us. thank you to the staff. some who are with me on the dais and some out in the audience. deb hiding behind the table over there. you and your team of hard-working professionals never cease to amaze me 234 what you can do. so thank you for making this

forum possible. the discussions that we've had over the past two days really reminded me of the aforism, a rising tide with saw boats. this was first coined by shawn la mass who was an irish politician and it was later quoted and made famous by president kennedy. but i think this phrase so aptly describes much of what we've discussed over the last two days. the older driver is certainly a rising tide as people live longer and continue to drive well into their older years, whether it's introducing inflateable seat belts to make an accident more surviveable, providing the driver with a display of exactly the information that they want to see, making roadway signs easier to read, or creating new tools to assess the driver's fits in, the safety improvements that we make for some improve highway safety for

us all. we've made great strides in safety since the first driver's license was issued almost a century ago. hopefully through the sharing of best practices and experiences and the active participation of the licensing agencies, the physicians, the communities where these older drivers live we can reach responsible and informed decisions on how to make the roadway safer for all of us. and to do so in a way that balances individual independence, mobility needs, and safety. these goals are not mutually exclusive in our society. collectively we have the opportunity and the obligation to address them concurrently and with some urgency. 25e will be here soon enough. this concludes our forum. and if you all don't mind to indulge me, i have some personal things that i'd like

to share. today is not just a milestone for the safety board but we also have a personal milestone. mr. bruce mcgladry, who is the u director of the office of highway safety is going to be retiring early next year. bruce, this is his last official performance in the boardroom. he has served -- bruce, before coming to the safety board was a police officer. he worked for 13 years in baltimore county maryland and in 12 of those he was a detective. he came to the safety board in 1988 as an investigator. he investigated accidents in all modes of transportation. he worked under jim and jerry who were kind of famous here at the safety board. bruce worked extensively on the board, studies of fatigue, alcohol, and drugs in truck crashes and in 1997 he joined

the office as the chief of the investigations dwig. in 2001 he became the deputy director. and in 2006, he began serving as the director of the office. i've witnessed during my six years here at the board bruce's leadership on big accidents like the big dig, the boston tunnel ceiling collapse, and the minneapolis bridge collapse. both accidents were particularly complex and they required bruce's skills as an organizational leader and sometimes as a diplomat, and as well as there's detective skills that he acquired so early in his career in baltimore. bruce has meantrd me through the years and sometimes it was hard and sometimes it was easy. you know, when beth mentioned to me that it seemed like it was 15 years ago when we talked

about older driver issues when i first came to the board, it was only six years ago but time goes by fast. but motorcycle safety and older drivers were two issues that i was very interested in when i came to the safety board, and bruce and i have worked through these issues together and i was struck, we had a motorcycle safety forum in 2006 and bruce had to leave from that forum directly because his first grandson, finn, was born. and two weeks ago he welcomed his third grandson. and so i know that finn and bruce and baby henry are looking forward to having grandpa bruce and his wife judy with them more often. but we will certainly miss you here. we wish you the very best. and thank you for your service.

[applause] >> i'm not usually a speechless guy, but i think i am today. thank you very much. >> we stand adjourned. >> next, live, your calls and comments on washington journal. after that, "newsmakers" with oregon congressman greg walden. then portions of last week's commission hearing on the gulf oil spill. >> an ideal world, the fact that there were people shorting the mortgage market would have sent a signal saying there are all these smart investors who think this thing is going to crash and burn. but the market was opaque enough that you couldn't see

that the way you can see it in the stock market. and because of the way these instruments worked, you were basically not betting on real mortgages but rather you were betting on the casino version of a mortgage. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> this morning, a political roundtable with republican strategist kevin madden and democratic pollster and michael boseion on the politics and policy of the upcoming 112th congress. ten, terrence samuel, managing editor of the washington journal identifies the new members to watch in the house and senate. and later, martin kligst. and final times u.s. economic editor r