Simulator drives home point on aging

The senior simulator suit I'm wearing has jettisoned me a few decades into the future.

The neck-to-ankle jumper has straps and pads that restrict the movement of my knees, back and elbows. Weights render my arms heavier. Straps make it hard to stand up straight. Gloves restrict the movement of my fingers - and pads on the fingertips make picking things up next to impossible.

A neck brace keeps me from turning my head with ease, my impairment glasses reduce my vision to about 30 percent, and now I'm climbing behind the wheel of a car.

Whee! Welcome to my dotage.

Recently, Liberty Mutual, the insurance company, arranged for a few hardy travelers to drive while impaired - by age, not alcohol. The company, with the input of senior transportation people at ITNAmerica and the Ohio-based Macklin Intergenerational Institute, marked off a driving course in a parking lot in East Hartford, Conn., loaded human lab rats like myself into full-length simulator suits and handed us the keys. At the same time, Liberty launched a video game that allows players to see what it's like to drive while old. (Go to libertymutual.com/driverseat.)

The point is to get the conversation started about elderly drivers and, not incidentally, mass transit and alternative transportation for seniors who perhaps should surrender their licenses.

I tried the computer game under the sympathetic eye of a young man named Josh, who helped design it. It simulates what it's like to drive at age 65, 75 or 85. I went for broke (85) and took out several pedestrians, including a little boy in a red shirt, for which I am sorry.

The game is geared toward baby boomers, who might be uncomfortable talking to their parents about the inevitable - though eventually boomers will need to have that same talk with themselves.

A recent Liberty Mutual survey said that 75 percent of adult children say they haven't talked to their parents about dwindling driving skills. Yet 92 percent of those parents say they thought their children had the right to bring it up.

By some estimates, the number of drivers 70 and older will triple in the next 20 years. Recent studies show that - despite their bad driving reputation - elderly drivers tend to modify their driving habits as they age. They stop driving at night. They avoid busy highways. They tend to be less likely to be involved in fatal accidents, though they are more likely to be involved in multi-vehicle crashes, especially at intersections.

Back in the car (a Toyota Camry), Steve, the guy in the seat next to me, is giving me instructions for the driving course in front of us, and though my body is artificially aged, my mind is flashing back to 1975, when Mr. Archer, my driver's-ed instructor, barked orders as I tried to maneuver a hulking Ford around the telephone poles in my high school parking lot.

As patient as was Mr. Archer (And Steve, too! Hey, buddy!), I am so not understanding what I'm supposed to do, and it has nothing to do with pretending to be old. As I have him repeat himself - twice - I start to laugh. My (slim) ability to follow instructions probably won't increase as I get older, will it? I pity my children, and that future uncomfortable conversation we'll have. Meanwhile: I take out a few orange traffic cones and cackle the whole way. Whee!