Y
DxRxY=A Or: Distance times Rate times Y equals Age. Y indeed. This is the formula that won Gerd Faltings the 1986 Fields Medal in applied mathematics. The mechanics behind this geometric proof are elementary enough; simply put, it explains that as people get older, they tend to drive slower. But why?
As we age, we slow down. This phenomenon was well established long before the groundbreaking work of Gerd Faltings. People, as time passes, eat slower, talk slower, walk slower, and drive slower. The first three of these recognized symptoms of aging can be traced back to a physical root. The multifactorial process of cell senescence causes our bodies to slowly deteriorate, making it difficult or even painful to do the things we once considered routine.
Pain in the legs means treating them gingerly. Treating our legs gingerly means using them with less force. Using our legs with less force means they don’t move as fast. Legs not moving as fast mean slower speeds of walking. Yes yes, rudimentary logic, thank you Gerd. The same reasoning could be applied to eating, talking, and any of the physical tasks we perform on a day-to-day basis. My recent settlement with the American Rhetoric Association prohibits me from extrapolating this any further, but you get the idea.
However, our velocity while driving cannot be traced back to a physical root in this same manner. How fast we go in our cars is based on a setting we apply to the gas pedal. We incur no bodily harm as we permit a couple of additional cubic millimeters of gasoline to enter the fuel lines. If anything, you’d think that sitting down for longer periods of time would cause the elderly a good deal of pain thereby creating an incentive to get to their destinations a little faster.
So if it is not the physical limitations imposed by our bodies aging process, is it then a mental deficiency? That is to say, are they compensating for a slower reaction time? Are they unable to process information in the same way they once were at the breakneck speed of 65 miles per hour? True, in some cases this mental deficiency may be a deterrent, for instance- they may shy away from driving upwards of 100mph on the Autobahn; but in everyday situations, there is no reason that anyone healthy enough to be driving in the first place would lack the motor skills necessary to process information at the speed of 65 miles per hour.
Brain deterioration theory can be summed up as “use it or lose it”. After 40, our brains begins to decrease in weight and volume. Left under stimulated, people will experience a decline in cognitive function, including memory loss, trouble concentrating, unclear thinking, lack of focus and poor judgment. The antidote for this is mental exercise. Your brain actually thrives on just the kind of cerebral work out provided by a "as fast as I can get away with" drive. Now, I’m not recommending that your 80 year old grandfather go out and tailgate the left lane traffic on Storrow Drive in a rainy day during rush hour, but I am absolutely suggesting that a 40 year old who consistently challenges his reflexes as such should have no mental trouble continuing this behavior well into his golden years. So why doesn’t he?
In the nineteen seventies, geriatric automobile theoreticians surmised that the reason old people drove so slowly was because they grew up with cars that couldn’t move as quickly as those available in the current market. This supposition was further legitimized by the fact that the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (thank you Dwight D. Eisenhower) was not passed until 1956, meaning that even if their cars could have achieved a respectable speed, there would have been no place for them to do so with any regularity.
But time passed and those same hot shot researchers from the 1970s, having entered adulthood with the benefit of the big block Chevell SS and I-95, now find themselves going 50 miles an hour with their blinkers on in the middle lane (author's note: Google search “most awesome car from 1970” as I did while writing this and you’ll see that the entire first page is dedicated to the Chevell with the exception of the first link which takes you to the Honda Civic. I tried that sentence with the Honda Civic, but it just didn’t sound the same. So there you go.).
So if it’s not physical, mental, or habitual—what is it? Well I’m glad you asked. Here's the secret: you don’t get to be an octogenarian by accident.
It sounds crude to say that old people get to be old by not dying, yet it’s the truth. I don’t mean that all speeders shall perish in fiery death, or that the only people who live to be 80 are the ones who obeyed all the traffic laws all the time. No, the numbers do not support this. We see around 20,000 drivers die in car accidents each year. A staggering figure, but certainly not enough to account for the untimely demise of all would be speeders.
What I do mean is that as we age, we become more risk averse. There are a million ways to die young, but controlling for natural causes like disease and other factors out of the power of the deceased, the fewer life threatening risks you take, the longer you will live (see Chart 1).
Yes, as it turns out, the elderly have learned that driving fast is an unnecessary risk, and in their shameless pursuit of longevity, they have managed to cut down on behaviors that may lead to death- wherever possible... As for why they think it’s OK to wear socks and sandals—that, my friends, is a discussion for wiser minds than me and Gerd Faltings.