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Physicians often dread the “Dad is too old to drive” conversation, which forces them to weigh public safety against the interests of an individual patient. Studies have been equivocal as to whether these conversations actually make a difference in accident rates.
In Ontario, Canada, doctors are mandated to confront patients whom they judge to be potentially unfit drivers and to report such patients to authorities. Depending on the particulars of a case, the patient's driver's license might or might not be revoked immediately.
Researchers evaluated the policy's effectiveness by comparing patients' accident rates before and after physicians got involved. From 2006 to 2009, most of the 100,000 patients who received physicians' formal warnings ag…