Rise of the OAP drivers: Number of centenarians with full driving licences has TRIPLED in a decade

The number of centenarian drivers has more than tripled in a decade to an all-time high, MailOnline can reveal today.

Government data shows 597 British adults aged over 100 held full driving licences in 2023, including a 110-year-old woman and a 107-year-old man.

This is up from just 195 in 2013, in a trend that has triggered fresh demands to clamp down on OAP drivers. 

Aggrieved by a slew of deaths involving elderly drivers, campaigners want over-70s to be made to re-take their tests. Others have called for mandatory eye tests in a bid to improve road safety.

Current rules say motorists over 70 only need to self-certify driving competency by filling in a questionnaire every three years.

MailOnline’s analysis of DVLA figures comes just weeks after a fatal case of driving negligence re-surfaced in the public arena. 

In 2011, 89-year old retired doctor Turner Waddell drove for around a mile south on the northbound carriage of the A30 between Hook and Basingstoke. 

Cruising at 60mph in the fast lane while heading in the wrong direction, motorists flashed their lights and beeped their horns. 

Waddell, who failed an eye test the day before, smashed into Neil Colquhoun’s head-on as he came around a bend, killing him as Mr Colquhoun’s Vauxhall Vectra collided with another vehicle and burst into flames.

The tragic case featured in a documentary for ITV entitled Older Drivers: Danger at the Wheel?, where Mr Colquhoun’s mother Patricia called for tougher laws on older drivers to make roads safer.

In response to the documentary, Ms Colquhoun said: ‘The self-certification system should be done away with. It’s ridiculous. You don’t even have to have a doctor sign it. 

‘When a driver reaches 70 all that he or she has to do is complete a form to say that they are medically fit and a driving license is issued for another three years. 

‘Though I acknowledge that there are many safe elderly drivers on our roads there are some who are not, and families are sometimes too afraid to confront their elderly relatives as to their failing abilities.’

The sharp increase in crashes has been blamed on declining bus services.

The figures come after June Mills, 96, last year became the oldest women in Britain to admit to causing death by dangerous driving. 

Wheelchair-bound Mills, of Merseyside, killed pensioner Brenda Joyce, 76, when she ‘applied too much acceleration’. It caused her Vauxhall Corsa to mount a pavement and trapped Joyce her underneath the vehicle.

In 2023, William Beer, of South Wales, then in his mid-90s, was jailed after knocking down an elderly pensioner crossing the road with his Zimmer frame. 

Beer admitted causing the death of 84-year-old Illtyd Morgan by dangerous driving and was handed a two year, four month sentence and banned from driving for six years and two months. 

The amount of older drivers on Britain’s roads has steadily risen in recent years, in line with an increasingly elderly population.

Government statistics analysed by MailOnline show 5.75million over-70s held drivers licenses in England and Wales in 2023.

In terms of raw numbers, this marked the second highest year on record, behind only 2021.

Government figures from 2023 indicate that drivers over 70+ make up 25 per cent of deaths from crashes. 

The most common contributory factor allocated to vehicles driven by an older car driver involved in fatal or serious collisions was ‘driver failed to look properly’ followed by ‘driver failed to judge another person’s path or speed’.

When looking at nonagenarians only, figures have also soared to a record high. 

Some 156,633 over-90s were allowed to get behind the wheel in 2023.  

Craig Delahaye, of the National Accident Helpline, said ‘pointing the finger’ at certain groups of people doesn’t solve the problem. 

He told MailOnline: ‘Drivers shouldn’t be banished from the roads solely because of their age – this is not what makes someone unsafe to drive.’ 

Mr Delahaye cited eyesight problems, mobility issues, certain medications and a ‘lack of understanding of the current rules of the road’ as examples of what poses risk to other road users. 

He added: ‘Instead of pointing the finger in these situations, we should instead endeavour to educate and support eachother to enable the rules to be understood and the roads to be safer for everyone.’

Dennis Reed, director of over-60s representative body, Silver Voices, told MailOnline that any notion of introducing policies to enforce policies of ‘age discrimination’ would be met with uproar. 

He said: ‘It’s completely unreasonable to pick an arbitrary age to make people re-do a test – someone aged 83 may have the eyesight of an eagle, while someone in their 50s might have significant vision problems. 

‘Older people would say that their free tv licenses were taken, then their winter fuel payments and now driving licenses? There would be protests like we’ve never seen before.’

But Sarah Vaughan, founder of motor insurer specialist Angelica Solutions and former transport safety consultant to Parliament, told MailOnline that everyone, including the elderly, should be made to re-test and upskill. 

She said: ‘License renewal is more about paperwork than safety.

‘All drivers should undergo regular training or retesting to enhance road safety. 

‘Focusing solely on age overlooks the broader issue of maintaining driving competence over time.

‘It’s concerning that someone can pass their driving test at 17 and potentially drive for decades without any requirement to update their skills.’