Doctors should not be obliged to report older people with a driver's license to the authorities if they can no longer drive safely.
The German Traffic Court Day came to this recommendation on Friday in Goslar.
Reinhard Bingener
Political correspondent for Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Bremen based in Hanover.
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The assembled experts from specialist disciplines, authorities and associations emphasized the danger of a reporting requirement for a trusting relationship between patients and doctors.
However, doctors should be allowed to report patients if they have reasonable grounds to suspect that they are unfit to drive and have previously exhausted their therapeutic and advisory resources.
Similar high risk as in boys
The traffic court also recommends better training for doctors in traffic medicine and improving the offers for seniors to maintain their fitness to drive or to switch to another type of mobility.
In recent years, there have been several reports of seniors injuring passers-by with their cars in an uncontrolled manner.
According to accident researcher Siegfried Brockmann, senior citizens represent a similarly conspicuous risk group as young drivers between the ages of 18 and 24.
In the overall statistics, however, these accidents involving elderly people over the age of 75 who are unable to drive do not carry much weight, as they rarely have a driver's license and also drive less cars.
Due to demographic change, however, an increasing number of such accidents is to be expected in the future.
The 61st German Traffic Court Day also dealt with drunk drivers of e-scooters.
So far, the same blood alcohol limits have applied to these vehicles as to drivers.
From 0.5 per mille there is an administrative offence, from 1.1 per mille a criminal offense.
In their recommendations, the experts reject calls for the crime limit to be raised to 1.6 per mille, as for cyclists.
At the same time, the Traffic Court considers the regular withdrawal of driving licenses for e-scooter drivers with more than 1.1 per mille to be excessive, as is the case for car drivers, and proposes a corresponding change in the law.
The imposition of a one-month driving ban is generally sufficient.
In Goslar, the German police union spoke out in favor of considering the introduction of compulsory helmets, citing the increasing number of accidents involving e-scooters.
The recommendations of the Traffic Court Day, which traditionally meets in Goslar, have often become the basis of legislation in the past.