Like many of his Bell Hill neighbors, Ken Robertson is a retiree with a nice house and a stellar view of the Sequim-Dungeness Valley.
But Robertson, 72, has something in his garage that separates him from his peers — a shiny, red BMW with a 400-horsepower engine under its hood.
And if that raises eyebrows, consider this: He drives it.
Frequently.
“The enjoyable part is how many ‘Gs’ you can pull in a turn,” said Robertson, an instructor and enthusiast of high-performance racing.
The turns he maneuvers are limited to race tracks, not city streets.
And Robertson is keenly aware of the controversy surrounding senior drivers. After all, he went through the emotional decision his own mother made to stop driving at age 90.
Fueled by high-profile stories of horrendous crashes caused by elderly people behind the wheel, there’s a growing public sentiment that officials should start yanking the driver’s licenses of people after they reach a certain age, said Mark Varadian, spokesman for the state Department of Licensing.
But that approach is completely unnecessary, Varadian said.
“That’s inching close to age discrimination,” he said.
Washington does not impose extra restrictions on elderly drivers, allowing them to re-test every five years just as other drivers do.
They are not subjected to road tests unless they appear to be unfit or compromised as safe drivers.
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The rest of the story appears in Sunday’s Peninsula Daily News.
