Start retesting drivers at 65. I’m getting close, and I mean it.

A 93-year-old woman pressed the gas instead of the brake trying to park outside Meg's Grill in Lavallette Saturday morning. Her car went through the outdoor dining area and into the building. Ursula Keating, 56, the wife of an Ocean County volunteer fire chief, died. Seven others were hurt. The neighboring liquor store took heavy damage too.

No charges have been filed. There's a real chance none ever will be, because what happened Saturday wasn't malice. It was almost certainly the kind of split-second physical mistake that becomes more likely as we age.

My heart genuinely goes out to everyone touched by this. Ursula Keating's family. The people injured. And yes, the 93-year-old driver too, who will carry this for whatever time she has left. This is a tragedy on every side of it. Nobody woke up Saturday morning intending harm.

Why I'm not just an outside observer on this one

I'm getting close to 65 myself. That's not old by the standards a lot of us live by now, but I already notice things are different behind the wheel than they were a decade ago, driving at night especially.

That's exactly why I think this conversation needs real teeth, not just sympathy after the fact.

SEE ALSO: Wife of NJ firefighter killed when car crashes into Jersey Shore restaurant  

Damage to Cornerstone Wines & Liquors located next to Meg's Grill after a crash on Sat., Sept. 19, 2026

The numbers behind the instinct

The CDC reports that the number of licensed drivers 65 and older grew 68% between 2000 and 2020, reaching nearly 48 million people. NHTSA data shows 7,971 people 65 and older died in traffic crashes in 2022 alone, with another 268,622 injured, and fatalities in this age group actually rose 6% between 2021 and 2022.

Both the CDC and NHTSA are careful to say age-related changes, vision, physical functioning, reaction time, don't affect every older driver the same way, and they explicitly caution against basing decisions purely on age. I take that seriously. But the same agencies also confirm that these changes are real and common enough to matter, and night driving specifically is where the research is most consistent: reduced visual processing speed, longer reaction times, and real difficulty adjusting to glare and lower light.

What other states already do, and what New Jersey doesn't

Here's what surprised me most: New Jersey currently has almost no age-based requirements for license renewal at all. We're grouped with states like New York and Pennsylvania that treat a 65-year-old and a 45-year-old identically at the DMV.

Meanwhile, roughly two-thirds of states already require something extra once a driver reaches somewhere between 65 and 80, usually more frequent vision tests, in-person renewal instead of online, or shorter renewal cycles. Illinois is the only state that requires an actual road test tied strictly to age, and even that only kicks in at 87.

I don't think 87 is the right number to wait for. I think somewhere between 65 and 70 is.

A model that already exists, just not mandatory

This isn't a totally new idea, either. In 33 states and Washington D.C., insurers are already required to offer discounts to older drivers who complete an approved safety refresher course, like the AARP Smart Driver program, which specifically covers age-related driving changes and can knock several percent off a policy for multiple years.

That's the exact model I'd want to see insurance companies lead on here, expand it, tie it to real vision and reaction testing rather than just a self-paced course, and make passing that test the thing that earns the discount. Insurance companies already reward safe driving in dozens of other ways. This would just be one more.

I know exactly what the pushback will be

Nobody wants to lose their mobility or their independence. I understand that fear better than most, because I'm close enough to feel it myself now. But nobody wants to be responsible for a tragedy like Saturday's either.

We keep reading about these crashes, talking about them, writing pieces exactly like this one, while more people get hurt or killed in the meantime. Over 20 years ago it was even a storyline on The Sopranos. At some point, sympathy alone isn't enough. Testing beginning between 65 and 70 isn't about assuming every older driver is dangerous. It's about catching the ones who genuinely are, before another Saturday morning turns into another headline.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 show host ­­Eric Johnson only.