Older drivers sometimes hand in their B driving licences to make the car-to-microcar switch. The idea is that a microcar drives at a lower speed, is not allowed on motorways or trunk roads and is therefore safer to drive. This line of reasoning is not altogether justified, however.
There are no comparative studies of crash risk among older drivers set off against older microcar drivers. But experts think that when driving a car is no longer safe, driving a microcar is not safe either [14]. Driving a microcar is very similar to driving an ordinary car, particularly when driving in the urban area. Schepers [15] adds that driving a microcar is even harder, since the road environment, the traffic situation and the vehicle characteristics make higher task demands on microcar drivers.
Moreover, in case of a crash, the physical consequences for older drivers of the less crashworthy microcars are much more serious than if that same driver had driven an ordinary car (also see the question What about the crashworthiness of mobility scooters, enclosed disability vehicles and microcars? )
