It's an old gag, over which American geezers tend to chortle, but it's not very funny, and the joke is on an increasing number of innocent victims.

With a number of variations, it goes like this: "I have arthritis, bursitis, failing vision, defective hearing, occasional dizziness, early Alzheimer's Disease symptoms, multiple joint replacements, two coronary bypasses, a pacemaker and a number of the other byproducts of advanced age - but, thank God, I still have my driver's license!"

In New Hampshire, where I enjoy summers with Firstwife and our diverse disabilities, people 75 years old and beyond who wish to renew their drivers' licenses are required to pass a road test to prove their proficiency behind the wheel. (Discrimination? Profiling? Read on!)

That same inconvenience is imposed on mid-septuagenarians in Illinois, but nowhere else in the good old USA. (Such tests are available in the District of Columbia, but only upon individual application, and the demand is said to be somewhat below the volume level of requests for a comprehensive IRS audit.)

However, in our home state of Florida, anyone still young and agile enough to send in a check can perpetuate the privilege of driving (or, if they can't do better, merely aiming) their motorized missiles until death do them part - their own deaths, that is, since killing others does not necessarily ground them.

Neither does a whelming majority of states require that superannuated flatulents (we strive for delicacy here, as regular readers know) demonstrate that they can see and hear better than tree stumps or utility poles before being readmitted to the demolition derby of our highways.

Aside: I'm frequently asked by figures on my TV set, "What's in YOUR wallet?" In mine is documented permission to drive anywhere - including NH and IL - until I'm 84 years old. And, unless somebody gets smart in the DMV, the only thing required of me then and forever after will be to kick in a few bucks every six years and to have avoided kicking the bucket. A side benefit will be the agelessness of my photo, which now more closely resembles the face of a descendant than the one I daily shave.

Don't get me wrong, folks, I'd sooner give up my remote control than my own driver's license - although that would be a tough call - because my old shank's mare just ain't what it used t'be, because I never liked horseback riding, and because it's a long commute between Florida's winters and summers on Golden Pond.

A governing consideration here is the delusion that we (voting) grayheads have slipped nary a notch in physical phitness, which apparently stands to (political) reason. (Buy that and I have some nifty submerged land for sale!

In fact, car crashes (many mischaracterized as "accidents") are the leading cause of injury-related deaths among 65- to 75-year-olds and, thereafter, second only to simply falling down, at which we are quite adept.

Space limitations here do not permit retelling of the many scary stories about my contemporaries and elders (yes, there are still a few) who mistake accelerators for brake pedals and vice-versa, or lose control of their vehicles, or react to emergency situations with the speed of handicapped slugs, often resulting in serious injury and death.

Rare indeed would be the golden yearlings who voluntarily surrendered the freedom of mobility which they so passionately coveted in their mid-teens and rarer still would be the ones who rated themselves less than excellent in their driving prowess; but physical deterioration is the ultimate reality game, and the stakes couldn't possibly be higher.

Let me make you this bet, though, and you name the stakes: Rarest of all would be the old guys or dolls who would consider their right to drive a fair exchange for a human life - including their own.

That being so, and political cowardice being damned, it makes nothing but sense to test the eyes, ears and driving skills of us maxi-mature specimens on a regular basis.

I don't relish the thought of giving up my keys, but neither do I want to die peacefully in my sleep while my passengers and/or passers by and/or another driver come to a terrifying, violent and highly preventable end.

New Hampshire and Illinois have shown the way, but a spread of such blatant common sense is about as likely as profiling and discriminating against young male Islamic types in this era of myopic political correctness.