Governor Pat Quinn [Illinois] today signed legislation to protect volunteer drivers from being denied auto coverage or paying extra for car insurance premiums simply because the driver is a volunteer driver.
House Bill 1378 also prohibits insurers from imposing a surcharge on or increasing the rate for a vehicle policy solely due to the fact one or more of the vehicle’s drivers is a volunteer driver.
Chicago Tribune
Transportation is a big issue for older people. Take Carole Howard for example. She lives in the city’s North Side Lincoln Park neighborhood and hasn’t owned a car in a long time because she suffers from fibroneuralgia and can’t drive. She uses a walker and relies mostly on public transportation to get around. But the number of buses on her route have been cut and the buses are crowded. So it’s hard for Howard to get on the bus with her walker. She was even injured not long ago while sitting on the bus when it took a curve too fast and she got hit in the knee by another rider’s wheelchair.
Jon Hilkevitch
Chicago Tribune
Joe Tallman, 24 and physically fit, felt about 60 years older on Tuesday when he was zipped into a senior citizen driving simulator suit and put behind a steering wheel.
Outfitted with strategically placed weights and braces from neck to ankles, the suit creates the feeling of restricted movement, arthritis and fatigue that many elderly drivers must contend with.
The purpose behind the senior simulator, which was available Tuesday at Millennium Park, was to help facilitate a necessary but often uncomfortable dialogue between family members and their elderly parents and grandparents who still drive—and perhaps shouldn’t.
On September 21st, Liberty Mutual holds an event called “National Conversation Drive” in downtown Chicago.
The event is designed to get adult children of senior drivers to “have the conversation” with their aging loved ones about safe driving behavior and transportation alternatives. It is Liberty Mutual Insurance’s latest effort in its ongoing campaign to raise awareness and support the issues around senior driving and senior transportation.
Throughout the event, participants will engage with interactive tools (e.g. the senior simulator suit) that prepare them to start the sensitive conversation, as well as be introduced to alternative transportation options through ITNAmerica. The participants can “pledge” (or commit) to have this conversation online at LibertyMutual.com/seniordriving. For every conversation pledged, Liberty Mutual Insurance will donate the cost of a ride to help fund alternative senior transportation through ITNAmerica. To find out more about “National Conversation Drive”, please go to libertymutualinteractive.com/ncd.
When: Noon, June 18 – Noon, June 19
Where: Portland ME, Back Cove, along Baxter Boulevard
Less than a decade after the very first Walk for Rides™ fundraising event, Katherine Freund is embarking on a 24-hour, round-the-clock walk, in support of ITNAmerica and all affiliates. The walk is around Back Cove in Portland, Maine on June 18-19. Katherine will be traveling around the country gathering support for her walk. Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, representing the 1st District of Maine, will join Katherine on June 18 to show her support for ITNAmerica and senior transportation.
If you are interested in walking with Katherine, please sign up on our website. You can register online to walk as part of Katherine’s team, and then share your page with friends and family asking them to sponsor your walk. If you can’t be with Katherine to walk in Maine, register as an individual to walk in your community. You can also promote your page on Facebook and Twitter to let more people know about Katherine’s 24-hour walk. Anyone, anywhere in the country can walk to support ITNAmerica in our Walk for Rides.
ITNAmerica Co-hosting Day-Long Seminar at Upcoming Aging in America Conference in Chicago
Aging in America, the 2010 Chicago conference of the National Council on Aging and the American Society on Aging, will be a 3-day showcase for programs and projects that can be replicated, a forum for policy discussion and advocacy, and a prime source of information on new research findings in aging. It is the nation’s largest gathering of a diverse, multidisciplinary community of professionals from the fields of aging, healthcare, and education.
ITNAmerica® and the National Center on Senior Transportation (NCST) are partnering at the Chicago event to sponsor an all-day educational event on Thursday, March 18, 2010.
ITNAmerica®, the first and only national, non-profit transportation service for the nation’s aging population, is leading the way in the dawn of the social enterprise era. This morning’s sessions will feature presentations by ITNChicago® founder Joyce Gallagher, Atlantic Philanthropies Program Manager Laura Robbins, and Motion Picture & Television Fund Center on Aging Director, Dr. Neal Cutler.
Morning Sessions: ITNAmerica: Social Enterprise and Senior Mobility. Yes, we can.
Session 1: (8-9:30 a.m.): Community Collaboration and Social Enterprise
HOST: City of Chicago,
Session 2: (9:45-11:00 a.m.): Social Enterprise and Senior Mobility—A Report on the Atlantic Philanthropies Grant to Help Launch ITNAmerica,
Sustainable Senior Transportation
HOST: The Atlantic Philanthropies
Session 3: (11:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m.): Aging in Community—Linking Entertainment Industry NORCs with Sustainable Senior Transportation
HOST: Motion Picture & Television Fund (MPTF)
NCST is a technical assistance and training center funded by the Federal Transit Administration in collaboration with the Administration on Aging, Their mission is to increase transportation options for older adults to enhance their ability to live more independently within their communities. Support and resources are provided to the aging network across the full constellation of senior transportation services, including older driver safety, driving transitions, public transportation options, taxi services, volunteer driver programs, and more. The focus of the three NCST- sponsored afternoon sessions is on showcasing replicable and sustainable strategies and solutions at the local level.
Afternoon Sessions: NCST
Session 1: Senior Transportation
Moderator: Gail Gibson Hunt, President & CEO, National Alliance for Caregiving
Session 2: Everyone Rides: Meeting the Mobility Needs of Culturally and Ethnically Diverse Elders
Moderator: Greg Link, Aging Services Program Specialist-U.S. Administration on Aging
Session 3: Transportation Options: Where the Rubber Meets the Road in Mobility Management
Moderator: Santo Grande, President & CEO-Delmarva Community Services, Inc.
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Internship Program a Model for Success
WESTBROOK ME – A generous grant from The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has enabled ITNAmerica to expand its successful internship program supporting sustainable transportation resources for seniors across the country.
“The initial funding for this innovative project yielded such successful outcomes we’re doing it again,” says Katherine Freund, President and Founder of ITNAmerica. “With the Foundation’s funding of nine interns in affiliate communities across the country, we raised awareness about our services while also raising significantly more money than we spent.”
The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation has supported the needs of low-income seniors for over 50 years. The Foundation’s 2009 grant to ITNAmerica enabled participating affiliates to generate more than $130,000 in revenue, with $20,000 of that money reserved for ITN®’s Road Scholarship Program™ for low-income seniors. In this way, the grant helped build community support for senior mobility, enabled access for all seniors, and ensured the special needs of low income seniors were not forgotten.
“The interns helped us build support that will continue to generate funds year after year,” says Freund. “With as many as 20 interns in affiliate communities across the country in 2010, we anticipate even greater success with what has now become The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Internship Program. This support will expand our commitment to more transportation resources for more people in more places.”
FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter/fspielman@suntimes.com
Edgewater resident Betty Steinke, 77, was recently forced to give up her driver’s licensebecause of the severe visual impairment known as macular degeneration.That left her 84-year-old husband as her only chauffeur. But it won’t be long before Leroy Steinke is off the hook.
After two years of planning, City Hall is ready to roll out a pioneering program that will allow seniors to donate their cars to a new nonprofit agency in exchange for free rides around theclock.
The Independent Transportation Network is the brain child of Katherine Freund, whose 3-year-old son was run over by an elderly motorist in 1988 while playing outside their Maine home.
“When our family recovered, I said, how do I keep this from happening to other people? How do I fix it?” said Freund, whose son is now a healthy 23-year-old. “Everybody’s family has some older person struggling with this issue. People need an escort in and out of the car. They need someone to carry their packages or fold their walker. You cannot rely on adult children to leave their jobs every day to do this.”
