I see way too many awful drivers on the road these days. I think there are a lot of factors contributing to this but I think it’s far too easy to get your drivers license. Every day on my commute to work there’s at least one accident. Because someone’s not paying attention, they don’t know how to merge, how to turn their lights on, how to use a blinker. I could go on for days. I don’t think making the test harder would completely solve the problem, but I think it’s a start. I also think that past a certain age, maybe 60, we should have to keep retaking the drivers test, the actual driving portion, to make sure people as they age can still operate safely on the road.
Not sure where you drive normally - I drive is South Florida, which is a synonym for “lots of elderly people driving around” - but for every accident scene with an older driver at it, I see 10-15-20 scenes with the “usual suspects” for al those named by you “not paying attention, not knowing what they do” types of behavior - and most of those are well under mentioned by you age of 60 yo. And if you would add - not mentioned by you - a general non-concern of that age-group for anything not-on-my-phone-screen and anyone else but them, you probably will come to a conclusion that first part of your proposition (making obtaining a driving license a serious task, and not a “birthright”) is way more important than “let’s test all old farts if they remember how to press that gas pedal” part of it.