Icelanders live longer – and drive longer

Ninetheen Icelanders – 95 years or older – have valid driver’s licences.

17 of them are men, and two of them are women, reports Iceland Review, quoting the administrator of the Facebook page Langlífi (“Longevity”).

After 80 years of age, Icelandic driver’s licenses are only valid for one year at a time.

The newspaper Morgunblaðið recently interviewed Guðjón Daníelsson from a village in the East Fjords. He is 101 years old, and the second oldest driver on Iceland.

Iceland has one of the highest life expectancies in the world.

A report that was published this summer, from Statistics Iceland, shows that Icelandic men on average live the longest of all European men, or to the age of 81.6 years. This is an increase of roughly two years since 2000.

Icelandic women were long ranked the longest living in the world, but have in the past decade fallen behind other countries - such as Spain - where the average women can expect to live 85.5 years.

Iceland also boasts the lowest infant mortality rate in Europe.