An elderly driver slammed his car into a Wal-Mart in Danvers Tuesday morning, hitting a mother and her child.
The 93-year-old driver, Louis Vesprini of Danvers, and his 90-year-old wife were in their Toyota Camry when it plowed through the front of the store and hit the woman and her 1-year-old girl.
I do find it rather amazing that the Camry wasn't accused of magic acceleration. These stories seem to be chock-full of cars that mysteriously accelerated on their own to attack some defenseless store. The fact that the median age of the drivers involved is north of 80 has nothing to do with it, of course...
On the morning news, one of the state legislators was grandstanding on this story, calling for mandatory re-testing of drivers over the age of 85. This comes up every single time some whitehead plows into a store and sends a bunch of people to the hospital, and every single time it dies a lonely death. No one wants to touch the AARP lobby; no one wants to stick their neck out and risk angering the one group that will reliably go to the polls and vote your stupid ass out...
On a personal level, I remember driving with my grandfather, G-d rest his soul. It was a truly frightening experience - the man didn't know the meaning of "STOP" or "right of way", he just kept on truckin' like he was the only vehicle on the road. We probably should have taken away his license in his final years, but it's hard - you're then responsible for arranging transportation and such. And he was under 85, so this proposed legislation wouldn't have affected him anyways...
I know since I got my license a million years ago they've changed the conditions under which younger drivers can take the road (16½-18 you can't have any non-family passengers, etc.). We put extra restrictions on younger drivers due to their inexperience; shouldn't we also have similar cautions on our elderly drivers because of their advanced age? Right now, as long as they pass the eye test they get their license renewed, with no accounting for the dulling of reflexes.
How many more Wal-Marts must become drive-thrus before we take action?
That is all.
6 comments:
As long as it's Chinamart they are taking out why worry?
Mom just had to retake her license test. They live in New Mexico, where it's every year if you're north of (I think) 75.
Don't think it was more than vision and written, tho - no behind the wheel testing. That's probably what you'd need.
yeah but younger drivers don't vote or donate to campaigns!
One of my grandmothers has had her wings clipped (not sure who made the call on that) the other is 83 and still driving. As far as I can tell she's still safe, and she doesn't drive to new places or after dark.
Still I'd feel a bit better if every year she had to drive to the Maine DMV to get checked out.
Would suck to have my Gram kill herself in an accident...would suck more for her to kill somebody with their whole life ahead of them.
NH retests the elderly at 65 or 70. My question is, which big dig union shop contractor set the security posts far enough apart so that Methuselah's car could pass between them? The reason for their existence is to stop smash and grab robberies by driving through the doors,
If you mow down one Walmart, don't two pop up in their place?
I just help my FIL (86) drive over to the nursing home last night to see MIL and it literally scared the crap out of me. He drives down the main road at 20-25 MPH (or less). He gets lost driving to my house. I'm afraid that the time is coming to retire his license.
Yup, drive-throughs open up everywhere, caused by older drivers:
http://www.thebaynet.com/news/index.cfm/fa/viewstory/story_ID/13484
I responded to the above with the rest of Bay District VFD. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
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