"Can’t wait to see how this thread evolves ... me, I’m all for removing geezer access to the keys once they demonstrate that they can’t see over the dashboard."
Posted on 04/05/2010 7:30:38 AM PDT by KeyLargo
Elderly drivers’ risk not clear-cut
The debate about when to take the keys away from the elderly flared up again when 86-year-old driver struck three teenage Chicago cyclists on March 24
By Erika Slife and Bonnie Miller Rubin, Tribune reporters
April 3, 2010
Alice Topping was in her convertible, soaking in one of fall's last nice days, when she came to a four-way stop in her Evanston neighborhood just as another car approached.
Assuming the other driver would stop at the sign, she began to drive through the intersection when she felt a hard crash.
"Look what you've done to my car!" the elderly driver cried as he got out of his vehicle. But as the drivers inspected the damage — her right rear side, his front — it was evident who was responsible, Topping said.
"It finally clicked in with him that he had hit my car," she said.
The memory of the 2009 crash came flooding back to Topping on March 24 after she heard that 17-year-old Faith Dremmer, a friend, had been killed when an 86-year-old driver veered across the center line, plowing into her as she biked in southern Illinois with two University of Chicago Laboratory School friends.
It made Topping and countless others wonder: Is enough being done to protect motorists from seniors who shouldn't be driving? When is it time to take the keys away?
"NO ONE over the age of 70 should be permitted to operate a motor vehicle. Period," one outraged reader opined online.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Can’t wait to see how this thread evolves ... me, I’m all for removing geezer access to the keys once they demonstrate that they can’t see over the dashboard.
Assuming the other driver would stop at the sign, she began to drive through the intersection when she felt a hard crash
Mistake #1 Never Assume the other driver will stop.
Is enough being done to protect motorists from teenagers and anyone using cell phones, eating or doing one's hair, who shouldn't be driving? When is it time to take the keys away?
OTOH, when do we begin to use our brains?
I’m more concerned with braindead mushheads like Jack Murtha, Teddy Kennedy, and Robert Byrd dictating our legislation when they (A) don’t even comprehend what they are voting on and (B) they won’t be alive long enough to have to live under it.
What demographic has the highest death rate in motor vehicle crashes. My 21 year old grandson has already lost 3 of his HS classmates to auto crashes and every one involved speeding...
Two words.. The Villages. Two more words.. Goft carts.
Golf carts, too
"Can’t wait to see how this thread evolves ... me, I’m all for removing geezer access to the keys once they demonstrate that they can’t see over the dashboard."
It’s a skills issue and faculties issue. Apply the same rules you would for your licensed physician, dentist, etc. and the answer is clear. If you don’t have what it takes you shouldn’t be licensed, that is the PURPOSE of licensing, a demonstration of competency for a task.
I was in a bad accident last Monday (everyone okay, thank the Lord! Car a disaster, though). I was driving along, doing the speed limit, a woman shot out of an intersection without looking (even though she had been sitting there stopped. As I passed, she accelerated. “I didn’t see you,” she said. I couldn’t help but wonder: How could you not see me when I was passing directly in front of you!!!??? Cop did not give her a ticket!!!!!! Just said to her, “Hey, don’t worry about it, this stuff happens.” If I hadn’t zig-zagged when I saw she was coming right at me, I would have been seriously injured).
Watch out for the other guy.
As an elderly man was driving down the freeway, his cell phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Herman, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on Route 280. Please be careful!”
“It’s not just one car,” said Herman, “I’m on Route 280 and there’s hundreds of them!”
They are all three dead. Only one of them is too stupid to know it yet.
I think all drivers should probably be retested on a regular basis, maybe when their driver’s license comes up for renewal every 5 years or whatever. For drivers over a certain age, maybe license renewals and retests should come more often. There are elderly drivers on the road who just haven’t got what it takes to drive safely any more - but they’re hardly the only ones. Lot’s of younger licensed drivers never really had what it took in the first place.
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