Eight people were killed, 14 critically injured, 21 or 22 moderately or lightly injured.
Good, heavens, I just read this.
What a nightmare! Hopefully no Dopers were doing a little shopping at the Farmers Market.
Some Dopers may recall that Ye Olde King’s Head, site of a couple of Dopefests, is just a couple of blocks away from the crash scene.
Yikes. Heard it on the radio.
I bet the poor guy’s family takes away his car keys NOW. Too bad they didn’t do so yesterday.
My dad had to take my grandmother’s car keys away. She was pissed. Too bad. It was only a matter of time before she killed someone.
Would it make sense to require more frequent tests of some sort for drivers over a certain age?
Made the TV news here in Sydney, as indeed did the other Californian freak crash in which a tow truck fell off a freeway overpass onto an SUV traveling below. Nasty stuff.
I want to know how the hell:
…can be the case when:
How can he mistake the gas for the brakes and keep making that mistake for that long? Local news (TV and radio) have said the car sped along for two blocks, not three as suggested here. Either way…wow.
It’s so sad, on so many levels. He’s described as such a kind elderly man, and eight friggin’ people are dead. Toxicology reports thus far show no alcohol or mind-altering substances in his bloodstream (including drugs for mental illnesses), and he apparently wasn’t having a heart attack. Something had to go amiss–seizure? stroke?–just something. It’s inexplicable.
How does this happen? 
I’ve been to that Farmers’ Market before, when I lived in the LA area. Extremely sad, this event.
This is exactly why the elderly–hell anybody–should be periodically retested for roadworthiness, with more frequent testing as they age. At 86, most people just do NOT have the reflexes they had in their 20s. This man should absolutely not have been on the road.
Simply being the better part of a hundred years old could do it, I’d say. nothing had to actually happen. It is possible for a young, fit, intelligent person to freeze up in situations like that. At 86 years of age, that possibility is greatly enhanced.
When I was a teenager learning to ride a dirt bike, I found myself hurtling towards a barbed wire fence, and it was only at the last moment, and with a huge amount of mental energy that I could prize my hand off the throttle and onto the kill switch. Similarly, a reasonably bright woman at my workplace crashed her car in the carpark, and one of the front wheels fell off because she had sheared the CV joint when she smashed into a gutter at speed. At speed? In a carkark? Well, she was a learner driver, and she hit the accelerator instead of the brake. Then she froze, despite knowing what she’d done. It happens.
So sorry to hear this. I wonder how often elderly people get into “hit the gas instead of the brake” accidents? We mostly only hear about it when it involves a large group of people and a pastoral setting. Like the people in my community who were coming out of Good Friday services a few years ago.
My paternal grandmother was driving well into her 90s. In 1992, she caused such an accident. No one was hurt, but it was definitely “enough is enough”, y’know?
She was living near Philadelphia at the time, and my parents were in Boston. As a Pittsburgh resident, I was delegated to go down to the DMV and find out what the PA DMV would require to get her license revoked.
They send me into an office where there are these two cops; one young and standing up, one middle-aged and behind a desk. I start in with “My grandma is 93 and shouldn’t be driving—”
Officer Paperwork says, boredly, “Can’t force her to surrender her license…unless she’s been in an accident.”
“But she has.”
Both of them came to attention on that, believe me! Long story short, her license was pulled.
Yeah, but for two blocks?
It’s interesting that one of the eyewitnesses described him as “rigid”, and conjectured that he was having a cardiac arrest or something, while another said “his eyes were wide open,” and seemed to be inferring or implying that it was a deliberate act.
I can barely imagine what the scene was like – it sounds horrible.
I feel guilty about it, but I can’t help but think how Jim Romenesko is going to treat this. (He makes a point of showcasing every “Elderly person mistakes gas pedal for brake” story on his news hub, but they usually are comic fare-- Thankfully, they don’t often have such horrific results.)
There was a really interesting commentary written in Newsweek recently. It was written by an 83-year old woman who didn’t get her license renewed. That is, she failed, or lost her license, or something. She was writing about how that was a good thing, but explained how she’d managed to delude herself about her driving. Interesting to hear it from the other side.
It happens more often than you think. In my little town (which has more than its fair share of elderly drivers) we have had at least two mayor jump the curb incidents in the last few years. In one an elderly gentleman, a gentleman in every sense of the word, jumped the curb and crushed a young mother against the front of a bank building. In other a little old lady jumped the curb and drove four or five feet into the front of a business. My town has angle parking on the main drag instead of parallel parking. When walking I now keep an eye out for people pulling into parking places.
What happens is that the driver hits the gas instead of the break and when the car doesn’t stop pushes down even harder–thus accelerating even more. Like much else in life, a simple mistake is turned into a catastrophe by circumstances.
My girlfriend has lived in Santa Monica for a long time and knows a lot of people there. I only talked with her briefly this evening, there are still a few people she hadn’t heard back from. I know logically it is pretty unlikely anything has happened to anyone she knows, but that has little to do with the anxiety you still feel.
Keepin’ my fingers crossed.
When I heard this story I thought of **Johnny L.A. ** and the other LA dopers. I guess I thought of Johnny cause I know he lives not too far from there.
Terrible thing. Mixing up of the gas and brake (if this in fact is what happened) is way more common among of drivers of all ages than one would guess. Do you recall the Audi 5000 and sudden accelleration? Pedal mis-identification. Dumb drivers almost killed Audi as a car company.
Pedal mis-identification is also why cars now come with a shift lock where you have to have your foot on the brake before the car will shift out of Park. (Boy did this cut down on SA complaints)
Escaping the Grim Reaper. No matter where the calamity is, I feel I could have been there!
Wonder if this old man will be charged with something like negligent homicide.
Maybe he should have been on medication for mental illness.
That wonderful G.I. generation has mostly been so strong, independent and proud. Taking away their access to independence is a tough call. (An can get you written out of the will. :()
Meanwhile, I turned sixty last Monday and I strongly believe in routine retesting for anyone my age and older. Instead, I found out that I didn’t even have to show up at testing center for a photo. Re-licensing was handled on-line.
Made the morning news in Ireland too.
Exactly the same thing happened in Dublin a couple of years ago. Luckily nobody was killed, but several people were badly hurt.
My maternal grandfather, stubborn old man that he was, recognized when his driving skill were failing. I remember when he quit driving at night because it was hard for him to see. And I remember when he sold his car because he didn’t think he should drive any longer. I hope I can be as willing to surrender my independence when I’m not safe on the road.
My uncle Joe was a terror on the roads. It’s been 20 years since I rode in the car with him and my aunt, and I still feel the terror as he weaved in an out of traffic, not signalling, unaware of what went on around him. I don’t think he ever caused an accident before he died, but I know for a fact he came close the day I was there.
I worry about my in-laws, tho. They’re very sweet people, but I can see them fighting to keep their car. Maybe living in a retirement community and seeing how others deal with it will keep them safe.
I do agree with retesting after a certain age. I suppose there are senior organizations which oppose such a thing violently…
A few years ago my grandmother floored her automatic in what sound like similar circumstances. Luckily she drove through someone’s yard and into a tree instead of down a crowded street. If she’d have been driving a stick shift, the car would probably have stalled first.