Moderator’s note:
IMHO is not the place for flaming, Chimera. You may attack the idea but not the poster.
Do not do this again.
TVeblen,
IMHO mod
By being in a crash.
Yes, well, I won’t bring up the Cessna 210 that almost t-boned my Piper Warrior at 2500 MSL this morning. Probably yakking on a cellphone or something.
:smack: I meant pilots are better drivers than non-pilots. 
My brother’s kids told him about their ride with their grandmother (my mother), and the big left turn into Safeway across two lanes of serious oncoming traffic. He called the DMV on her. The DMV (California Dept of Motor Vehicles) had both our mother and father come in and do a full test, and both flunked and lost their licenses. (Got issued Calif. IDs instead.)
My brother did right. I had been worrying but doing nothing. We found someone to come three times a week and help out including with driving, the beginning of their supported living in their home.
Recently my 90-year-old uncle got his big foot on the wrong pedal, and banged his car into the grocery story concrete wall (breaking his kneecap and totaling the car–ten feet of acceleration when you’re trying to brake will do that).
Then the family began to get more information. He had been pulled over for driving with his lights off on the wrong side of the street, and the ticket had also been written to require him to come in within 5 days for a DMV test–the supermarket incident was within the 5 days. And it turned out his insurance company was paying for a wheel because he had run over a curb recently.
He was thinking maybe it was time to give up driving, but his wife thought that was ridiculous, so he has figured out how to borrow a car in order to take the DMV test, which he will do as soon as he’s out of the wheelchair from his kneecap. Please G*d, let the DMV do their job.
I’m writing this because people should know, you don’t have to stand helpless while this Russian Roulette is being played.
If the damages from the chargeable accident exceed their insurance, their assets will be used to pay for the remaining hospital bills, etc.
Say a house and some investments might exist, and might burn up like tissue paper.
I added that last because it might get some elderly person’s attention who is otherwise wishing to postpone thinking about it.
This stuff is real.
Oh yes, someone posted a checklist link earlier about danger signs, and about getting their car keys, and disabling their car if all else fails.
I knew what you meant to say, you crazy rotorhead - silly, Johnny. it’s your bird that’s supposed be whirly not your word choice
Penalties have to be in place for things like this. Drunk and aged drivers NEED TO KNOW that they WILL BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE if they kill someone in these sorts of situations. If you are old and hitting retaining walls and your garage and you continue to drive, you need to be held accountable and penalties need to be in place–elderly drivers need to KNOW, in advance, that THEY WILL serve jail time, THEY WILL be held liable in wrongful death lawsuits, etc. Same goes for drunk drivers, for whom my contempt is even greater–no vehicular manslaughter charges for those murderers. I don’t care about specific intent in these cases. When you have a few drinks or your faculties are failing, knowing that there are severe penalties, and that you WILL BE HELD FULLY ACCOUNTABLE for your choices will be a motivation to decide whether you want to risk the consequences of selfish actions.
As for those that are so infinitely compassionate and sympathetic towards this person, it is unfortunate that their family members can’t retroactively replace those that were killed or maimed in this tragedy. I find it unbelieveable that any of them would feel the same if it affected them personally.
Doesn’t seem fair to the minors who are as spry if not sharper than many older people, either.
Frankly, if it’s okay to lump everyone under 16 into the category “incapable of driving by definition”, then why not do the same with everyone over 80?
In my experience with these programs, they are incredibly inconvenient to those involved. There are general schedules like waiting for the cable guy, the shuttle tells them “we’ll pick you up between 8 and 10” and if you have an appointment at 11 and the shuttle shows up at 8, you just get to go and wait. And then you wait again, sometimes for hours, when it’s over.
Drivers, in my experience, are also highly averse to helping with packages, so using one of these services for grocery shopping isn’t very feasible.
Because the service provided was so poor, the church we attended in Pittsburgh had its own service. Volunteers used the church vans to shuttle congregation members on shopping trips, to the doctor and so on. Unfortunately, because these trips were not directly related to church business, skyrocketing insurance costs forced the program’s cancellation.:rolleyes:
None of these programs are a fair substitute with the independence that comes with being able to go where you need or want to go whenever you need or want to go there. Without the means to transport themselves, many elderly end up essentially trapped in their homes which leads to even more mental and physical decline. It is something that the elderly see in their friends and it should not be surprising in the least that many are unwilling to give up that independence even when they have declined to the extent that they cannot safely manage a vehicle any longer.
All that said, I’m surprised that no one has suggested that in addition to the obvious panic and confusion that this man experienced, perhaps he was having a petit mal seizure or a mini-stroke which was what began the accident. You can walk away from both slightly dazed but otherwise physically unscathed, and without any clear memory or understanding of what just happened to the wiring in your brain.
With all the calls for charging this man to the fullest extent of the law, and throwing him in jail (where he’ll live for what, maybe a year?) I cannot believe that no one has stopped to consider that there is a possibility that this accident was not this man’s fault because he couldn’t (as none of you could’ve) predict nor control it if he did suffer an attack of some kind that affected his motor control even further than his age already has.
The question I have is this – apparently he filed a claim with his insurer to have the damage from the accident in his garage repaired. Why isn’t it the law, in every state, that when someone files a claim like that – particularly a new driver or an elderly driver – the police are called and there is an investigation? This is a point where re-testing can come in, in a scenario like MaryEFoo described.
Though, of course, this wouldn’t stop any accident caused by someone who was physically incapacitated unexpectedly while they were behind the wheel.
Marianne, conflating intoxication and being elderly is just, well, I don’t even have the right word for it. There is no situation in which driving under the influence is safe. There are millions of elderly drivers who do not have accidents and are safe when driving – even if that’s limited to driving during daylight, driving within their own neighborhoods or familiar places or driving only on two-lane, residential, lower-speed streets.
And while the garage accidents in this particular case are extremely worrisome, it is important to remember that sometimes an accident is just that. I hit a column in our parking garage because my flip-flop shoe had gotten caught in the gas pedal and I couldn’t get my foot free to apply the brake quickly enough.
tlw…
I realize how much independance driving gives people. I also know there are some substandard programs for the elderly (and anyone else who needs them) to get around town and do errands. We really need to work to make those better! I am thankful for the programs we have in our area. They picked Grandpa up at between 8:00 and 8:20 every morning to take him to ‘day care’ and they picked him up every afternoon to get him home at 3:30. They also took him to get blood drawn once a month (as in the driver went into the doctor’s office with him and stayed with him while he had everything done as he couldn’t go alone!) Meanwhile I took Grandma to her chemo/radiation/whatever else she needed.
I’m also familiar with the effects of ‘micro strokes’ as the doctor called them. Grandpa’s had quite a few. They were accompanied by a headache and a few moments of ‘who/where am I.’ There is some conjecture as to wether he has alzheimers or if his dementia is the culmination of many micro strokes.
Should he (the driver of the thread) have had a stroke or heart attack or some other one time event that couldn’t be predicted while driving then he needs to be seen by a doctor and to evaluate the probability of this happening again and planning his driving needs accordingly. If he has been having these episodes for a while and is still driving then he gambled with these people’s lives and they lost. This would be negligent behavior on his part.
I understand the elderly are not the only group of dangerous drivers on the road. I see people applying makeup, reading the paper, shaving and doing dozens of other inappropriate things behind the wheel. Unfortunately the way the laws stand now your car is the one murder weapon you can use again and again with a relatively small penalty. Some incidents are truly accidents where there was nothing the motorist did wrong and nothing they could have done to stop the accident. More and more often though these ‘accidents’ are from careless and negligent or even extremely aggressive driving and the penalties for such need to be more severe - no matter what the age group of the driver.
I see the incident as just another side effect of over-dependence on cars. If you want to restrict driving (e.g. by re-testing all drivers every 5 yeras as suggested by some), you need a good public transportation system to take up the slack. How many people do you think know that they aren’t good drivers, but are forced to use cars to remain independent? Just give them an alternative choice and there will be fewer accidents of this sort.
The very last time my 83-year father drove his car I called the police to try to stop him. They said they couldn’t unless they actually saw him making driving errors. He was driving 60 mph through a residential area! Three days later I had to go to a judge and have my father involuntarily committed to a hospital. He is now in a nursing home, diagnosed with dementia and Alzheimer’s, and no longer a danger to himself or others. It is very difficult to get incompetent drivers off the roads. When my dad was committed, the court appointed an attorney to defend his rights and I had to testify in court against my own father. In my fathers’ case, even if his license had been taken away from him, he would have continued to drive if possible.
If you have a family member who is driving unsafely, it is your responsibility to get him off the road.
Of course, the same is true of DUI. People drive drunk or high all the time without causing accidents; when I worked as a delivery driver, I met people who drove 20 hours a week while stoned out of their minds, yet had never been in an accident or even been pulled over.
That doesn’t mean it’s safe to drive while intoxicated. Intoxication makes driving more risky, and so does being elderly. Elderly drivers who haven’t been in accidents may have found ways to compensate for their impairment (like stoned drivers), or they may just be lucky, but don’t automatically assume they’re safe drivers.
There’s no reason to assume an 80 year is an UNsafe driver, either - either way, making the assumption is wrong.
I’m reserving judgement until I know all the facts.
I did, however, use this story as a starting point for “the conversation” with my mother. She’s 64, and still driving responsibly, but she acknowledges she gets very tired at night and can no longer drive long distances.
As a result of our conversation, my mother has told me she wants me to take away her keys when she is no longer able to drive safely (if she hasn’t figured it out for herself first).
I truly believe this is something that families need to be involved in, and it’s good to have “the talk” long before it is needed. It’s the equivalent of making plans for organ donation – decide how it will be done long before it actually will be done.
Well, in one sense, any assumption is wrong. It’s wrong to assume that every drunk person is going to be an unsafe driver, or every 16 year old, or every 80 year old, because clearly there are drunks, teenagers, and elderly folks who can handle a car without breaking the law or causing an accident. There’s no medical evidence saying “No human being <under 16/over 80> has the necessary judgment and skills to drive a car.”
But in a statistical sense, the assumptions are valid. You can’t be absolutely sure that a particular drunk driver is going to cause an accident, but you can say that he’s very likely to cause one, because drunks as a group tend to cause a lot of accidents. Young drivers as a group tend to be unsafe drivers, and elderly drivers as a group tend to be unsafe as well - even more unsafe when you look at accidents per mile.
Fact is, the evidence that elderly people are unsafe drivers is comparable to the evidence that children are unsafe drivers. Only a hypocrite can support a lower age limit while opposing an upper age limit.
I disagree.
You have to look at WHY certain age limits are imposed. We don’t let 12 year old children drive cars NOT because they are physically incapable but because they haven’t developed adult judgement. Even the most responsible and mature 12 year old is still not fully mature mentally. Driving safely isn’t just a matter of manipulating controls and avoiding solid objects, it’s also a matter of judgement.
By the late teens, the average teen ager has matured enough mentally to be entrusted with decisions no 12 year old should be making. Therefore, a lower age limit for driving is justified. There may be some exceptionally mature 14 and 15 year olds denied driving privileges, but a big difference is that the teen will grow older and will be allowed to drive in a year or two.
In the case of elderly drivers it’s a different matter. You’re taking about taking away forever something they did earn. The rate at which people age is so variable that any limit will be far more arbitrary than the lower limit to permit driving. What age do people propose? 65? Far too many folks are still capable at 65 for that to be just. 75? 85? 95? At 95, it’s probably too high a limit to be useful.
There’s also the factoid that, in general, you don’t reach 90 or 95 unless you are healthier than average. Stop these people driving at 70, that’s 15 years they aren’t allowed to drive when they could do so safely. There’s also this weird disconnect in my head about that - if you make the upper limit for driving a car 70 then I know about 5 pilots who would be legal to fly airplanes but not drive cars, even though the airplanes are arguably much more difficult and complex to operate. The eldest of that group is 94 and she’s still a working commercial pilot* which calls for an even higher standard that the sort of flying I do, and certainly more than required for aiming a car down a road.
Yes, reflexes DO deteriorate with age, but we’re talking about driving, not aircraft carrier landings here. While there is a significant segment of elderly who shouldn’t be driving the problem is not their age, it’s deterioration - there’s something physically or mentally awry. And because that age at which that starts varies so greatly - as early as the late 40’s, and late as the late 90’s - I think the only way to REALLY deal with the problem is periodic road tests.
If we could say “At age 92, 90% of people are incapable of driving safely, but up until that age they’re OK” then maybe I could stomach an upper limit. Or even a 5 year span. But we can’t. The decline stretches over a couple decades with huge variations between people. People age much differently than they mature.
*“Mama Bird”, as she’s known, gives advanced flight training, FAA flight tests, still flies on the fire patrol, still flies for the Civil Air Patrol, still flies the occassional cargo flight in a DC-3, and frankly, even at less than half her age I can’t keep up with her. And, oh yes, she also manages the local airport as she has since the late 1940’s. I’ve been down here in Morristown for a week and finally had a chance to say hello yesterday because the rest of the week she was out flying so darn much. Saying she’s incompetant to drive merely because of her age is downright insulting to her and every other active, mentally sharp elderly person we have. Yes, I’m biased. I have great admiration for the woman and her 57,000+ hours of flight time. I hope to be just as healthy and active at 94 as she is.
If this were GD, I’d ask for a cite for this claim and its relation to driving. Instead, I’ll say that IMO the average 14 year old has every bit as much driving-related “maturity” as the average 16 year old.
They earned it because they showed that they were capable of safely driving a car. If they later become incapable, they ought to lose it - driver testing is about keeping everyone on the road safe, not just making people feel good about their achievements. And if capability can be defined by age, then it ought to apply to old drivers as well as young drivers.
Do you have a basis to believe that the lower limit is any less arbitrary? People age at different rates whether they’re young or old.
That’s one lucky person, but do you think a single example of a 12 year old responsibly driving a car would invalidate the lower driving age limit?
I could (and do) say the same thing about the lower limit. The only way to know whether a person is a responsible, capable driver is to test him individually, whether he’s 16 or 65.