Oh No! Wreck Blogging.
My car is no L'il Greenie.
And it (notice no he or she) won't be replaced by a Silvio, but it's been damaged just the same.
Will find out soon if it's totalled or not.
Guess my annual jaunt to the Auto Show (now to work on getting a press pass so I can here Chris Bangle speak in all his Bangleness) will have more meaning this year.
Oh, and old people suck! (while driving, though at the scene I was magnanimous, patient and calm, no need giving the gentleman who careened into me a heart attack).
And this was in Santa Monica, where Harry Shearer might append his 'Home of the Homeless' moniker and change it to 'Where you are NEVER too old to drive'.
(thank god this was just two people driving at moderate speeds and no one was hurt, but the AARP should be ashamed of themselves as they always cajole legislatures into shelving or gutting tougher standards for older drivers, needless to say 'tougher standards' is meant ironically)
(The Brandi Mitock the bill was named for described in the 'tougher standards' link was killed in Santa Monica by an elderly driver, under these rules the gentleman who ran into me may lose his license (but unlikely given no injuries and he wasn't unhealthy or suffering from dementia, he just froze and mistook a 2 way stop for a 4 way stop). The bill that was passed was far less effective than the bill proposed, if you want evidence, the Farmer's Market incident happened after the bill was passed. Also notice the DMV 'tougher standards' linked to don't mention age at all. While elderly don't have more accidents per year they have a poor accident rate based on accidents per miles driven)
My solution wouldn't be to take their licenses away, but limit the vehicles they can drive. Most elderly don't drive long distances or at freeway speeds, so if they want to continue to be on the road then make them drive these.
(and if anyone wants to put one of these in my non-existent tip jar, feel free)
(and I happened to have just bought an ultra cheap camera for quick photos and was driving home when crunched, that's why I have from the scene pictures and had NO idea how the pictures would look (needless to say no LCD screen on a $20 digital camera)
UPDATE: Prof. Althouse was kind enough to link to this piece. Hopefully she does know that the title of this post was a joke.
3 comments:
What some people will do for attention!
; )
I'm glad nobody got hurt ...
And you're right about the driving standards.
"My solution wouldn't be to take their licenses away, but limit the vehicles they can drive. Most elderly don't drive long distances or at freeway speeds, so if they want to continue to be on the road then make them drive these."
I think a better solution would instead be to have everyone retest for their driver's license once every x years, where "x" is five, eight or ten years, depending on your policy preference. The reality is that there are many, many terrible drivers who should either shape up or get the hell off the road, and not just those who are over 70. Equally, as you point out, there are those who are over 70 who not only rely on their car, but who are perfectly competent to do so. Mandatory recertification, I think, makes elementary good sense.
The problem isn't people over 70 here in Santa Monica, the problem is people over 80, and over 90.
Aging can rapidly rob people of reaction time. The gentleman who hit me's license wasn't going to expire until 2010. A lot can change for an elderly person in 4 years.
If you want to continue to enjoy the privilege of driving, then you must accept the responsibility and cost of being evaluated more often as age does catch up with us all, and when it overtakes your abilities it often does so with rapidity that can be alarming.
But yes, being licensed should be more difficult in general, the driving test more comprehensive, the tests more frequent, and more importantly, larger vehicles should require more testing (You can drive a Winnebago close to bus sized without any different license than you can drive a Toyota Echo, that's ridiculous).
Plus any changes must be put in place before the wave of vain, self-involved, and aging baby boomers start to enjoy their 'golden years'.
Post a Comment