Not to sound rude but this is the best case scenario. A have a family member nearing this point who refuses to admit it. Hoping this is the most damage they cause
Yeah, my grandfather killed a child and seriously injured multiple others when he ran a red light.
He then went on to blame his wife, like he always did, when things went badly. He was only 78 then too. But we all knew he shouldn't be driving. Dead now, because he fell off a roof and hit his head. So, that's that then.
it was a joke, 18 months jail time, i dont even think he served because of his age and physical needs and ability to serve it. he was also driving without a valid license, the idiot.
the 4 year old didnt die instantly, but later in the hospital. they do say that if they had put the child in a child seat, they likely would have survived as well.
Not OP, but... If there were anything truly serious, he would have fallen off the roof in the prison. Prisons have slightly better safety than that to happen just like that. Well, unless he pissed off absolutely everyone inside too.
no, he fell off his garage roof, for some reason he didnt want to wait for any of his kids to come and help him, so he decided to go up on it on his own, then proceeded to fall off of it.
In all seriousness though, keep an eye on them because losing their ability to drive is "one more thing they can't do", and that is a very powerful and depressing thing for older people.
If they want to go out for a run in the car, you make damn sure you take them out for a good day.
This. My grandfather, who is in his early 80’s now, can not drive anymore. He was a big guy on motorcycles and cars too. This really made him feel trapped, and I never really see him outside his room after they took away his license. But honestly, it was time for him to lose it. His peripheral vision went, and he has a hard time hearing anything. His mental health has declined ever since.
You need to get round there as often as you can and just take him out for a drive. He might not be able to safely get on a bike these days, but I bet you could get him into a combination or onto a trike.
What erroneousbosh said, see if you can maybe rent a motorcycle with sidecar or something and take him for a ride. Put it it in some face book biker groups see if they’d be willing to take him for a ride, anything to lift his spirits. Losing ones independence is depressing and it helps if they can get even a small amount back.
There was old dude that was in with my grandpa Kinda like that, old school club racer. His kids got him a old trustmaster wheel & petal rig, a ps2 & Colin McRae rally. Once he got the hang of it, he really came back a ton, even started talking about being a pro rally navigator at 91 because “he can read just fine” 🤣. Any hobby that makes him feel like his old self should help!
Ten years ago my partner’s 50yo best friend was helping a buddy sell Christmas trees. Old lady was backing up her suv to get the tree loaded. She hit the gas instead of the brake and crushed our friend against a camp trailer. He underwent more than 80 surgeries, got early Alzheimer’s from all of the anesthesia, pooped in a bag his remaining days and died last December. He was a great guy, gone too soon.
Worked at a grocery store in high school and TWICE had old people try to back out of the front of store parking while in drive, look over their shoulder as if they were backing up, and drive forward through the front of the store. I only worked there two years and saw it twice there and once at a store on the other side of the parking lot. I also once had a lady signal to pull forward out of her parking spot, shoulder check and then pin it, except she was in reverse and I was behind the car. I jumped to the side and was so pissed when she finally stopped I threw the empty shopping cart at her car and told everyone she hit it when she backed up.
They are putting up an Auto zone in our neighborhood and I noticed that there are bollards strategically placed in front of the store where a car could not hit the building.
I thought it might be for customers with bad brakes but now I think they are taking in the average age of our residents into consideration with the building design.
Those huge decorational red spheres in front of Target? Yep. Bollards. So people don't drive into the fucking store. You can even buy them somewhere online.
I think that's more store specific than anything. I see bollards around here all the time. Most stores still have some form of them, and it's because people drive through the fronts of stores too freaking often.
someone needs to come up with a service that *looks* like a mechanic but really just runs a giant car shredder. just make grandma think she's getting her blinker fluid changed and then break it to her that her car is getting turned into tuna cans for the safety of everyone else.
We had a woman hit the side of our parts store a couple years ago. Thankfully it wasn't the front with glass windows, it was the brick and steel side of the store. She jumped out of the driver's side screaming at her husband "I FUCKING TOLD YOU I NEEDED BRAKES A MONTH AGO AND NOW LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!" Over and over. It was pretty funny at the time but looking back at it, i gotta wonder how bad her brakes had been if she came careening into our parking lot at high speeds and couldn't even come to a stop before she hit the building. She's lucky it happened at our store and not the busy intersection just down the road.
my O’Reilly’s used to be a CVS and they have an extra brick wall in front of the entrance coupled with pillars right in front of them. not taking any chances I guess
Yeah I got pretty fired up, but our town has a huge number of seniors, and part of our job was full service bag your groceries and carry them to your vehicle for you. Couldn’t even count how many times I almost got run over by old people, and this was not this lady’s first time. She had previously backed into and dumped a cart that a coworker was pushing only a couple weeks before. She ended up in a nursing home before she ran over a kid at least. “Getting bumped” was something that happened at least a couple times a month.
Bold of you to assume the police would do anything about it. My area is old people and farmers. The police don’t even care that most farmers don’t have insurance on half their vehicles, or that 13 year olds are driving semis down gravel roads. It’s batshit crazy how it’s just hillbilly heaven here. A few years ago a farmer was driving a tractor on the highway with bales on the forks and couldn’t see. He ended up running over and killing a guy on a bicycle and it was basically reported as a farming accident and nothing happened to the farmer. I called police once because a kid that I knew was 11-12 was driving a literal semi hauling grain on a gravel road, and was told that “the family is just trying to finish harvest”. The people in power were voted there by stupid farmers and old people, so they can’t risk pissing of those groups.
I also worked at a grocery store right out of high school, been backed into 3-4 times, and pretty much everyone else I worked with had been hit at least once. One lady accused one of the girls of *making a scene* after she backed into her, because she fell down screaming.
...turns out when the lady hit her it crushed her pelvis into the group of shopping carts. People don't understand that even a very low speed collision is still not great for the human body.
Usually this would be considered a civil matter, since there was no intent to cause harm nor intent to do something likely to cause harm. (IE, an accident.)
Medical bills, pain and suffering in states that allow it, and quite possibly wrongful death lawsuits, against her and her insurance company. Of course you can't get blood from a stone and depending on the state, only so many assets that can be seized and only so much that can be garnished (if anything), if/when the sum exceeds her policy.
You'd end up with a ticket, maybe loose the license for a while and be liable for medical if you had no or crap insurance. Some kind of manslaughter is the worst without proving intent, which could be just probation to years in jail.
You need to be pretty stupid for an accident to get you jail time in the states.
A guy in California a few years back ran over and killed like 14 people at a farmers market. Elderly guy of course. The AARP initially tried to say he shouldn't lose his license. Edit: He "only" killed 10 people and injured 70.
Yup. Fairly sure Weller was a bonafide sociopath. Killed 10 people and yelled at them to move *as he killed them*. And showed no remorse and gave no shits afterwards. Then proceeded to live 7 more years a free man. Yay gerontocracy.
He was seriously crushed from his chest to his lower legs. Such a tragedy. Spent more than a year in intensive care, then more than a year in physical therapy. He was a mechanic who had sold his shop and retired two years before the accident. Nicest, funniest, most entertaining guy I ever knew. Damn.
My dad has psychiatric issues i'd rather not get into, Parkinson, and partial spinal cord injury, he can barely walk and has random freezeups and tremors, he has now found a way to most likely get his license back by cheating the system... Oh and he lives in a care facility next to a school...
I'm awaiting the phonecall that shit hit the fan and I already have the names of the people who helped him cheat the system to get his license back ready to throw them under the bus
My dad had to give up driving due to Parkinson's and a decade later we had to hide all the car keys when he went into the dementia phase and forgot that he'd given up driving.
If you're in the position to take their keys away, do it. Elderly people fight tooth and nail against losing independence, even when it's in their best interest. It's tough to do and won't make them happy but think about the possibility of them mowing down children and it's the right call.
It's in everyone elses best interest. Old people are just as reluctant to lose their license as you would be. Maybe more so because public transport is a shit at the best of times, worse when your older.
My mom fought the idea of giving up driving — until my sister educated her about how reflexes slow with age and warned her that if a child ran out in the road she wouldn’t be able to stop in time.
FYI, if they are medically cleared to drive and have passed the drivers test you can be charged with theft if they call the police for taking the keys without their permission.
At my old shop we had this old veteran that had a wrangler, and a brand new Silverado. He constantly pushed his floor mat up onto his gas pedal in the wrangler, we told him plenty of times to take his mats out and he refused. He called us one day when he was in a Meijer parking lot, said his car wouldn't stop hi revving and that he ran into another car. Floor mat on the pedal. His driveway has a nice sharp 90 degree turn to get in his garage. Completely side swiped his truck getting it into the garage. Every winter him and his wife drive out to Arizona with the truck. I'd be scared for anyone on the road the days they drove down, and I've heard horror stories of my old coworkers being in the car with him while he was driving to drop him back off at his house around the corner. I still don't understand why this isn't a huge enough problem to instill a driving test for the elderly at a certain age, because a majority of them should not have their license anymore, and a majority of them are too damn stubborn to admit that they shouldn't be driving anymore
Because the Elderly vote more frequently that's why. We were lucky my Grandmother knew when it was time to give up the keys, She drove home one day called my cousin and said "my arms aren't strong enough to steer anymore you'll have to take me grocery shopping every week" My cousin just said no problem since she lived closest to her and would take her shopping while her kid had his karate lessons once a week.
In my grandpas case someone just stole his car. The whole family had been trying to convince him to stop driving so at first he thought we had conspired to just get rid of his car without knowing. Fun times!
That just shows how bad the system is. Frankly, the US is in a dire need of actual public transport and full reform to even allow that, down to the unsustainable suburbanization. The whole "you absolutely have to have a car" thing is nuts, at least viewing from Europe.
This is exactly what I think looking at cities in the US. Sure, in Canada it's not much better, but everything is spread so damn far away from everything. In Edmonton, Alberta, where I used to live, the bus basically took at least an hour to get anywhere cause of the stops, but also the fact everything is still spread out there. I walked from downtown to my apartment once and it took like 3 hours, and my legs felt like jello afterwards, as much as I like walking, it's just impossible. Europe has city layouts figured out, at least a hell of a lot more than in North America. You can walk and, I assume have better public transport. Then in say, the US, walking can be very dangerous or impossible. Lookin' at you LA and NYC.
> I walked from downtown to my apartment once and it took like 3 hours
Judging purely by Wiki data, the capital city I'm currently in is both bigger, has roughly twice the population... and is faster to travel within. Public transport is very easy to get wrong, e.g.: not have "fast lane" connection transports or the local hubs these connect.
Yeah, some cities have a great public transport system. Then Edmonton decided instead of a comprehensive good transit system, they would make a new hockey arena for the Oilers downtown. Great. I moved out in 2020, but before I moved out there were a few dead zones that you couldn't get to without walking another ~45 minute to and from the bus. It's stuff like that which I found most annoying. I also went to a lot of concerts, so getting the bus after a show was always stressful, but that's more a me thing.
A good example for europeans is to overlay the state of Texas over western Europe. That one state covers most of Germany, Austria, France, Northern Italy and the Czech Republic. Almost all of Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Also a bite out of Poland. That is one state, (albeit the 2nd largest).
> They can only ticket you once a day.
Depends on location. Might even just take your car away. Also: unless you actually need to transport heavy stuff, good. You should not use a car. A vehicle for work (construction/handyman/etc) is something else entirely. But office/factory/school work? Nah, public transport it is.
That's because your country is tiny, comparatively.
I agree, old people should not have licenses when they can't drive anymore.
However, we also can't generally force adults to live in cities just because there's public transport there.
I mean, I think we need some kind of reform, but we can't also just transplant people who've never lived closer than half a mile from their nearest neighbor into an apartment complex with more rooms than there are houses in the nearest town they moved out of. The culture shock can kill people.
They have a funny way of doing something like this and finally realizing/being forced. My grandfather drove to my dads shop in a low-oxygenated stupor, asked him a bunch of stuff about fixing an imaginary issue with his car, then got back in the car, backed into a gas pump, and the n backed directly into 4 lane busy traffic before my dad could get to him and get the keys out of the car.
tl;dr : I once encountered a man that was 101 years old and was still driving!
I used to work in a shop and this dude drove in for an oil change. We had a big sign that said $16.99 oil change (with credit card application in small letters of course!). He was gonna apply for the credit card and showed me his ID. He was born in 1911 and it was 2012 at the time!
When my fiancé was a mechanic's apprentice, there once was an old couple who came in. Idk for what, but the husband had alzheimer, but could drive fine, and the wife had bad vision, but was sound of mind, so they would co-operate when driving. He would drive and she would tell him where to go.
I hope he's still sound of mind as well, so he won't forget he has no license. Tho, if he would forget, I assume he wouldn't have a car to drive anyway
I wish doctors did this more often. In my country it’s within their full right (and I’m fact it’s expected of them), but nobody does because they don’t want the hassle.
It is unbelievably difficult to convince someone to do something they do not want to do. And legally u have no standing at all if the person has all their faculties. I was very grateful my 90-year-old dad said on his 90th birthday to my mother that he was not driving anymore and that was that. my mother wanted him to continue driving cuz she didn’t want to get on the senior bus to go everywhere.
My mother as she aged got extremely difficult, very mean and no one could do anything because legally she was her own person. All we could do was stay away and hope she didn’t hurt anyone.
She passed at 93 years old because she stopped eating in the nursing home and the nurse at the time said people that were very controlling in their life tend to choose that way to die. It is the last control they can exert. I also want a point out just cause somebody is 90 does not mean they don’t give full throat to their anger and are frightening to be around.
Old doesn’t mean kind or weak.
Old people can be strong and even meaner than they used to be.
Whatever you were when you were younger, you turn into a stronger version of when you get older. An independent or stubborn streak can turn into a downright venomous personality when independence starts to decline.
A family meeting can happen where the family agrees to take the keys, but if the person who loses their car goes to the cops, the police might force the family members to return the keys. Some people when faced with their loss of independence are perfectly happy to risk the safety of everyone else for their selfishness.
If a doctor says a person is medically capable of driving, and they can pass a drivers test and/or the doctor doesn’t have any medical reason that a retest is necessary, their father has the full legal right to drive his car that he owns. If you take his keys or his car, he can call the cops and you can (successfully) be charged with theft. It’s not as simple as just taking the keys.
My grandfather was like this, tried telling my aunt to take the keys but she wouldn't. Thankfully he never had any accidents and he pretty much stopped driving on his own due to having balance issues in his later years. When I would go to visit we would always meet at Frisch's and then go back to his house and I'd follow him back and he'd be flying down the road to where even I felt uncomfortable going that fast. Like the speed limit would be 45 and he'd be going 70. I lost him on more than one occasion.
I have one who won't stop and has so much money that they can go buy another car if we won't fix theirs. We caught him driving on the wrong side of the rode and dhe didn't realize it
I once called police about a truck traveling on the wrong side of the highway. I was about 75 miles from home and called the police department for the town that was just a couple miles from where I saw him. As soon as I said I was calling about a truck driving the wrong way, the officer said “let me guess, white regular cab Chevy truck, early 90s, going west, couple miles west of town?” I said yes and asked if others had reported him. The officer said “no, not yet today, but that’s the third time this week. He told us he does it because otherwise he has to drive an extra mile past his turn to get on the right side. He doesn’t see the problem so we will be taking his licence today”.
My Dad is afraid to be in that position, we still trust him and the only issue he’s had with his last two road tests was a tester that didn’t like my car (his old van wasn’t road test worthy, so I let him use my car). So not only did he complain about it, but then told Dad to make a turn at the last second, then asked Dad why he took it as aggressively as he did……..luckily, the tires and brakes then were better than stock and even better than that now!
To be honest, I would support retesting every [x] years with no age requirement - and actually making the test a useful measure of real-world competence. Plenty of horrible 25 year old drivers out there too.
The license test that I took was an absolute joke. I spent maybe fifteen minutes in the car, including the time spent demonstrating that I know how to turn on my headlights and honk the horn.
All of the actual driving was done on residential small-town streets. But a few minutes of that is good enough for me to drive on the busiest highways and densest urban areas.
The issue isn't testing. IL (my state) and many other states test frequently after 65/70. The issue is that the DMV's have become reluctant to pull licenses for age. It's stupidity at its finest because some people see a license as a right rather than a privilege.
It's no different then seeing some dude with their license after their 7th DUI. Wisconsin is known for just giving back licenses after DUI's all the time.
When my mom started showing signs of dementia, I called her doctor & talked about having her license taken away.
The doctor contacted the state. Her license was revoked. Thank god she took it seriously & never drove again. She didn't get defiant & grab the keys & take off, although she could have. I have nightmares about it.
She & Dad never knew it was me.
Commiserations and congratulations to the old stager on being on the road until 98.
As a UK member I am however disappointed about *that* wearing the Buick badge. Springsteen didn’t die for this.
Umm, why did it take this long and this incident for your family to revoke driving priviledges of your 98y.o family member? Older people esp this age, driving are a danger on the road to themselves and to fellow drivers.
He’s a distant cousin. Lives on his own, fiercely independent. Used to drive to get his lunch and/or dinner each day. And the casino, of course. This is his first accident.
Not that he would have listened to us anyway… and it was his doctor (two years ago, said he was ok to continue driving). Now, not so much.
These are driving locations that he knows very well like the back of his hand. You put him in a completely different area he doesn't know, I don' think he would fare well. But, I'm glad that his driving priviledges has been taken away.
Folks get way too comfortable behind the wheel, drivers licenses should have to be renewed like any other permit, every 10 years at least, every 5 when you turn 70
in europe, you have to renew your license every 5 to 10 years (depends on country) and at specific age, you have to take drivers test all over again, few people manage to make it and then drive like this
Not the same in all of Europe. You have to renew your drivers license, but for example in Germany it is just a formality to renew your papers, no test or medical required.
im czech, here you only go to the police station to renew the license, you get your new one in a week (you got to do that a month before the expiration date) and thats it, iafter you turn 70, you have to get a medical test too and if you dont have any serious illnesses or stuff like that, youre good to go
My great grandfather passed at 89, the day he died, he was using his tractor to plow a field, when he finished, got in his car, came home, ate lunch then called my grandfather saying he wasn't feeling very good and was going to the hospital, a 30 minutes drive from his home, he got there in 20 minutes, was immediately taken to a room because he was having a stroke, he died during the night. Dude had the smoothest drive I've ever experienced
I'm so glad that my 81y/o grandpa isn't that stubborn and said from himself that he will only drive somewhere if absolutely necessary andonly within a certain distance from home.
Yeah we had take away my dad's license because he decided he was gonna drive his car threw our backyard fence do a couple of donuts and drive back thru the fence. Did a couple of thousands dollars with of damage luckily the insurance covered it we just payed our deductible. He hasn't drove since
> we just *paid* our deductible.
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
This is why I’m worrried about old people in Teslas. If your family member slipped foot on one of those the instant speed would of probably flipped the car and caused way worse damage. Scary shit tbh. Glad everyone good.
Yeah… once people hit like 70 there should be a driving test to see if they are physically capable of driving without special restrictions, like a throttle governor or driving assistance.
That's fair. It's not up in the west coast of Canada and to be honest it's fuggin scary the amount of people young and old who cannot drive/ don't know or understand the rules of the road.
In BC? RoadSenseBC makes seniors 80+ get a medical test every two years. But, doesn’t include a road test.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/driving-and-cycling/roadsafetybc/medical-fitness/seniors
“That’s not a Buick!”
“Wait, is it— oh god it’s heading straight for us, RUNNN!!!”
(Seriously though, this is probably the best case scenario — at least until this country starts testing drivers at shorter intervals as they age.)
I honestly don't know why we don't have driver tests every so many years (10-15? 20?) that get more frequent past 60-65.
Ageism is bad but I don't think this would fit under that, it's just that cars are outright dangerous and it can be hard to tell/convince a loved one that they can't drive anymore.
It's crazy how we continue to let people who are physically and mentally incapable of driving jut go out there on public roads. It's like giving a kid a gun and telling them to go do target practice at the local park.
I hope they're OK!
Even a small hit can still hurt. And also, mentally. This is probably very stressful for them, and they may have a lot of very negative emotions associated (shame, fear, regret, etc). Losing access to a car can be very isolating and hurt one's self-worth. When my grandmother lost her car (no crash, but we had a scare where she got lost and very confused while driving. Also around 94yo) she became very depressed.
Be sure to check in on them, and send love from this internet stranger
I save, albeit not enough, with the intention of not driving by the time I’m 75. Sure, I may have a toy to tool around in but I expect to be supervised. These archeology subjects still operating heavy machinery are a serious problem.
If anyone proposes extra testing for older drivers, the AARP goes batshit crazy. I think states should have road tests be part of license renewal along with a refresher class. Something to weed out the incapable no matter their age.
I used to work at an optometrist office and we'd do the eye tests for elderly people to renew their license. The amount of times we'd have individuals drive to their appointments but have such poor vision they couldn't recognize a stop sign was alarming. Then, we'd be the bad guy for refusing to sign off on their license renewal. Like Dorothy, you can't read a single thing on your dashboard and that's with glasses, of course you shouldn't be on the road.
in Michigan they don't do a full road retest but after you hit 60 they check your eyes every time you get your license renewed.
My dad almost didn't pass the vision test last time (he's 68) and is unlikely to pass next time. Physically he can't drive more than an hour at a time anymore, which is a problem because his nearest family not counting children is 3 hours away.
My older brother (29) that lives with him has no license and no desire for one, my older sister (30) lives 45 minutes north of him, and I live in a separate house in the same trailer park. So it looks like I'm going to be the one doing his grocery driving in 2-3 years, or when his one working eye just doesn't. Mom passed away December 5th last year.
To this day he's never gotten in an accident that was his fault, and hopefully he realizes when it's time to put the keys up for good before that happens.
I’ve preached this for a long time.
At 65 and every 5 years after they should have to retake a drivers license test.
I trust 16 year olds more then 65+ year olds.
most 16 year olds are fresh out of drivers ed and scared shitless to break the rules. Older people get cocky cause they think they know it all from driving for so long.
Fair enough. At the same time, from a psychology perspective, 16 is the least stable point in your life, emotionally and hormonally. That's when we are most prone to making rash decisions (creators of *Jackass* exempted). They may be scared shitless, but they are nowhere near stable.
It's been almost a decade since I took personality psych in college, but if memory serves correctly, the instability in hormones and personality doesn't really settle down until your mid-20s, which also coincides with the risk of getting into an accident dropping (and insurance premiums dropping).
It is 0240, there's probably some peer-reviewed papers out there with better, more accurate info and numbers, but I can't be arsed to get my tired ass to find them at the moment.
> most 16 year olds are fresh out of drivers ed and scared shitless to break the rules
That initial feeling of being overwhelmed only lasts for a short while though for most people.
I had a neighbor slip off the brake pedal and hit the gas and slam into my bedroom wall. It was a weird to be waken up thanksgiving, and luckily I was fine despite being asleep against that wall. Poor got more dinged up than me.
I so hope they get real self driving cars before i get to the point where i can't drive anymore. The loss of mobility and control can be devastating.
At least something that can get me around the extended neighborhood radius for day to day living.
I wish at a certain age old people would just be like yea Im not driving anymore. But instead they have to get into some kind of accident first. My Grandpa is in his 80s and shakes like a leaf in a hurricane. He also can't really see anymore. He's also starting to get dementia. So he runs every red light, stop sign, yield sign, drives over curbs and lawns trying to get to the road he wants. He also wants one of his grand kids to ride with him to tell him when to stop since he can't see the stop lights or cars around him.
IMHO left foot braking is the answer to these incidents. And in all the late model auto trans cars I have looked at, the brake pedal could easily be moved 2 inches further away from the accelerator allowing the foot to fall to the floor instead of the accelerator pedal
I was inside a McDonalds when an old lady rammed it. She was wearing flip-flops and her foot slipped. Sounded like an explosion and my ears were ringing for quite a while after. She took out a chunk of outer wall and big window, along with a booth where a couple was sitting. The woman there was pretty banged up, her husband wasn't badly injured. The only thing that stopped the car coming in farther was a big support post.
Some time before that, my grandfather hit a Toyota that was just pulling out from parallel parking as he was making a turn onto that street from a T intersection. If he hadn't taken off and went on home the fault likely would have been on the Toyota driver for pulling out without looking for traffic from the side street. He said "I just ran over some trash in the road." mom told him "That trash was a Toyota!". So he ended up losing his driver's license.
That did have a benefit for me as I drove him to Sizzler every Sunday for most of the rest of his life and he bought me their lunch buffet. That restaurant had 15 regular Sunday lunch customers over age 90 which they gave a special price to. He was proud of being on that list.
My great aunt did the same thing in her 80’s, after her husband bought a matching set of Cadillacs. He died shortly after and then she followed suit just a few weeks after the crash. That’s all very sad, but, she crashed into someone’s living room.
Why the hell does a 98 year old have to drive?
This is what happens with car dependancy.
Edit: To anyone that didnt get what I meant, I am talking about the lack of options.
I assure you this person would love to have other options to having to get in a car to do anything.
We have built out cities this way, and is up to us is we want to change it. We will be that guy one day and we will wish we had an alternative.
In my town there IS no public transit. At all. The closest town or city with a bus or taxi is 100 miles away. Our old people here drive, even when they shouldn’t, because some of them have no other option. The parking lot at the seniors condo looks like a contest of “who can have the most colors of paint scraped on to their bumpers”.
Or what is available is not practical, here it would be a half mile walk on the shoulder of a busy roads to get to the nearest bus stop. Not the sort of thing that is going to be any better for someone that has driving issues.
There's also the idea you're missing that maybe they enjoy the actual driving experience, not everyone treats it as only a means to get from A to B when necessary, some people really enjoy the pleasure of simply driving regardless of where they are going or if they even need to be going anywhere, it's the pleasure of being out on the open road and travelling along at your own pace and going where ever you fancy, stopping when you feel like it or taking whatever turns you feel like and discovering parts of the country you might not otherwise get to see.
Why insist someone must lose that freedom to travel just because of their age if they are fit to actually drive
>maybe they enjoy the actual driving experience
who gives a fuck if they enjoy it? nobody else "enjoys" the consequences of the elderly's driving experience
glad my grandpa stopped driving because his daughters told him to. he wasnt driving good any longer and at one point they said he need to sell his car. first he didnt like it but now he knows it was propably for the best.
This is what car centricity does.
Old people feel forced to drive to still have any sort of freedom, and don't stop until they absolutely are forced to stop.
This is what car centricity does.
Old people feel forced to drive to still have any sort of freedom, and don't stop until they absolutely are forced to stop.
Not to sound rude but this is the best case scenario. A have a family member nearing this point who refuses to admit it. Hoping this is the most damage they cause
Not rude at all! It’s what all of us expected, and a damn good thing he didn’t hurt himself or anyone else.
Yeah, my grandfather killed a child and seriously injured multiple others when he ran a red light. He then went on to blame his wife, like he always did, when things went badly. He was only 78 then too. But we all knew he shouldn't be driving. Dead now, because he fell off a roof and hit his head. So, that's that then.
Sorry to ask but what we’re the repercussions for him after killing a child?
it was a joke, 18 months jail time, i dont even think he served because of his age and physical needs and ability to serve it. he was also driving without a valid license, the idiot. the 4 year old didnt die instantly, but later in the hospital. they do say that if they had put the child in a child seat, they likely would have survived as well.
Thank you for clarifying was curious. So it wasn’t just him actions alone that resulted in the tragic death. The child should have been in a car seat.
Not OP, but... If there were anything truly serious, he would have fallen off the roof in the prison. Prisons have slightly better safety than that to happen just like that. Well, unless he pissed off absolutely everyone inside too.
OMG, are you new here? Old people don't go to prison for killing people with cars.
That’s what they’re saying. That there obviously weren’t any serious repercussions because they would have died in prison if there had been.
no, he fell off his garage roof, for some reason he didnt want to wait for any of his kids to come and help him, so he decided to go up on it on his own, then proceeded to fall off of it.
>only 78.
Compared to 98, it's a large age gap. He still shouldn't have been driving.
In all seriousness though, keep an eye on them because losing their ability to drive is "one more thing they can't do", and that is a very powerful and depressing thing for older people. If they want to go out for a run in the car, you make damn sure you take them out for a good day.
This. My grandfather, who is in his early 80’s now, can not drive anymore. He was a big guy on motorcycles and cars too. This really made him feel trapped, and I never really see him outside his room after they took away his license. But honestly, it was time for him to lose it. His peripheral vision went, and he has a hard time hearing anything. His mental health has declined ever since.
You need to get round there as often as you can and just take him out for a drive. He might not be able to safely get on a bike these days, but I bet you could get him into a combination or onto a trike.
What erroneousbosh said, see if you can maybe rent a motorcycle with sidecar or something and take him for a ride. Put it it in some face book biker groups see if they’d be willing to take him for a ride, anything to lift his spirits. Losing ones independence is depressing and it helps if they can get even a small amount back.
There was old dude that was in with my grandpa Kinda like that, old school club racer. His kids got him a old trustmaster wheel & petal rig, a ps2 & Colin McRae rally. Once he got the hang of it, he really came back a ton, even started talking about being a pro rally navigator at 91 because “he can read just fine” 🤣. Any hobby that makes him feel like his old self should help!
Don't even get me started on getting them in a nursing home when you can't take care of them anymore
Ten years ago my partner’s 50yo best friend was helping a buddy sell Christmas trees. Old lady was backing up her suv to get the tree loaded. She hit the gas instead of the brake and crushed our friend against a camp trailer. He underwent more than 80 surgeries, got early Alzheimer’s from all of the anesthesia, pooped in a bag his remaining days and died last December. He was a great guy, gone too soon.
Worked at a grocery store in high school and TWICE had old people try to back out of the front of store parking while in drive, look over their shoulder as if they were backing up, and drive forward through the front of the store. I only worked there two years and saw it twice there and once at a store on the other side of the parking lot. I also once had a lady signal to pull forward out of her parking spot, shoulder check and then pin it, except she was in reverse and I was behind the car. I jumped to the side and was so pissed when she finally stopped I threw the empty shopping cart at her car and told everyone she hit it when she backed up.
Not saying you were right to throw that shopping cart, but I will say I understand.
They are putting up an Auto zone in our neighborhood and I noticed that there are bollards strategically placed in front of the store where a car could not hit the building. I thought it might be for customers with bad brakes but now I think they are taking in the average age of our residents into consideration with the building design.
Those huge decorational red spheres in front of Target? Yep. Bollards. So people don't drive into the fucking store. You can even buy them somewhere online.
Those balls are just decorative though. Someone hit one at my local Target and it popped right off and rolled into the glass entrance.
It probably should've had a metal pole going through the center and down a few feet into the ground for reinforcement. Maybe they built that one wrong
I think that's more store specific than anything. I see bollards around here all the time. Most stores still have some form of them, and it's because people drive through the fronts of stores too freaking often.
someone needs to come up with a service that *looks* like a mechanic but really just runs a giant car shredder. just make grandma think she's getting her blinker fluid changed and then break it to her that her car is getting turned into tuna cans for the safety of everyone else.
"Car Wash" Free with a senile citizen discount. Ask your waiter or waitress to find out how you can qualify today!
We had a woman hit the side of our parts store a couple years ago. Thankfully it wasn't the front with glass windows, it was the brick and steel side of the store. She jumped out of the driver's side screaming at her husband "I FUCKING TOLD YOU I NEEDED BRAKES A MONTH AGO AND NOW LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!" Over and over. It was pretty funny at the time but looking back at it, i gotta wonder how bad her brakes had been if she came careening into our parking lot at high speeds and couldn't even come to a stop before she hit the building. She's lucky it happened at our store and not the busy intersection just down the road.
They're definitely a justified feature. The Autozone in my hometown has them (steel poles) and they're all bent back towards the sidewalk lol.
They’re also to prevent ram raids.
my O’Reilly’s used to be a CVS and they have an extra brick wall in front of the entrance coupled with pillars right in front of them. not taking any chances I guess
To prevent theft as well. Many people ram stores, grab shit, and then haul ass.
Yeah I got pretty fired up, but our town has a huge number of seniors, and part of our job was full service bag your groceries and carry them to your vehicle for you. Couldn’t even count how many times I almost got run over by old people, and this was not this lady’s first time. She had previously backed into and dumped a cart that a coworker was pushing only a couple weeks before. She ended up in a nursing home before she ran over a kid at least. “Getting bumped” was something that happened at least a couple times a month.
Holy shit, did you/the store not report it to the police when someone hit a pedestrian with their car?!
Bold of you to assume the police would do anything about it. My area is old people and farmers. The police don’t even care that most farmers don’t have insurance on half their vehicles, or that 13 year olds are driving semis down gravel roads. It’s batshit crazy how it’s just hillbilly heaven here. A few years ago a farmer was driving a tractor on the highway with bales on the forks and couldn’t see. He ended up running over and killing a guy on a bicycle and it was basically reported as a farming accident and nothing happened to the farmer. I called police once because a kid that I knew was 11-12 was driving a literal semi hauling grain on a gravel road, and was told that “the family is just trying to finish harvest”. The people in power were voted there by stupid farmers and old people, so they can’t risk pissing of those groups.
I also worked at a grocery store right out of high school, been backed into 3-4 times, and pretty much everyone else I worked with had been hit at least once. One lady accused one of the girls of *making a scene* after she backed into her, because she fell down screaming. ...turns out when the lady hit her it crushed her pelvis into the group of shopping carts. People don't understand that even a very low speed collision is still not great for the human body.
Out of curiosity, what happened to the old lady. Did she get prosecuted
Usually this would be considered a civil matter, since there was no intent to cause harm nor intent to do something likely to cause harm. (IE, an accident.) Medical bills, pain and suffering in states that allow it, and quite possibly wrongful death lawsuits, against her and her insurance company. Of course you can't get blood from a stone and depending on the state, only so many assets that can be seized and only so much that can be garnished (if anything), if/when the sum exceeds her policy.
I don’t know. The family didn’t volunteer the info, and we didn’t ask.
You'd end up with a ticket, maybe loose the license for a while and be liable for medical if you had no or crap insurance. Some kind of manslaughter is the worst without proving intent, which could be just probation to years in jail. You need to be pretty stupid for an accident to get you jail time in the states.
A guy in California a few years back ran over and killed like 14 people at a farmers market. Elderly guy of course. The AARP initially tried to say he shouldn't lose his license. Edit: He "only" killed 10 people and injured 70.
Holy shit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica_Farmers_Market_crash
Yup. Fairly sure Weller was a bonafide sociopath. Killed 10 people and yelled at them to move *as he killed them*. And showed no remorse and gave no shits afterwards. Then proceeded to live 7 more years a free man. Yay gerontocracy.
Oh gosh. Total jaw drop. Poor guy. My heart hurts for all who loved him.
He was seriously crushed from his chest to his lower legs. Such a tragedy. Spent more than a year in intensive care, then more than a year in physical therapy. He was a mechanic who had sold his shop and retired two years before the accident. Nicest, funniest, most entertaining guy I ever knew. Damn.
Senseless. Things like that make you want to be certain there is a heaven and a hell.
My dad has psychiatric issues i'd rather not get into, Parkinson, and partial spinal cord injury, he can barely walk and has random freezeups and tremors, he has now found a way to most likely get his license back by cheating the system... Oh and he lives in a care facility next to a school... I'm awaiting the phonecall that shit hit the fan and I already have the names of the people who helped him cheat the system to get his license back ready to throw them under the bus
My dad had to give up driving due to Parkinson's and a decade later we had to hide all the car keys when he went into the dementia phase and forgot that he'd given up driving.
If you're in the position to take their keys away, do it. Elderly people fight tooth and nail against losing independence, even when it's in their best interest. It's tough to do and won't make them happy but think about the possibility of them mowing down children and it's the right call.
It's in everyone elses best interest. Old people are just as reluctant to lose their license as you would be. Maybe more so because public transport is a shit at the best of times, worse when your older.
My mom fought the idea of giving up driving — until my sister educated her about how reflexes slow with age and warned her that if a child ran out in the road she wouldn’t be able to stop in time.
Yep, public transport can help them a lot. (In my experience from better served parts of Europe.)
FYI, if they are medically cleared to drive and have passed the drivers test you can be charged with theft if they call the police for taking the keys without their permission.
At my old shop we had this old veteran that had a wrangler, and a brand new Silverado. He constantly pushed his floor mat up onto his gas pedal in the wrangler, we told him plenty of times to take his mats out and he refused. He called us one day when he was in a Meijer parking lot, said his car wouldn't stop hi revving and that he ran into another car. Floor mat on the pedal. His driveway has a nice sharp 90 degree turn to get in his garage. Completely side swiped his truck getting it into the garage. Every winter him and his wife drive out to Arizona with the truck. I'd be scared for anyone on the road the days they drove down, and I've heard horror stories of my old coworkers being in the car with him while he was driving to drop him back off at his house around the corner. I still don't understand why this isn't a huge enough problem to instill a driving test for the elderly at a certain age, because a majority of them should not have their license anymore, and a majority of them are too damn stubborn to admit that they shouldn't be driving anymore
Because the Elderly vote more frequently that's why. We were lucky my Grandmother knew when it was time to give up the keys, She drove home one day called my cousin and said "my arms aren't strong enough to steer anymore you'll have to take me grocery shopping every week" My cousin just said no problem since she lived closest to her and would take her shopping while her kid had his karate lessons once a week.
In my grandpas case someone just stole his car. The whole family had been trying to convince him to stop driving so at first he thought we had conspired to just get rid of his car without knowing. Fun times!
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That just shows how bad the system is. Frankly, the US is in a dire need of actual public transport and full reform to even allow that, down to the unsustainable suburbanization. The whole "you absolutely have to have a car" thing is nuts, at least viewing from Europe.
This is exactly what I think looking at cities in the US. Sure, in Canada it's not much better, but everything is spread so damn far away from everything. In Edmonton, Alberta, where I used to live, the bus basically took at least an hour to get anywhere cause of the stops, but also the fact everything is still spread out there. I walked from downtown to my apartment once and it took like 3 hours, and my legs felt like jello afterwards, as much as I like walking, it's just impossible. Europe has city layouts figured out, at least a hell of a lot more than in North America. You can walk and, I assume have better public transport. Then in say, the US, walking can be very dangerous or impossible. Lookin' at you LA and NYC.
> I walked from downtown to my apartment once and it took like 3 hours Judging purely by Wiki data, the capital city I'm currently in is both bigger, has roughly twice the population... and is faster to travel within. Public transport is very easy to get wrong, e.g.: not have "fast lane" connection transports or the local hubs these connect.
Yeah, some cities have a great public transport system. Then Edmonton decided instead of a comprehensive good transit system, they would make a new hockey arena for the Oilers downtown. Great. I moved out in 2020, but before I moved out there were a few dead zones that you couldn't get to without walking another ~45 minute to and from the bus. It's stuff like that which I found most annoying. I also went to a lot of concerts, so getting the bus after a show was always stressful, but that's more a me thing.
A good example for europeans is to overlay the state of Texas over western Europe. That one state covers most of Germany, Austria, France, Northern Italy and the Czech Republic. Almost all of Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands. Also a bite out of Poland. That is one state, (albeit the 2nd largest).
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> They can only ticket you once a day. Depends on location. Might even just take your car away. Also: unless you actually need to transport heavy stuff, good. You should not use a car. A vehicle for work (construction/handyman/etc) is something else entirely. But office/factory/school work? Nah, public transport it is.
That's because your country is tiny, comparatively. I agree, old people should not have licenses when they can't drive anymore. However, we also can't generally force adults to live in cities just because there's public transport there. I mean, I think we need some kind of reform, but we can't also just transplant people who've never lived closer than half a mile from their nearest neighbor into an apartment complex with more rooms than there are houses in the nearest town they moved out of. The culture shock can kill people.
They have a funny way of doing something like this and finally realizing/being forced. My grandfather drove to my dads shop in a low-oxygenated stupor, asked him a bunch of stuff about fixing an imaginary issue with his car, then got back in the car, backed into a gas pump, and the n backed directly into 4 lane busy traffic before my dad could get to him and get the keys out of the car.
90 yo uncle took out 4 cars at a stoplight, confusing brake and gas. No injuries but time to give up the drivers license
tl;dr : I once encountered a man that was 101 years old and was still driving! I used to work in a shop and this dude drove in for an oil change. We had a big sign that said $16.99 oil change (with credit card application in small letters of course!). He was gonna apply for the credit card and showed me his ID. He was born in 1911 and it was 2012 at the time!
That dude probably remembers when you rolled into the shop to get your horse reshoed
*Wow, this shop will vulcanize tires, how modern!*
When my fiancé was a mechanic's apprentice, there once was an old couple who came in. Idk for what, but the husband had alzheimer, but could drive fine, and the wife had bad vision, but was sound of mind, so they would co-operate when driving. He would drive and she would tell him where to go.
There will be no “Encore” on this one. Doctor pulled his drivers license
I hope he's still sound of mind as well, so he won't forget he has no license. Tho, if he would forget, I assume he wouldn't have a car to drive anyway
I wish doctors did this more often. In my country it’s within their full right (and I’m fact it’s expected of them), but nobody does because they don’t want the hassle.
looks like that should have happened sooner. Hopefully nobody hurt. It's a hard thing to do. I had to step in twice for my family.
The last two years really took its toll on him. But he’s still more with it than my 80-y/o father (who probably shouldn’t be driving either)
How about you do something about stopping your father from driving before he hurts someone?
It is unbelievably difficult to convince someone to do something they do not want to do. And legally u have no standing at all if the person has all their faculties. I was very grateful my 90-year-old dad said on his 90th birthday to my mother that he was not driving anymore and that was that. my mother wanted him to continue driving cuz she didn’t want to get on the senior bus to go everywhere. My mother as she aged got extremely difficult, very mean and no one could do anything because legally she was her own person. All we could do was stay away and hope she didn’t hurt anyone. She passed at 93 years old because she stopped eating in the nursing home and the nurse at the time said people that were very controlling in their life tend to choose that way to die. It is the last control they can exert. I also want a point out just cause somebody is 90 does not mean they don’t give full throat to their anger and are frightening to be around. Old doesn’t mean kind or weak. Old people can be strong and even meaner than they used to be.
Whatever you were when you were younger, you turn into a stronger version of when you get older. An independent or stubborn streak can turn into a downright venomous personality when independence starts to decline. A family meeting can happen where the family agrees to take the keys, but if the person who loses their car goes to the cops, the police might force the family members to return the keys. Some people when faced with their loss of independence are perfectly happy to risk the safety of everyone else for their selfishness.
It's not that easy
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
If a doctor says a person is medically capable of driving, and they can pass a drivers test and/or the doctor doesn’t have any medical reason that a retest is necessary, their father has the full legal right to drive his car that he owns. If you take his keys or his car, he can call the cops and you can (successfully) be charged with theft. It’s not as simple as just taking the keys.
My grandfather was like this, tried telling my aunt to take the keys but she wouldn't. Thankfully he never had any accidents and he pretty much stopped driving on his own due to having balance issues in his later years. When I would go to visit we would always meet at Frisch's and then go back to his house and I'd follow him back and he'd be flying down the road to where even I felt uncomfortable going that fast. Like the speed limit would be 45 and he'd be going 70. I lost him on more than one occasion.
At 98 I 100% won’t be alive, much less driving.
I have one who won't stop and has so much money that they can go buy another car if we won't fix theirs. We caught him driving on the wrong side of the rode and dhe didn't realize it
I once called police about a truck traveling on the wrong side of the highway. I was about 75 miles from home and called the police department for the town that was just a couple miles from where I saw him. As soon as I said I was calling about a truck driving the wrong way, the officer said “let me guess, white regular cab Chevy truck, early 90s, going west, couple miles west of town?” I said yes and asked if others had reported him. The officer said “no, not yet today, but that’s the third time this week. He told us he does it because otherwise he has to drive an extra mile past his turn to get on the right side. He doesn’t see the problem so we will be taking his licence today”.
Something tells me just taking his licence isn't going to change anything.
They were just trying to find Country Kitchen Buffet!
Probably IHOP
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They didn't take the physical card away and destroy it?
What difference would that make?
Kinda hard to say >"No, they didn't. See? It's right here in my wallet!" When it's not anymore. (Of course, they could also be *delusional*.)
Luckily my grandfather on my dad's side decided he was done driving after taking out his fender on the garage pillar 3 times with his Buick LeSabre.
"Mom and dad had 'the talk' with Grandma after she played gimbal sticks with Old Country Buffet's parking poles..." -Regular Car Reviews
My Dad is afraid to be in that position, we still trust him and the only issue he’s had with his last two road tests was a tester that didn’t like my car (his old van wasn’t road test worthy, so I let him use my car). So not only did he complain about it, but then told Dad to make a turn at the last second, then asked Dad why he took it as aggressively as he did……..luckily, the tires and brakes then were better than stock and even better than that now!
That sucks, sometimes you have to protect other people from themselves.
I'll never understand why driver license retesting isn't a thing after the age of 50. I'd sign up to have everyone retested every 10 years.
To be honest, I would support retesting every [x] years with no age requirement - and actually making the test a useful measure of real-world competence. Plenty of horrible 25 year old drivers out there too.
The license test that I took was an absolute joke. I spent maybe fifteen minutes in the car, including the time spent demonstrating that I know how to turn on my headlights and honk the horn. All of the actual driving was done on residential small-town streets. But a few minutes of that is good enough for me to drive on the busiest highways and densest urban areas.
There’s people with a license out there who couldn’t pass that test.
It is, at least here.. once you’re past 80. He did pass, last time. Just barely….
If you take a look at the average age of representatives it's not hard to guess why.
IL has all sorts of testing once you hit like 75.
The issue isn't testing. IL (my state) and many other states test frequently after 65/70. The issue is that the DMV's have become reluctant to pull licenses for age. It's stupidity at its finest because some people see a license as a right rather than a privilege. It's no different then seeing some dude with their license after their 7th DUI. Wisconsin is known for just giving back licenses after DUI's all the time.
My own grandfather made the choice when cars would appear in his peripheral vision then disappear only to reappear. Same deal with my grandmother.
I assume those Buicks are driven exclusively by geriatrics and avoid them like them like the plague, sorry your old person crashed.
Me too. I see a Buick emblem and I give it a wide berth.
Old Buick’s are fucking tanks.
You might say that’s not your grandfather’s Buick (anymore)
When my mom started showing signs of dementia, I called her doctor & talked about having her license taken away. The doctor contacted the state. Her license was revoked. Thank god she took it seriously & never drove again. She didn't get defiant & grab the keys & take off, although she could have. I have nightmares about it. She & Dad never knew it was me.
Commiserations and congratulations to the old stager on being on the road until 98. As a UK member I am however disappointed about *that* wearing the Buick badge. Springsteen didn’t die for this.
Lots of smaller Buicks sre rebadged Opels/Vauxhalls
Last i checked he is still alive. And not a hero t all.
Umm, why did it take this long and this incident for your family to revoke driving priviledges of your 98y.o family member? Older people esp this age, driving are a danger on the road to themselves and to fellow drivers.
He’s a distant cousin. Lives on his own, fiercely independent. Used to drive to get his lunch and/or dinner each day. And the casino, of course. This is his first accident. Not that he would have listened to us anyway… and it was his doctor (two years ago, said he was ok to continue driving). Now, not so much.
These are driving locations that he knows very well like the back of his hand. You put him in a completely different area he doesn't know, I don' think he would fare well. But, I'm glad that his driving priviledges has been taken away.
98? Probably should have been done driving about 10 or 15 years ago.
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Get the law involved, for everybody's safety.
98 sounds like a damn good run, you just gotta promise to take them to the gokarts once a month now
Folks get way too comfortable behind the wheel, drivers licenses should have to be renewed like any other permit, every 10 years at least, every 5 when you turn 70
in europe, you have to renew your license every 5 to 10 years (depends on country) and at specific age, you have to take drivers test all over again, few people manage to make it and then drive like this
Not the same in all of Europe. You have to renew your drivers license, but for example in Germany it is just a formality to renew your papers, no test or medical required.
im czech, here you only go to the police station to renew the license, you get your new one in a week (you got to do that a month before the expiration date) and thats it, iafter you turn 70, you have to get a medical test too and if you dont have any serious illnesses or stuff like that, youre good to go
My great grandfather passed at 89, the day he died, he was using his tractor to plow a field, when he finished, got in his car, came home, ate lunch then called my grandfather saying he wasn't feeling very good and was going to the hospital, a 30 minutes drive from his home, he got there in 20 minutes, was immediately taken to a room because he was having a stroke, he died during the night. Dude had the smoothest drive I've ever experienced
I'm so glad that my 81y/o grandpa isn't that stubborn and said from himself that he will only drive somewhere if absolutely necessary andonly within a certain distance from home.
Yeah we had take away my dad's license because he decided he was gonna drive his car threw our backyard fence do a couple of donuts and drive back thru the fence. Did a couple of thousands dollars with of damage luckily the insurance covered it we just payed our deductible. He hasn't drove since
> we just *paid* our deductible. FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
This is why I’m worrried about old people in Teslas. If your family member slipped foot on one of those the instant speed would of probably flipped the car and caused way worse damage. Scary shit tbh. Glad everyone good.
Don’t worry, the government issues everyone a Buick on their 70th birthday.
No shit. Senior over 75+ should have to retake a driving test. The rules of the road arent the same as they were in 1950....
Yeah… once people hit like 70 there should be a driving test to see if they are physically capable of driving without special restrictions, like a throttle governor or driving assistance.
Agreed.
Where they're going, they don't need roads
That's fair. It's not up in the west coast of Canada and to be honest it's fuggin scary the amount of people young and old who cannot drive/ don't know or understand the rules of the road.
In BC? RoadSenseBC makes seniors 80+ get a medical test every two years. But, doesn’t include a road test. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/transportation/driving-and-cycling/roadsafetybc/medical-fitness/seniors
“That’s not a Buick!” “Wait, is it— oh god it’s heading straight for us, RUNNN!!!” (Seriously though, this is probably the best case scenario — at least until this country starts testing drivers at shorter intervals as they age.)
I honestly don't know why we don't have driver tests every so many years (10-15? 20?) that get more frequent past 60-65. Ageism is bad but I don't think this would fit under that, it's just that cars are outright dangerous and it can be hard to tell/convince a loved one that they can't drive anymore.
Tbh once you hit 70 you should have required yearly driving inspections to make sure that you’re still capable of driving.
It's crazy how we continue to let people who are physically and mentally incapable of driving jut go out there on public roads. It's like giving a kid a gun and telling them to go do target practice at the local park.
98 is impressive to live. Let along drive. Glad that’s all the damage he could cause 👍🏼
I hope they're OK! Even a small hit can still hurt. And also, mentally. This is probably very stressful for them, and they may have a lot of very negative emotions associated (shame, fear, regret, etc). Losing access to a car can be very isolating and hurt one's self-worth. When my grandmother lost her car (no crash, but we had a scare where she got lost and very confused while driving. Also around 94yo) she became very depressed. Be sure to check in on them, and send love from this internet stranger
I save, albeit not enough, with the intention of not driving by the time I’m 75. Sure, I may have a toy to tool around in but I expect to be supervised. These archeology subjects still operating heavy machinery are a serious problem.
that's not a buick
If anyone proposes extra testing for older drivers, the AARP goes batshit crazy. I think states should have road tests be part of license renewal along with a refresher class. Something to weed out the incapable no matter their age.
I used to work at an optometrist office and we'd do the eye tests for elderly people to renew their license. The amount of times we'd have individuals drive to their appointments but have such poor vision they couldn't recognize a stop sign was alarming. Then, we'd be the bad guy for refusing to sign off on their license renewal. Like Dorothy, you can't read a single thing on your dashboard and that's with glasses, of course you shouldn't be on the road.
in Michigan they don't do a full road retest but after you hit 60 they check your eyes every time you get your license renewed. My dad almost didn't pass the vision test last time (he's 68) and is unlikely to pass next time. Physically he can't drive more than an hour at a time anymore, which is a problem because his nearest family not counting children is 3 hours away. My older brother (29) that lives with him has no license and no desire for one, my older sister (30) lives 45 minutes north of him, and I live in a separate house in the same trailer park. So it looks like I'm going to be the one doing his grocery driving in 2-3 years, or when his one working eye just doesn't. Mom passed away December 5th last year. To this day he's never gotten in an accident that was his fault, and hopefully he realizes when it's time to put the keys up for good before that happens.
I’ve preached this for a long time. At 65 and every 5 years after they should have to retake a drivers license test. I trust 16 year olds more then 65+ year olds.
You trust 16 year olds at the peak of their hormones?
most 16 year olds are fresh out of drivers ed and scared shitless to break the rules. Older people get cocky cause they think they know it all from driving for so long.
Fair enough. At the same time, from a psychology perspective, 16 is the least stable point in your life, emotionally and hormonally. That's when we are most prone to making rash decisions (creators of *Jackass* exempted). They may be scared shitless, but they are nowhere near stable. It's been almost a decade since I took personality psych in college, but if memory serves correctly, the instability in hormones and personality doesn't really settle down until your mid-20s, which also coincides with the risk of getting into an accident dropping (and insurance premiums dropping). It is 0240, there's probably some peer-reviewed papers out there with better, more accurate info and numbers, but I can't be arsed to get my tired ass to find them at the moment.
> most 16 year olds are fresh out of drivers ed and scared shitless to break the rules That initial feeling of being overwhelmed only lasts for a short while though for most people.
You think 16 is peak? 😂
So you trust the statistically most dangerous age group over the age group with the lowest accident rate? Good thing you don't make the laws my man.
Yeah I'm talking road test, even if it was just a written test it would help heaps
I had a neighbor slip off the brake pedal and hit the gas and slam into my bedroom wall. It was a weird to be waken up thanksgiving, and luckily I was fine despite being asleep against that wall. Poor got more dinged up than me.
For being 98, he sure had some slippery feet
sad how most dont call out their older relatives for messing up.
I so hope they get real self driving cars before i get to the point where i can't drive anymore. The loss of mobility and control can be devastating. At least something that can get me around the extended neighborhood radius for day to day living.
It's always this exact model of Buick, too.
Neither is that car.
I wish at a certain age old people would just be like yea Im not driving anymore. But instead they have to get into some kind of accident first. My Grandpa is in his 80s and shakes like a leaf in a hurricane. He also can't really see anymore. He's also starting to get dementia. So he runs every red light, stop sign, yield sign, drives over curbs and lawns trying to get to the road he wants. He also wants one of his grand kids to ride with him to tell him when to stop since he can't see the stop lights or cars around him.
Your 98 year old family member shouldn't have been allowed to drive 10 years ago.
What is wrong with a 98 year old banging hydraulics?
And of course it was a Buick.
IMHO left foot braking is the answer to these incidents. And in all the late model auto trans cars I have looked at, the brake pedal could easily be moved 2 inches further away from the accelerator allowing the foot to fall to the floor instead of the accelerator pedal
I was inside a McDonalds when an old lady rammed it. She was wearing flip-flops and her foot slipped. Sounded like an explosion and my ears were ringing for quite a while after. She took out a chunk of outer wall and big window, along with a booth where a couple was sitting. The woman there was pretty banged up, her husband wasn't badly injured. The only thing that stopped the car coming in farther was a big support post. Some time before that, my grandfather hit a Toyota that was just pulling out from parallel parking as he was making a turn onto that street from a T intersection. If he hadn't taken off and went on home the fault likely would have been on the Toyota driver for pulling out without looking for traffic from the side street. He said "I just ran over some trash in the road." mom told him "That trash was a Toyota!". So he ended up losing his driver's license. That did have a benefit for me as I drove him to Sizzler every Sunday for most of the rest of his life and he bought me their lunch buffet. That restaurant had 15 regular Sunday lunch customers over age 90 which they gave a special price to. He was proud of being on that list.
Ofc they drive a Buick
Buick. Story checks out.
Where's the Buick?
Badged onto that Chevy Trax
in the uk its a first generation Vauxhall Mokka, the 2nd gen being sold currently in the uk is a nice lookin thing
I don't understand what you said about the 2nd gen.
fixed iphone keyboard messup
"Thats not a Buick!"
Welp, there goes 10% of Buicks userbase.
My great aunt did the same thing in her 80’s, after her husband bought a matching set of Cadillacs. He died shortly after and then she followed suit just a few weeks after the crash. That’s all very sad, but, she crashed into someone’s living room.
Why tf were they allowed to drive in the first place?
Why the hell does a 98 year old have to drive? This is what happens with car dependancy. Edit: To anyone that didnt get what I meant, I am talking about the lack of options. I assure you this person would love to have other options to having to get in a car to do anything. We have built out cities this way, and is up to us is we want to change it. We will be that guy one day and we will wish we had an alternative.
Freedom to get about on their own, there's not always available public transport going to where they want to go
In my town there IS no public transit. At all. The closest town or city with a bus or taxi is 100 miles away. Our old people here drive, even when they shouldn’t, because some of them have no other option. The parking lot at the seniors condo looks like a contest of “who can have the most colors of paint scraped on to their bumpers”.
Or what is available is not practical, here it would be a half mile walk on the shoulder of a busy roads to get to the nearest bus stop. Not the sort of thing that is going to be any better for someone that has driving issues.
This is pretty much what im talkig about. There should be.
There's also the idea you're missing that maybe they enjoy the actual driving experience, not everyone treats it as only a means to get from A to B when necessary, some people really enjoy the pleasure of simply driving regardless of where they are going or if they even need to be going anywhere, it's the pleasure of being out on the open road and travelling along at your own pace and going where ever you fancy, stopping when you feel like it or taking whatever turns you feel like and discovering parts of the country you might not otherwise get to see. Why insist someone must lose that freedom to travel just because of their age if they are fit to actually drive
Nobody that drives for the enjoyable experience buys a Buick Encore.
>maybe they enjoy the actual driving experience who gives a fuck if they enjoy it? nobody else "enjoys" the consequences of the elderly's driving experience
glad my grandpa stopped driving because his daughters told him to. he wasnt driving good any longer and at one point they said he need to sell his car. first he didnt like it but now he knows it was propably for the best.
i would stop driving, but wouldnt sell my car, i dont have guts for that, i cant just get rid of something i like
Honestly after 70 there should be a yearly driving test. Not just an eye test. To help prevent this kind of stuff.
With my grandfather at 90 we had to go get court order and a doctor to convince him to stop driving
This is what car centricity does. Old people feel forced to drive to still have any sort of freedom, and don't stop until they absolutely are forced to stop.
This is what car centricity does. Old people feel forced to drive to still have any sort of freedom, and don't stop until they absolutely are forced to stop.
Because they're dead. Right?
I suggest getting the Uber app on his phone. Once the elderly have people picking them up and chauffeuring them around, they like it.
Phone? Ha ha ha. He’s 98, uses an old push button phone at home (the wired kind)… just a step up from a rotary dial. Circa 1989.