This photo greeted me this morning when I went to check the local news at the Register-Guard’s website. Are they selling vintage Lincolns at Safeway now?
Obviously not. But someone drove their Lincoln pretty far into the Junction City Safeway, all the way to the fresh produce, and they picked up some flowers along the way.
Well, from the vintage of the Lincoln and the nature of the “event”, it wasn’t exactly surprising to read that the driver, Dale Stone, is 88. The Junction City Police determined that it was an accident, and no charges were filed. In other words, another case of unintended acceleration pedal misapplication.
Maybe they should take his driver’s license away.
I don’t know what the law is in Oregon, but they can do that in California. I learned that when an 88 year old woman drove into the back of my bicycle. I was heading straight ahead though an intersection from the proper lane while she when straight ahead from a right turn only lane and into the back of me. The police officer who responded said I might need to testify at a hearing to revoke her license, but they never called me to testify.
It’s time to hang up the keys Dale.
Cleanup in Aisle Three.
“Dale, this was not supposed to be part of our Huge Lemon Sale!”
The government should buy all old people cars with crash avoidance self driving tech. Yea I’m a liberal and expect all you kids to fund my reitrement. Also get off my lawn.
Always a Panther car.
A decade ago it would have been a Buick.
And in a couple more years it’ll be a Camry.
Dad was driving his Camry over ten years ago when he had an incident (no collision) that led to loosing his license.
This from the Associated Press on 2/12/18:
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A 99-year-old RV driver who went the wrong way on a Florida highway and killed two teenagers in a head-on crash has died of his injuries. The Florida Highway Patrol said Monday that Walter Roney of Dearborn, Michigan, died on Friday. His death came three days after the Fort Pierce crash that killed 18-year-old Santia Feketa and her 17-year-old best friend, Britney Poindexter. The teens were headed to a skating rink. Headlights were off in Michigan RV driver’s fatal Florida wrong-way crash. Michigan driving records showed that someone in September had reported Roney as possibly incompetent to drive, but 29 days before the crash he had passed a driving test in his home state. Investigators say Roney was driving at night without lights going west in the eastbound lanes of a four-lane highway when he crashed into Feketa’s pickup truck.
To their credit, both my mom and dad voluntarily gave up driving (particularly long distances) as they entered their late 70s. My mom paid a small but reasonable amount of money to a younger neighbor in their condo complex to drive her ’94 Buick LeSabre, taking her on errands. My nephew also drove her on occasion. Mom eventually gave the Buick to me several months before she passed away.
My great-grandmother gave her’s up with much class on her part, she lived to be 92 (passing in 1993) but gave up her license when the national 55 mph speed limit was instituted. Her eyesight had been failing and after the speed limit was passed her sons were sitting around griping about 55.
She said: “What are you boys talking about? It’s still 65 mph between Ottawa (OH) and Columbus Grove (OH).”
“Uh, Mom. That’s STATE HWY 65!”
She hung up her keys immediately.
A stroke could be another possible cause.
I assume his insurance company compensated the store for damages. I can imagine what’ll happen to his premiums after that.
As someone who has done this, I really feel for the poor driver.
In my case it turned out to be due to axonal neuropathy, gradually developing over the past 20 years. This means I suffer decreased sensations in my legs and feet, and lack spatial awareness of just where my feet are – to stand on something now I have to look at where my foot is. It’s hard to move my feet sideways, and the ground always seems to be an inch or two lower than I think it is – which contributes to my awkward gait.
As I live in a country town 25km or so from the nearest city, driving was essential. I was aware of trouble managing the clutch, but just thought my new car had a heavier clutch than I was used to. It was only when I sold that and had an automatic that I realised the problem was with my feet. In the past year I had two ‘accidents’ when I’m not quite sure what happened but I lost control of the car temporarily. After the first time the family said “Don’t tell the doctor or he’ll take your licence away and you need it to get places out here”. So I didn’t and kept driving, but only when I really had to. The second time I went through a fence in the city and wrote off the car.
I voluntarily gave up driving. While I would love to get behind the wheel again and go places, I never know when my legs might let me down again. It’s proved to have been a wise decision, as I am now developing other neurological symptoms which are affecting my speech.
So please, don’t be too hard on that driver. There might be things going on medically that he or she might not have been aware of when that happened.
Pete, I’m so sorry… I had no idea! That must be especially hard, not just because you live out in the country but also because you’re an enthusiast. I’m glad you made the sensible decision to voluntarily stop driving, as inconvenient and unexciting as that may be… You were thinking of others’ safety, and that’s important.
Thanks William. I’ve never had the opening to mention it here before; we’re not like Facebook for random off-topic posts! 🙂
I now walk around my town, and have lost something like 7kg – I needed to! 🙂 When I’m in Geelong I allow plenty of time and catch buses to get to my appointments. Sometimes a mate from my town drives me in, or sometimes I catch a lift with my wife to her workplace and get the bus from there.
There was no question of keeping on driving, I’d had too big a scare for that. I would have stopped after the first parking-lot incident, if not for my family’s concerns for my mobility. But after two crashes in six months – and that after over forty years incident-free enthusiastic driving – I knew it was time to stop.
Yeah, it’s hard. Psychologically, you could say I’m grieving. But I’m safe, and so are those around me.
You’ve made an excellent point, too, Pete, about our modern rush to judgement, which is partly because of the instant availability of less-than full information.
My sympathies in your grieving, and I don’t mean that flippantly. That’s a hard adjustment for many reasons.
Not to mention that it often takes some sort of incident to bring into focus a slowly-developing situation.
My grandmother did it gradually, first stopping long trips and then around town. I doubt her taxi bill was more than the cost of registration and insurance for the car.
Sorry to hear of your problems Pete, but glad to hear you are keeping on going as best you can.
I am hoping that by the time I approach the ‘shouldn’t be behind the wheel’ threshold that Amazon, grocery home delivery services, and Uber et at will form a viable driving alternative. It has already gotten to a viable level in the major metropolitan area where we live. I understand that there are expenses in all those services but frankly, I doubt if they approach the costs of a car payment, insurance payments and maintenance/fuel for an elderly retired person.
Don’t let’s forget the incredibly, remarkably stupid automatic parking brake release: put the car in Drive and pop goes the P-brake, thus saving the driver from the awful drudgery, stress, and strain of having to release the brake on his own (and eliminating the last line of defence against an event like this).
Easy there Dan, I am swapping one into my Ranger truck as we speak.
Ohhhh, I don’t want to go off topic, but I need to look into that!
Can’t tell if you’re being serious or having a laugh. If you’re serious…why?
My parking brake does not release when I put the car in gear (either D or R).
I kind of doubt that would have made a difference. In all the cars I have driven, the engine can easily overpower the parking brake. The V8 in the Lincoln I wouldn’t think would be any different.
And that’s of course assuming the parking brake was even set to begin with.
I think any car that will automatically release the parking brake when you shift out of park also requires that the brake pedal is engaged so Daniel’s comment is curious at best.
The news story really does not state exactly what happened anyway, so I don’t see what the parking brake has to do with anything.
I always liked this feature. Recall it in many Ford products, but I don’t know about any others. I can’t see how this feature would be a problem.
Just glad it wasn’t a 1969 Mark III…whew
Dan, you are assuming that these folks are actually applying the parking brake. 9 times out of 10 if I ride in or drive someone else’s car, the parking brake just languishes unused. You really screw up the operation for them by setting it. I’ve had to replace several sets of parking brake shoes on the vans at work because of some 10 watt (not too bright) driver isn’t used to releasing the parking brake and is too distracted, ignorant, or inattentive to notice the red brake warning light on the dash until the rear wheels are smoking. I have found that making it a habit of all the time, every time, cuts way down on problems.
You’ve got a point. I don’t think I’ll ever understand people who shrug and go “It’s an automatic, so I don’t hafta use the parking brake”.
I haven’t put on a parking brake on an automatic transmission car since…forever. Well, maybe a couple of times on a SF-style hill.
Why bother? You think the parking [awl is going to pop out or shear off? More likely to get hit by a UFO.
Sure, park pawl breakage is very unlikely. Slip-out-of-park is unlikely in my case, given I don’t drive ’60s-’80s Fords (with or without decals). But it’s there, it’s a legally-required safety device that can at least spare me a minor annoyance (“Clonk!” shift out of Park that results from hanging the car’s weight on the parking pawl) and stands ready to save my minor or major bacon in a variety of plausibly foreseeable situations and probably some that don’t come to mind, failure to use it brings demerit points on every driving licence test I’ve ever taken, and it can tend to seize up with prolonged nonuse. So why would I not use the parking brake?
Living in the rust belt, I find it good practice to use the parking brake at least occasionally just to keep it operational. Rust tends to raise hell with unused units.
Are you aware of just how flimsy most parking pawls are? Think about how many tons of metal you’re expecting something of the diameter of a pencil to keep stationary. Also when you do not use your parking brake as a habit, you’re just asking food frozen brake cables.
Can you cite an example of a parking pawl breaking? Steel can be quite strong, you know, even a pencil-sized one.
There’s more steel in the park prawl than the parking brake cables combined, which is about 1/8″ per side. And yes, they can and do fail, and only one of them needs to snap for the whole system to not work
Personally I use the parking brake regardless of transmission, but mostly because it became habit with a manual, but I have no more faith in those cables as I lack in the prawl. If I park on a hill I steer the wheels to/away from the curb.
Brother (lives in Florida) took in his automatic Vanagon to have the crank pulley seal replaced, his mechanic called and said the parking pawl was broken and no one makes a replacement anymore so they couldn’t fix his VW that was brought in for an oil leak.
No reason was given as to why it broke, I did some research and found all 010 (3 speed) automatics used the same pawl, I found an automatic MK2 Jetta at U pull in Portland, had to drop the pan and valve body to get at the little bugger. Sent it to my brothers house so he could bring it to the shop and have a little conversation with the owner.
After a little thought, I figured out what must have happened. The shop had mentioned the pulley bolt was really tight, the airwrench struggled to break it loose. I told him to ask the manager if the van was in park and if they had locked the engine manually or did they break it off relying on the park pawl to prevent the engine from spinning. The shop admitted their mistake and replaced the pawl at no charge.
No UFOs, but your motor mounts are stressed, the CV joints will be loaded, and the front suspension will be laterally stressed, all because they are holding the weight of the car constantly instead of just while being driven. I am 100% parking brake use and have never had a problem related to any of the above.
You can’t be serious. Especially the part about the front suspension. That’s comical.
FWIW, I’ve never had a problem related to any of those either.
Are you suggesting a car will collapse under it’s own weight?
Stars can collapse into a black hole if they are big enough.
Gosh….that happens a lot here in Mtn. Home Ar.
Must be an Arkansas thing (see my post below, which I made almost simultaneously – within one minute – of yours).
There is a retirement community just north of me, and every time I hear on the news that a car went through the facade of a local business, I think, “Let me guess…it was in Bella Vista.” And I’m usually correct. My friends in the nearby Little Rock media market say the same thing, except they substitute “Hot Springs Village” as the community name. I hate how it sounds like I’m perpetuating a tired stereotype about senior drivers, but you must admit that we seem to hear about this occurring more often with this particular age group.
Like others, I hope that I’m able to gracefully accept when my driving days are over, as my mother did. My late father, on the other hand, fought tooth and nail after a severe stroke caused his physician to declare him incapable of safely operating a motor vehicle.
Sell me your car, Dale.
Maybe he thought that he was pushing a grocery cart.
My aunt and uncle, now both dead about 30 years, had quite a system. My uncle did all of the driving because my aunt never drove. My uncle developed alzheimers disease but continued to drive with my aunt telling him every command that needed doing. Slow down to 35…watch the pedestrian…stop for the school bus…the lights green you can go now. This went on for several years. If she weren’t next to him to guide him he couldn’t have found his way home from the store. It’s been a family joke for years now, only because they never killed anyone.
Maude is my co-pilot?
My dad stopped driving when he was about 80. He never had an accident, and was a model of a safe driver; however, he had started developing macular degeneration, and knew it was time to stop driving. He never drove again, and he lost more and more vision. His mind, though, was pretty sharp till the end. He died at 99 years and 9 months.
I was run over in Germany whilst going through a green light on my mountain bike by an 83 year old (he shot a red). After nailing me he continued with me half under the car. The results were 2 broken neck vertebrae and a broken leg. He then refused to call an ambulance or police……Knowing the judge presiding at the court case, he was able to carry on driving, the next victim 3 months later being a child on a crosswalk…. After having lived in Germany for over 25 years I relocated ASAP…..
How did you not lose all faith in humanity? Glad you survived.
My late grandfather had a stroke when he was in his early 80s, and had double vision the rest of his life. He used to wear an eye patch, and would switch it to the other eye every hour or so…he could see fairly well with either eye, just not with BOTH. He continued to drive for several years after that until the dementia caught up with him and we pulled his keys.
A friend’s father had his car and keys taken away by his kids…he took a cab to the local Chevy store and bought a new car!
A visitor to the cemetery where I work was driving around, practicing his driving skills since it had been a while since he drove…he was 86 years old, went “off-roading” , hit the wrong pedal and knocked over a BIG monument, which fell on the front of the car and crushed it. Luckily the falling granite didn’t hit him.
Couple years ago here in Winnipeg, a guy had a seizure while driving his F 150, he run over the curb, crossed the other lane and crashed into a 7 eleven store. Since he passed out with his foot on the gas, only the brick back wall was strong enough to stop the truck. The wheels kept spinning and quickly a thick smoke filled the store.
Nobody got badly hurt and one of the costumers inside the store at the moment became my coworker at Birchwood.
It is really scary when you hear the story from a guy who was actually there.