Judgement & Reaction Time

[HarleyEarl]

I was walking along sidewalk enjoying the sunny, warm day when I glanced over at this new Jeep Commander sitting in the disabled spot of the parking lot of a retail store. The store was for the handicapped to outfit their vehicles for their special needs. Suddenly the vehicle started and shot forward about 8 ft like a bullet...jumped over a curb and stopped against a sign. The elderly couple looking like they were 80 years old camly backed up and drove away. Now if they had been facing the store window and a pedestrian had been there, someone would have been hurt or killed. Now, it begs the question, should the elderly and disabled be tested to a higher standard than others?...testing their reaction times and driving judgement..on an annual basis?

[Whistler]

There was a thing in the news a couple days ago from Florida where an old guy with dementia, who somehow still had a licence, hit a pedestrian, then immediately forgot about it and continued to drive several miles with the the dismembered body lodged in his windshield.

[Croc]

I think that if there can be graduated laws for young drivers, there can be graduated laws for elderly drivers. Annual exams should be a must, as well as exams following any major health event.

[Robert Hall]

"I'd rather die quietly in my sleep like grandpa, rather than screaming like his passengers". Heard this one somewhere long ago..

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

Yes, we should test the elderly more... But that saddens me a lot, because I know if and when I were in that situation, which if we're all lucky enough maybe we will be, I would feel belittled, disrespected and insulted by having to test more often and possibly getting my license pulled.

[Sixty8panther]

WMJ: Tht's hillarious and scary at the same time.

[the_yellow_dart]

At my father's old office in Paris, Ontario, the back of the parking lot is angled up quite sharply. So if you were parked in one of the back spaces and you backed in, you would be facing down the hill at the rear wall of the building. This is what this elderly couple with a large car from the 70s did (not sure on model). The guy went to leave. He'd had his parking brake on, and forgot this. He put it in Drive, and when it didn't move, he took off the parking brake. He went to jam on the brakes which had not been on when he was disengaging the parking brake on a steep downhill (!) and instead stepped on... the GAS! He slammed through the rear brick wall of the office, right into the dentist's office at the back. The dentist ended up on the hood, and the chair (with a patient in it) stopped the car. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. What a dentist appointment though. Car comes through the wall and tries to take out the dentist. :lol: :lol: