Little Old Lady from Pasadena, move over!

[DFW]

She ain't got nuthin' on the little old lady from Brussels:

http://firsttoknow.com/gps-fail-woman-drives-900-miles-in-the-wrong-direction/?utm_source=d_e&utm_campaign=gps-fail-woman-drives-90-18841&feedkey=d_e

How do you drive 900 miles in one direction and not notice a problem when your whole country is less than 300 miles long?
She said she was "distracted." That must have been one HELL of a CD she was listening to!

[lunatica]

1. This is no laughing matter

She probably understood that she wasn't where she wanted to be, but it's quite possible she forgot where she was going or what her destination was. She just kept driving thinking she would find a familiar place. I'm glad the police found her and that her son has her back.

Sorry. It's not even remotely funny.

[DFW]

3. In some parts of Europe, they issue a driver's license for life

You don't drive for 900 miles in a country that is 300 miles long, tanking up in places where they no longer speak your language, and forget your destination unless you have some serious dementia problems.

If she (or anyone) would have said she needs some help, (or, if anyone had been hurt) that's serious.

Saying she was "distracted," even in a country with drivers as reckless as the Belgians, is funny, sorry. I'm there once a week for work, and although it's just a two hour drive form here, I NEVER drive because I value my longevity. But even my Belgian friends found this one a little over the top, even for them.

[A HERETIC I AM]

18. Yes it is.

"Sorry. It's not even remotely funny."

Ohhhhh....yes it is. It's funny and you know it.

[lunatica]

19. Yeah, just like someone falling and breaking something

funny as hell to people who like to see others in pain or lost or confused.

Laugh it up. No one's stopping you.

[A HERETIC I AM]

20. Oh, please.

She wasn't injured and she didn't hurt herself or anyone else.

You said "it's not even remotely funny"


Yes, it is more than remotely funny.


"Laugh it up. No one's stopping you."

No, no one is stopping me, just as no one is stopping you from tsk tsking away.

[lunatica]

24. You're the one who interjected yourself

I don't even care who you are or what you find funny, but evidently you think you can decide to TELL me what I should find funny. Now you're the victim.

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. LOL..."Tag, you're it" eh?

Fine.


Have a good day.

[pipi_k]

25. If this had happened to my mom...

she would have told me and the two of us would have laughed ourselves silly.

So I can definitely see where someone would find it funny.

(my parents cursed me with a warped sense of humor)

[Sekhmets Daughter]

2. How sad that she couldn't process the information

before her eyes. "Distraction" doesn't cause someone to spend two nights on the road for a 90 mile trip. Hope her son can arrange for the proper care.

[DFW]

4. I hope, too, that he convinces her to give up driving

If she causes some major damage, no one will be laughing any more.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

5. Exactly.

There were so many things that could have gone wrong during this odyssey.

I live in Florida, the things you see here make you want to give up driving altogether...but as our elderly have a tendency to drive through store fronts, among other misadventures, what would be the point of walking...you could get mowed down on the sidewalk

[pipi_k]

21. Some of them

are even being enabled/encouraged by ignorant family members.

So a sort of friend/acquaintance of ours has been talking for months about going to visit her mom in FL at the end of this month. She has a sister in CO who is going down as well. The three of them will be driving from somewhere near Daytona across to the Keys.

Her mom...87...will be doing some of the driving.

When she mentioned this, Mr Pipi said something about how he's not so sure he'd want to be a passenger in a car being driven by an 87 year old person.

To which this "friend" said, "Oh, my mom only raised 9 kids so she doesn't know what she's doing, right??" in a very snotty tone of voice.

As if a person's ability to drive in old age is dependent on how many kids she has raised.

WTF.

She has acted like a total shit to Mr Pipi ever since.

Hey. I'm 60. Even MY reflexes have deteriorated some. I'm willing to admit that I scare myself sometimes.

I realize that some people manage to keep their faculties well into the Golden Years, but still...

Having a drivers license is not a right. People don't have the right to endanger others, and I believe that this "friend" is not being realistic about her mom's driving ability if the only rationale she can give for trusting her is that she's raised 9 kids.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

23. Let me know when she'll be passing through...

she will be passing right through my neck of the woods! I'm 65, my reflexes are as good as ever... What I have noticed is my ability to carry on a conversation and drive has deteriorated! I'll stop for a stop sign, that is for the cross traffic not me! Some of that may be due to the fact that I am usually alone in my car, thus I find it worrisome that she would be driving with passengers!

You are absolutely correct...a drivers' license is a privilege not a right, but too few people understand that concept.

Mr. Pipi must be a patient soul to put up with shit from an idiot!

[BillStein]

6. my brother and I took away our mother's keys

A friend called and said he saw her driving around a traffic circle 4 times looking like she couldn't remember which road she wanted. It was hard, but if we hadn't acted she might have caused an accident.

I've seen old people who create a major danger around here.

[DFW]

13. It's not easy to admit your driving days are over

My mom had a stroke in January 2002, and temporarily lost the ability to read, which she used to do voraciously. SO cruel. It was the ONLY skill she lost and she worked like crazy to relearn it. She had just regained the ability to write her name and sign things again when she defied the rules, got in her car and drove around the block when there was no one else around, just to defy nature and say I can, too, do this! She shouldn't have, and she knew it, but it was in her defiant nature.

[MiddleFingerMom]

7. Some buddies and I were returning from a weekend in Connecticut to our home in...

.
.
.
... SE Pennsylvania and we didn't notice we had overshot our state until we crossed
the Virginia state line. Simply having a good time and distracted.
.
Yes, I was driving... if you have to know and no, we were not stoned.
.
.
My roommate and I from the Army would get to the end of a roadtrip weekend
(10 hours for me as a driver, 5 hours for him as a passenger from where I picked
him up) and would often be having such a good time that we would decide just
to keep driving past our home -- going maybe another hour or two before turning
around and heading back.
.
Yes, we were having a good time and no, we were not stoned.
.
.
.

[DFW]

8. PA to VA is a little different

And the signs are in the same language, and the people at the gas stations all speak English.

If you had to get gas three times along the way, saw signs only in German and Croatian, and paid to cashiers speaking German and Croatian, I think you and your friends might have noticed something was out of whack before you had gone 900 miles. Anyone can overshoot a few exits on an interstate. Overshooting three countries is a different story.

[MiddleFingerMom]

9. Yeah, though nothing in the article would lead one to the definite conclusion of...

.
.
.
... "diminished capacity".
.
.
I think it may be just as likely Mom got tired of Sonny's crap and decided to have an adventure.
.
.
.
It's kinda ageist to presume diminished capacity from the info we have.
.
.
.

[DFW]

11. Her "distracted" excuse would have raised a flag or two with me.

A friend of ours once was driving home at night, got confused and got off on the wrong autobahn, but she knew how long her trip was, and knew she had taken a wrong turn when she passed signs telling her Welcome to Holland in Dutch (the border is less than 150 KM from us).

Belgium is less than 300 miles long, and Brussels is right in the middle of it. If you are on the way to pick up a friend in Brussels from anywhere in Belgium, you cannot drive 900 miles in a straight line without ending up either in a place where they don't speak either French or Flemish, or else getting VERY wet. In Croatia, they don't even use the euro. When you get gas there, you definitely know you're not in Kansas (or Belgium) any more.

[olddots]

10. I had a Miles Davis Sketches of Spain CD trance me out once

drove 90 miles out of the way ----It was embarrassing but fun.

We're all going to have to face this problem someday and that is going to be UNPLEASANT .

[DFW]

12. It will be especially unpleasant for others

We'll all be happy as a clam when it comes to that.

A former CNN department head (nicest guy in all of CNN) once told about his grandfather dying peacefully in his sleep--as opposed to the three frantic passengers in his car as he drove it off a cliff.

[struggle4progress]

14. "Well, my GPS sez this is the interstate entrance ramp!"

[DFW]

15. I don't have one

But I've heard that out-of-date ones can cause more harm than help.

[struggle4progress]

16. I don't have one either. But if I had one, I'd still check a map for a long trip.

Blindly believing mapquest fifteen years ago cost me a half hour of wandering blindly on a very short jaunt to the next town over, so I've been skeptical ever since

And about ten years ago, I set out for a professional meeting. I had alternate sets of directions, all of which I had compared, before following any, so I was unlikely to go too far afield. But my first set of instructions from one of the online "Get directions" sources dumped me in a shopping center parking lot, rather before I got to my destination. Fortunately, it was only a short distance from a road I needed to follow in another set of directions, so it didn't cost me much time

And there are plenty of horror stories

A couple of years back, some folk got stuck in Death Valley after driving in for the day without notifying Park authorities, without adequate water, and without any clear idea of destination: they just planned to follow their GPS instructions, which stranded them into a washed-out road. They then used up most of their water keeping their little dog hydrated. One of the people IIRC

"I'll just follow my GPS!" ranks up there with "Hold my beer and watch this!"

[DFW]

17. Living where I do, driving at all is an unnerving experience

I take trains or planes if it's a trip over 100 KM. If I have to play life and death gladiator games, I want proper training and intel, or I'm not playing. I didn't take German driver's ed, and so don't have a license to kill.

[pipi_k]

22. You're not kidding!!!

A number of people have gotten lost while trusting GPS to get to my house.

My youngest stepdaughter nearly didn't make her own wedding here a few years ago when her nephew (who was supposed to officiate at the wedding) got lost in the woods and wrecked the oil pan on his girlfriend's parents' SUV when he hit a huge boulder.

A visiting nurse, coming to see Mr Pipi after his knee surgery, used GPS to get here from a different direction. She made it here late, but was in tears, as she also got lost and was convinced she was going to die all alone in the woods.

We provide directions to people coming out here...we tell them do NOT use GPS!!!

[In_The_Wind]

26. Using my GPS is an adventure.