Man, 86, strikes girl with car after voting :-(

[ursi]

Source: Associated Press

RANDOLPH, Mass. (AP) — An 86-year-old man lost control of his car Tuesday and struck a second-grader who was standing outside of a school that was being used as a polling place, pinning the girl to the brick building.

The 8-year-old girl was conscious when she was taken to the hospital after the accident around 8:40 a.m., said Leo Flanagan, principal of the Elizabeth G. Lyons Elementary School.

The girl, whose name was not immediately released, was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit at Boston Medical Center with serious injuries, police said.

"I backed up to get into a parking space. The car just went into overdrive I guess, and I just shot forward and the brakes didn't hold. I couldn't stop it," driver William Geisler told WBZ-TV.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-02-05-mass-girl-struck_N.htm

[jlake]

1. Sad. Hopefully he is done driving.

[ursi]

2. yeah, it is double sad for her and him ...

[greiner3]

3. Those damn republicans;

Will do anything to stop future Democrats from voting!

[Stranded]

4. It's sad

It would almost be comedic if it weren't so sad...

As I read the posting, all I could think about was an episode of South Park...

[Tesha]

5. She's now in a "medically-induced coma". (NT)

[Maine-ah]

6. poor baby

:cry:

we recently had a 2 year old boy get run over by a young woman backing up, not paying attention. He died at the scene. It was at an apartment complex.

[noamnety]

7. My father in law was past the point where he could not safely drive

and his family continued to let him drive for several years beyond that, even after he took out the back wall of his garage. "The brakes didn't hold" is - from what I've seen - code for "I got confused and hit the gas instead of the brakes."

I looked into reporting him myself when his sons and wife refused to, but I didn't have access to the personal information I needed on him to file a report/request for reexamination. I know he could not have passed a driver's test.

Please, if you have someone like that in your family, just make the report before someone gets hurt.

[The Croquist]

8. I wish there were regular competency tests for driving

Maybe every 5 or 10 years. I don't know if politically you could get away with linking it to age but if not, let's test everyone.
Driving on public property is a privilege not a right. If it costs fifty bucks to administer the test charge the drivers, young and old, rich and poor. It can be done without costing the government any money except for increased education expenses for the children not killed and extra social security checks for old drivers who don't kill themselves.

I had a friend's grandfather who was losing it and they didn't have the guts to take away the keys. One day they got a phone call from a cop 35 miles from home. Grand pa had been driving for 8 hours not knowing where he was. After they got him back the car "went to the shop" and never came back. Every month or so he asked about it but never noticed that it would always be back tomorrow.
I'd bet that as a general rule, 65 or 75 year old drivers are still safer then drivers under 25 but drivers under 25 scare me.

[ReformedChris]

9. The Senior Interest Groups will never allow mandatory testing for senior drivers..

Too powerful a voting block for our politicians to offend. I support a mandatory test every few years. It has nothing to do with prejudice, its all about saving lives and safety.

[Maine-ah]

11. hell, they should just make everyone do it.

[Jokerman]

10. My dad stopped speaking to me when I took his car away.

This kind of story is why I'm glad I did it and why I would do it again.

[TrogL]

12. Utter nonsense

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overdrive_(mechanics)

Cars don't just go "into overdrive" from a standing start. Modern automatic transmissions don't even have "overdrive" as originally invented, it's just a marketing name for 4th gear.

When automatic transmissions fail, they tend to fall out of gear, not into it. My old van was doing it before I sold it.

[Bright Eyes]

13. It was an SUV.

Surprise.