Come to Texas and drive with this lady on the road

[jinman]

Unbelievable!!! How many more people will she hurt, and how much more property destroyed before they take her license?

Driving through a loophole.

 

[dmccarty]

These situations are tough. The drivers are a danger to the public and need to be off the road but then they are giving up their freedom and become dependent on others for anything that requires them to leave the house.

One of my family members had multiple accidents due to her age. I don't know when she lost her license, if she ever did, but the insurance company dropped her pretty quickly. The family knew the woman should not drive but no amount of talking would convince her so they hid the car keys. She found the car keys and kept driving. The family disconnected the car battery but the lady grew up on farms all her life so she got the car running again. Eventually, the family removed the battery from the car and property. I was surprised she did not drive the tractor...

I had another family member who decided to stop driving on her own. We think she had a bad scare when driving, and that was that, she parked the car and was done. Another family member was having problems driving and it took some talking to get her to stop.

All three ladies are completely dependent on others to get food, go to doctors, stores, etc. They had family members to help out though. These elderly drivers are very dangerous and need to be off the road but it aint so simple.

When I lived in South FLA, there were certain areas I hated to drive through because of the elderly population. There was one intersection that EVERY TIME I drove through I would see a near miss or an accident. I remember getting my license in FLA and there was an old guy arguing with the DMV employee that his eyes were perfect even though he had just failed the eye test. It was not uncommon to have elderly drivers hit the accelerator instead of the brake and run into buildings, trees, peoples, and cars. If you got behind a car with four elderly people you were not going to be going the speed limit but way under. This was better than being in FRONT of their car though. Right before I left FLA, a car with four elderly women ran a red light and pulled in front of a dump truck. The crash killed all four of them. I doubt they were wearing seat belts which might have saved one or two of them.

Later,
Dan

 

[mikim]

Fla is the worst for old drivers fer sure. When I moved my Dad here from Fla so we could help out - he had to get a Texas license and I thought "good, he'll fail the eye test and won't be able to drive anymore"....nope.... the girl said -- well, we're gonna let ya go but you need to get your glasses checked ok?...I coulda throttled her. He cut back but it took us another year to get him to quit completely. He was a truck driver all his life and to quit driving was hard for him. Dad's brother was in a wreck and he was saying how his brother shouldn't have been driving cause he couldn't see well anymore. My wife looked at him real close and said "too bad he didn't realize it before the wreck huh?"....Dad quit driving right after that.

 

[jerrybob]

Two elderly women were out driving in a large car, neither one could hardly see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red but they went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself, "I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light!" After a few more minutes they came to another intersection, the light was red, and again they went right through. This time, the passenger was almost sure that the light had been red, but was also concerned that she might be seeing things. She was getting nervous and decided to pay very close attention. At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was definitely red and they went right through it. She turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred! Did you know we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us!" Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh My Gosh!! Am I driving?"

 

[Bird]

Mike, you know I moved my parents onto our place in Navarro County early in 1995 because Dad had Alzheimer's and they needed our help. In July '95 Dad's drivers license was expiring and he wanted to renew it. I thought, well . . . it might be easier for DPS to tell him he couldn't renew it than for me to tell him. So I took him to license office, stood back out of the way, and kept my mouth shut while he talked to the lady at the counter. Sure enough, he couldn't even read the eye chart, and she renewed his drivers license with NO restrictions.

But fortunately, I took him everywhere he needed, or wanted, to go from then on, and he never objected.

 

[chopped]

NOW THATS FUNNY:thumbsup:

Two elderly women were out driving in a large car, neither one could hardly see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red but they went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself, "I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light!" After a few more minutes they came to another intersection, the light was red, and again they went right through. This time, the passenger was almost sure that the light had been red, but was also concerned that she might be seeing things. She was getting nervous and decided to pay very close attention. At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was definitely red and they went right through it. She turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred! Did you know we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us!" Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh My Gosh!! Am I driving?"

 

[turnkey4099]

Mike, you know I moved my parents onto our place in Navarro County early in 1995 because Dad had Alzheimer's and they needed our help. In July '95 Dad's drivers license was expiring and he wanted to renew it. I thought, well . . . it might be easier for DPS to tell him he couldn't renew it than for me to tell him. So I took him to license office, stood back out of the way, and kept my mouth shut while he talked to the lady at the counter. Sure enough, he couldn't even read the eye chart, and she renewed his drivers license with NO restrictions.

But fortunately, I took him everywhere he needed, or wanted, to go from then on, and he never objected.

My wife had a brain aneurism that wiped her short term memory and caused some balance problems. She was also a very lousy driver prior to it. I talked to the DMV about pulling her license. No go. She had to tell them she was willingly surrendering it. My asking them to road test her was refused. Mind you I had to support her walking into the office and hold her up while she was at the desk!! Fortunately she gave it up willingly.

Then the reverse happened to my. I had a hip replacement and checked for a temporary disabled permit while I was using a walker. They threatened to pull my license without even observing me driving which I could do just fine...getting in and out of the PU was a problem but no problems once I was in the seat.

Worse was that the guy ahead of me in line was "ancient" and shaky on his feet. Had problems answering the questions, etc. New license issued with not even a question.

Harry K

 

[Bird]

Harry, when I had a knee replaced, the surgeon's nurse gave me a form, a bit like a prescription, without me even asking, to got a handicap parking tag. I've forgotten now, but I think it was good for 6 months. There may be a difference in the way different states handle such things. I would guess if they threatened to pull your license you were at a state police office (in Texas it's called the Department of Public Safety or DPS), but here I took that application for a handicap tag to the county tax assessor/collector which is the office that issues the license plates, handles title transfers, and such. We have two colors for handicap tags; blue for permanent at no cost and red for temporary and costs $5.

 

[DABSGT]

Bird, with the time you spent in patrol how many times have you taken a license only to have it returned by DPS? I know it has happened when I sent someone back for retesting. I hate to take them I know how much it means to the freedom of the elderly but it is a safety issue. My elderly uncle went for a hair cut one afternoon and when he didn't return home after several hours my aunt called me. After checking his home town the area of the barber shop and not locating him I entered him in the system as a missing elderly male. Found myself driving to the Bronx where he was in a minor accident he had no idea where he was or how he got there but couldn't understand why all the cops in the station didn't know me his nephew the cop. He never drove alone again and not very long after.

Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[Bird]

An officer could send a report to the DPS and have a driver called in for retesting, but I don't think I ever did that myself. But I can certainly understand about some of the elderly drivers being unsafe but not wanting to quit driving. My paternal grandfather, who lived in Oklahoma, had Alzheimers. After a minor accident his license was revoked, but that didn't keep him from driving. So two of Dad's sisters, both of whom lived in the Dallas area, went to visit him, got his car keys, and brought his car to Texas so he wouldn't have anything to drive. I was later up there visiting and he told me that "someone" from Texas had taken his car and he wished they'd bring it back, but he didn't know who took it.