Did anyone here about the 11 people injured, 2 killed eating outside of the Parthenon today?

[Anonymous]

I was working in the front of a retail store 20 years ago when a middle aged driver mistook the gas for the brake and drove through the glass front of the building. I was nearly killed.
It was a frightening event and I wish the driver was imprisoned.
I feel for those injured in this case, and the families burying loved ones. How scary this must have been!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

Agree. This entire thread is nothing more than a platform for blatant bigots (ageists) to vent their intolerance for all human beings who happen to get older. The statistics in the AAA Foundation research bears acknowledgement, rather than knee-jerk reactions that all people past a certain age are incompetent and demented.

We all know of individuals who are horrible drivers. Many of us know of someone who was killed in a vehicle - by drunk drivers (all ages), by road rage (all ages), by distracted drivers (all ages) and in some very rare instances, by vehicle mechanical issues. Most of the time when I need to sound my horn it is due to someone who is texting and is drifting into my lane.

I personally have had friends killed by drunk drivers, inexperienced drivers, and distracted (phone/text) drivers. One was killed by an 18 year old girl who was simply unskilled enough to avoid the collision. Another was a mother AND her two children, all killed by a road-rage fueled young man. Should we test all young men until their testosterone gets to a low level?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom is 90 and drives, one mile, to the local shopping center. She is scared to get into a taxi with a stranger.

I wish no one was permitted to drive until age 18 and under very strict conditions such as in Europe. I am a high school teacher and i cannot believe these 16 year olds are driving. They can barely read and have no concentration.

As a parent, my kids were permitted to drive at 18 and with the grades they should be getting.

Actually, it should be closer to 24 and not 18. There is a reason most insurance companies won't rent to under 21.

I've been driving since I got my license at 16 without any incident. I don't think 21 nor 25 is a magical age for maturity. Look around, there are plenty of people of all ages making questionable decisions behind the wheel.
I DO think the insurance companies have it right when they review the school report card when considering insuring an underage driver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom is 90 and drives, one mile, to the local shopping center. She is scared to get into a taxi with a stranger.

I wish no one was permitted to drive until age 18 and under very strict conditions such as in Europe. I am a high school teacher and i cannot believe these 16 year olds are driving. They can barely read and have no concentration.

As a parent, my kids were permitted to drive at 18 and with the grades they should be getting.

Actually, it should be closer to 24 and not 18. There is a reason most insurance companies won't rent to under 21.

I've been driving since I got my license at 16 without any incident. I don't think 21 nor 25 is a magical age for maturity. Look around, there are plenty of people of all ages making questionable decisions behind the wheel.
I DO think the insurance companies have it right when they review the school report card when considering insuring an underage driver.

+1, as well as to charge boys higher rates than girls, and people with red cars more than others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

+1

Highways are actually the safest roads despite the higher rates of speed, because there are no pedestrians or cyclists. But we have applied the principles of highways (especially the focus on efficiency for drivers) to streets that are shared by all kinds of users.

And SUVs as a class of car are such a race to the bottom. People buy SUVs because driving scares them (as it should) so they buy larger and larger vehicles to feel safe. And in so doing, everyone outside a vehicle gets less and less safe. Look, the safest vehicle in the world is a tank. If you could just drive a tank around, you'd never have to worry about being injured in a car accident. And you'd also totally destroy everyone you came into contact with. Is that the end goal here?

Seriously, if this guy had been driving a Nissan Sentra, there probably wouldn't have been any fatalities at all. Injuries, yes, but two people DIED. Is that really worth the comfort and perceived safety of driving an SUV?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that the Post story leads to the inference that this was a tragic error by an elderly driver, but no one actually says (as stated at the beginning of this thread) that we know the driver mistook the gas pedal for the brake. I mean, I guessed, but after 24hrs why isn't he named and the cause of the accident stated clearly?

I was driving in the area at the time and the sirens were everywhere. I had no idea what was happening.

We precipitated events that led to my dad losing his license when he was diagnosed with early stage dementia. Honestly it was very very hard. He was still comfortable driving in his small hometown of 50yrs and he was very resentful that he was being judged incompetent. And taking his license meant he couldn't stay in his home for much longer - none of us kids was local so we found workarounds, but it really forced us to come up with a long-term plan.

I'm so glad we did it, and I strongly strongly think everyone should do this when their parents begin to decline. But don't kid yourself - it's a very difficult process.

One thing to note - even older people who don't have dementia may have enough physical and/or mental issues that they probably shouldn't be driving. Your ability to quickly turn your head fully, to process multiple sensory inputs (visual, auditory) inevitably degrades over time. So even your parents are fit, sharp 80yos, you should be thinking carefully about whether they ought to continue driving.

x1000000000

If you can't turn your head, you can't drive safely. Tell that to the woman who came across an intersection, then came across six lanes to plow into me, then take off at rocket speed. Surprise! Her car was VERY well beaten up. I am extremely certain her kids knew her record, but she was driving anyway. Turns out, that was a lucky day for me, as I am here to talk about it. Her next victim might not have such sheer luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
For the love of God, can we please just take people's car keys away on their 80th birthday. Nothing funny about this, at all.

This could happen to anyone - not paying attention, health emergency, drugs/alcohol....Scary.

It has already been stated that it was an elderly driver who confused the brake and gas pedals.

This is, sadly, very common. An elderly neighbor did this last summer. She played bumper cars down the street. Almost hit a kid walking his dog and finally stopped with her car jumped the curb and went into the woods. Thankfully she didn’t hit anyone. She claimed the brakes failed but they ended up being just fine. She just kept hitting the gas instead of the brake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting that the Post story leads to the inference that this was a tragic error by an elderly driver, but no one actually says (as stated at the beginning of this thread) that we know the driver mistook the gas pedal for the brake. I mean, I guessed, but after 24hrs why isn't he named and the cause of the accident stated clearly?

I was driving in the area at the time and the sirens were everywhere. I had no idea what was happening.

We precipitated events that led to my dad losing his license when he was diagnosed with early stage dementia. Honestly it was very very hard. He was still comfortable driving in his small hometown of 50yrs and he was very resentful that he was being judged incompetent. And taking his license meant he couldn't stay in his home for much longer - none of us kids was local so we found workarounds, but it really forced us to come up with a long-term plan.

I'm so glad we did it, and I strongly strongly think everyone should do this when their parents begin to decline. But don't kid yourself - it's a very difficult process.

One thing to note - even older people who don't have dementia may have enough physical and/or mental issues that they probably shouldn't be driving. Your ability to quickly turn your head fully, to process multiple sensory inputs (visual, auditory) inevitably degrades over time. So even your parents are fit, sharp 80yos, you should be thinking carefully about whether they ought to continue driving.

x1000000000

If you can't turn your head, you can't drive safely. Tell that to the woman who came across an intersection, then came across six lanes to plow into me, then take off at rocket speed. Surprise! Her car was VERY well beaten up. I am extremely certain her kids knew her record, but she was driving anyway. Turns out, that was a lucky day for me, as I am here to talk about it. Her next victim might not have such sheer luck.

Wow. A car that crossed several lanes. Only an oldie would do that? How about this, professional bus driver tried to cross many lanes of traffic: https://twitter.com/statter911/status/1501710401318367233?s=21

So seniors can’t drive, or people with neck or shoulder injuries. I know lots of people with a limited range of motion from a cervical injury. I’ll go get their distributor caps now

Oh, yeah people’s capacity. You saw article that Americans are stressed from Covid, Ukraine, and inflation? They shouldn’t drive either. Stress spikes in the U.S. over inflation, Ukraine, lingering pandemic fatigue : Shots - Health News - https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/03/10/1085792118/americans-stress-is-spiking-over-inflation-war-in-ukraine-survey-finds

Lots of keys to take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
For the love of God, can we please just take people's car keys away on their 80th birthday. Nothing funny about this, at all.

This could happen to anyone - not paying attention, health emergency, drugs/alcohol....Scary.

It has already been stated that it was an elderly driver who confused the brake and gas pedals.

This is, sadly, very common. An elderly neighbor did this last summer. She played bumper cars down the street. Almost hit a kid walking his dog and finally stopped with her car jumped the curb and went into the woods. Thankfully she didn’t hit anyone. She claimed the brakes failed but they ended up being just fine. She just kept hitting the gas instead of the brake.

In this case, it has not been determined what the cause of the accident was. No official said why the driver was going fast. Someone interviewed guessed that is what happened.

More likely an inexperience driver would confuse the pedals

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Older driver does not mean age caused this awful accident. And even if it somehow contributed, so many accidents are caused by young or professional drivers or inattentive drivers or fatigued drivers or drivers going out in bad weather. By your reasoning, no one should have a driver’s license.

“from 2014-2015. Drivers ages 16-17 continue to have the highest rates of crash involvement, injuries to themselves and others and deaths of others in crashes in which they are involved. Drivers age 80 and older have the highest rates of driver deaths. Drivers ages 60-69 were the safest drivers by most measures examined.” https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-relation-driver-age-united-states-2014-2015/

+1

Which is why concluding that we could prevent these accidents by taking away drivers licenses of drivers over a certain age is incorrect. Not only could they choose to drive anyway (many people choose to drive without a license or on expired or suspended licenses), but it doesn't stop this from happening with a younger driver. Do you really think you can identify a magical age after which drivers are no longer competent? It doesn't exist. Some people are never competent, some people stay excellent drivers into their 90s.

What would help:

- Increasing availability of alternative forms of transportation to lower the number of drivers on the road
- Require vehicles to pass a "pedestrian safety" standard that would minimize risk to pedestrians when tragedies like this do occur (SUVs are very dangerous to pedestrians because of the way they suck bodies down and under)
- Design roads near pedestrian areas so that drivers are forced to slow down (one way roads, narrow streets, high curbs) and so there are more barriers between cars and bodies on sidewalks (curbs, trees, and other obstacles)

Steps like this will make people safer from ANY kind of user or technical error from drivers, no matter the cause. Imagine if we could protect people from young and inexperienced drivers, drivers with poor eyesight, drivers using expired licenses, drivers who don't understand traffic rules, drunk and impaired drivers... all at once. Well we can! We just have to scale the city to pedestrians instead of cars.

Agree with this sentiment. Decades of bad societal choices have led us to a world where seniors feel they must drive. But honestly, we must do better is so many regards, from car design, to bollards, to the fundamental issue that the average SUV is now a 4,000 lbs death machine than can run over most seniors and children. I think cars have a place, especially on actual highways where pedestrians aren't allowed, but we need to rethink them everywhere else.

I mean Mary Cheh got scooters speed limited in DC, why can we do that to cars when then leave the road?

+1

Highways are actually the safest roads despite the higher rates of speed, because there are no pedestrians or cyclists. But we have applied the principles of highways (especially the focus on efficiency for drivers) to streets that are shared by all kinds of users.

And SUVs as a class of car are such a race to the bottom. People buy SUVs because driving scares them (as it should) so they buy larger and larger vehicles to feel safe. And in so doing, everyone outside a vehicle gets less and less safe. Look, the safest vehicle in the world is a tank. If you could just drive a tank around, you'd never have to worry about being injured in a car accident. And you'd also totally destroy everyone you came into contact with. Is that the end goal here?

Seriously, if this guy had been driving a Nissan Sentra, there probably wouldn't have been any fatalities at all. Injuries, yes, but two people DIED. Is that really worth the comfort and perceived safety of driving an SUV?

It was a 2008 Subaru Forester. That’s a Compact SUV. Not a super large vehicle. Not tiny but not huge. I wouldn’t want to be run over by a Sentra either. Even a SmartCar can kill you. And I’m not a fan of large SUVs but this wasn’t a Tahoe. It just looked large on a sidewalk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
For the love of God, can we please just take people's car keys away on their 80th birthday. Nothing funny about this, at all.

This could happen to anyone - not paying attention, health emergency, drugs/alcohol....Scary.

It has already been stated that it was an elderly driver who confused the brake and gas pedals.

This is, sadly, very common. An elderly neighbor did this last summer. She played bumper cars down the street. Almost hit a kid walking his dog and finally stopped with her car jumped the curb and went into the woods. Thankfully she didn’t hit anyone. She claimed the brakes failed but they ended up being just fine. She just kept hitting the gas instead of the brake.

In this case, it has not been determined what the cause of the accident was. No official said why the driver was going fast. Someone interviewed guessed that is what happened.

More likely an inexperience driver would confuse the pedals

Ok not determined yet but I’d bet my license this was the case.
The driver wasn’t even taken to the hospital so you can rule out medical emergency.
And if anyone who was with it had a car issue they would try to hit a parked car versus going into a group of people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My mom is 90 and drives, one mile, to the local shopping center. She is scared to get into a taxi with a stranger.

She's a bigger risk to the rest of us than a taxi driver is to her

Why should she care about that?

Why should we care that she “wants her independence?” Mandatory testing for over 70. At least every two years for over 75.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If we had more infrastructure for alternate modes of transport, fewer elderly people would insist on driving (so would a lot if other people who might accidentally lose control of a vehicle). The man driving this vehicle could have been on a bus, train, light rail, etc.

That part of Connecticut Avenue has great and frequent bus service.

Now there is a reasonable idea!!!

You don't understand-it doesn't matter how wonderful and convenient the bus service is! There are people who are "set in their ways" and are accustomed to driving everywhere. They are not going to take a bus, ever.

Then revoke their license when they hit 80.