Hermit
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
While I was away a couple of weeks ago a neighbor totaled her car right in front of my motor home. I talked to her yesterday and she told me that both the throttle stuck wide open and the breaks failed as she was coming down the hill next to my place. The amazing thing is she did not have as much as a scratch on her. She tried to make it around the corner in the road at my drive and got up on the bank, hit a tree stump dead center, crossed back over the road, took out a 10 foot tall tree stump that was about 18 inches across at the base. Fortunately she hit that tree dead center and continued through a batch of tree stumps on a path that was barely the width of her car, traveled up my drive and back across the road where she got airborne over some more stumps and large downed logs and came to rest when she hit a tree root ball which slowed her down gently enough that there were no injuries to her. She doesn't remember what happened after she got airborne until the car was stopped. She got out and walked the half a mile or so to her place.
This is a scenario that you hear about in the news from time to time. The chances of either the throttle or the brakes failing are extremely small. The chance that they both failed are about as negligible as can be. The one common factor in these reports is that the driver is older. Usually mid seventies or beyond. In this case, I think she is around 80. She is absolutely convinced that it was a mechanical failure of the car. She has now purchased a new car and drove back up here where she lives during the summer months. She will be headed back down to the flat lands in a couple of weeks where she lives near her daughter for the winter.
My question is how do you plant the seed that it may have been an issue with her foot being on the gas pedal, not the brake. I would sure hate to see her have another accident with injuries to her or anyone else. She is not a close friend, just another person that lives up here at the Ranch who I chat with a bit from time to time.
This not just an issue for her, but for all of us as we age. When do you know that it is time to stop driving? That decision means leaving the home that we love up here in the mountains along with the independence that comes with it for us all.
This is a scenario that you hear about in the news from time to time. The chances of either the throttle or the brakes failing are extremely small. The chance that they both failed are about as negligible as can be. The one common factor in these reports is that the driver is older. Usually mid seventies or beyond. In this case, I think she is around 80. She is absolutely convinced that it was a mechanical failure of the car. She has now purchased a new car and drove back up here where she lives during the summer months. She will be headed back down to the flat lands in a couple of weeks where she lives near her daughter for the winter.
My question is how do you plant the seed that it may have been an issue with her foot being on the gas pedal, not the brake. I would sure hate to see her have another accident with injuries to her or anyone else. She is not a close friend, just another person that lives up here at the Ranch who I chat with a bit from time to time.
This not just an issue for her, but for all of us as we age. When do you know that it is time to stop driving? That decision means leaving the home that we love up here in the mountains along with the independence that comes with it for us all.