Should There Be Tougher Laws For Elderly Drivers?
FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - It happened again. An elderly driver crashed into a building, this time sending two Fort Worth apartment residents to the hospital. There was a similar crash at a Dallas hearing center on Friday, where a man was killed. The two crashes, so close together, brings up the question -- should there be tougher laws for elderly drivers?
Texas already has Katie's Law. It is named after Katie Bolka, a Dallas 16-year-old who was killed in 2006 when a 90-year-old woman ran a red light. The law, enacted in 2007, requires anyone 79 years old and older to renew their license in person. Anyone 85 years old and older has to renew their license every two years. They also have to pass a standard vision test.
But after these two most recent crashes involving elderly drivers, some people are left wondering if Katie's Law is enough.
Fort Worth residents at the Westover Hills Apartments, located in the 6200 block of Pershing Avenue, just shook their heads. "Crazy. Old people shouldn't be driving," one resident said. And she was not the only person who could not believe that someone crashed into an apartment building.
"I heard it, felt it," said resident Rick Roberts. "The whole building shook. So, I come running outside to see what happened." Roberts said that he saw an elderly man in a car trying to get out of the hole he had just punched through an apartment wall. "He said he was trying to back out of it. He was a little bit disorientated."
A woman and her daughter had been on the other side of that wall, in a bedroom, watching a movie on television. "They said they got hurt," resident Robert Gallop said. The mother and daughter were taken to the hospital complaining of back and rib injuries.
Gallop called 911 and checked on the elderly driver. "He said he was all right but, you know, this guy don't need to be driving," Gallop said. "He really don't."
On Friday in Dallas, an 85-year-old woman hit the gas pedal instead of the break, crashing into the Total Hearing Care center in the 7600 block of Campbell Road. Fred Sallis, 88, was killed. Information about the accident was posted on pieces of plywood that now cover the crash site. A few curious teenagers stopped to read the notice.
One report said that the elderly driver had been sick. Zandira Theis, 16, said, "They probably should've, like her family members, kept a closer eye on her driving or drove with her -- had a supervisor."
Kensey Roberts is 15 years old and just 15 days away from getting her driver's license. "Probably wasn't in the correct state of mind to drive," she said.
Tori Johnson, another 16-year-old, old wondered if it "was just like a mistake."
None of the elderly people who passed by the center wanted to talk about the issue.
On its website, the Texas Department of Transportation says that it wants older drivers to keep their driving independence as long as they can do it safely.
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