Photo: Wiscasset Police Department
There is no cutoff age for drivers, but maybe there should be. A 92-year-old woman crashed the car she’d been test driving and was planning to buy, right into the dealership she was going to buy it from. And then she kept going.
The incident happened at Norm’s Used Cars in Wiscasset, Maine. The elderly woman had been out test driving a red 2010 Nissan Sentra, and was parking it in front of the dealership. She then got confused and mistook the accelerator for the brake, and went through the wall.
She didn’t stop here, though, Wiscasset police officer Cory Hubert tells Boston.com. She smashed through the wall and shoved filing cabinets across the room, hitting employee desks and a large copy machine. When police arrived at the scene, she was still with her foot on the accelerator, Hubert explains.
“It was literally parked inside the business,” he says, adding that she must have panicked even more when she saw what she’d done. “She was burning rubber when we arrived.”
An investigation into the accident is now underway, and could result in a suspension on the woman’s driver’s license. Despite reports from other drivers that she was driving “erratically” prior to the incident, Hubert says she was with her documentation up to speed.
“She was all legal for the road and everything, she’s just an old lady,” the officer explains. “Generally if someone is elderly and they have a situation such as this – where they drive through a business – it’s something that gets reported to the state.”
Best case scenario, the woman will have to retake the driving test when she applies for a renewal on her license.
That said, a recent study has revealed that elderly female drivers (in the 70+-year range) are more prone to be killed or involved in car accidents than their male counterparts because they allow their husbands / partners to become the active driver in the family. This translates into a lack of driving experience, which means they make more mistakes in unforeseen circumstances.
She didn’t stop here, though, Wiscasset police officer Cory Hubert tells Boston.com. She smashed through the wall and shoved filing cabinets across the room, hitting employee desks and a large copy machine. When police arrived at the scene, she was still with her foot on the accelerator, Hubert explains.
“It was literally parked inside the business,” he says, adding that she must have panicked even more when she saw what she’d done. “She was burning rubber when we arrived.”
An investigation into the accident is now underway, and could result in a suspension on the woman’s driver’s license. Despite reports from other drivers that she was driving “erratically” prior to the incident, Hubert says she was with her documentation up to speed.
“She was all legal for the road and everything, she’s just an old lady,” the officer explains. “Generally if someone is elderly and they have a situation such as this – where they drive through a business – it’s something that gets reported to the state.”
Best case scenario, the woman will have to retake the driving test when she applies for a renewal on her license.
That said, a recent study has revealed that elderly female drivers (in the 70+-year range) are more prone to be killed or involved in car accidents than their male counterparts because they allow their husbands / partners to become the active driver in the family. This translates into a lack of driving experience, which means they make more mistakes in unforeseen circumstances.
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