That didn't get into the book The Careless Driver so I'll set it here for the record. One of the legislative bills that Reduce Roadway Fatalities 2020-22 intends to get enacted as a law is the one about giving senior drivers in Tennessee their renewals automatically by email with no testing of their eyesight. And here is why that needs to be changed. 'Tom' and his wife got into my vehicle to be taken to her work location, then Tom to the doctor for checkup. Tom is paralyzed from waist down so that he has to walk with one of those 'walkers' or go in a wheelchair. His car was struck by a 70 year old driver's car who testified to a judge in the court room: "I never saw the other car." The 70-year old driver simply turned into Tom's path completely oblivious to Tom's approaching car. (This happened to me downtown-fortunately I acted quickly enough to avoid collision) Tom won the case, but the settlement was for one-third the amount of his hospital and recuperative expenses. He is disabled for life. His wife who worked at the Waffle House at the corner of Old Hickory and Lebanon Pike is out of a job since the COVid-19 virus proscriptions have put all but a few restaurants out of business. What will happen or become of Tom and his out of work wife I cannot say. I can predict that they wll not experience any better conditions than the ones I found they were living in when I drove to their shabby duplex in Hermitage and picked them up, which were meager conditions then.
For the past five years seniors have caused more than twice as many fatalities on TN roadways that drivers age 13 to 19 have. 2014 to 2018 (See Tennessee's crash statistics: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/safety/documents/dailyfatality2019.pdf
Now confirmed also for 2019 .) Note: These are not isolated statistics for only Tennessee.
This story is also posted on Facebook - the purpose to raise funds to make lawmakers truly aware of the imbalance above and DO something about it.
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