Lawmakers lenient towards elderly drivers
by Michael Graham
DNN Staff - EXCLUSIVE!
Friday, Jun. 19, 2009
Last week on my radio show, I speculated the only way Beacon Hill would finally do something about elderly drivers would be for an 80-something to run down a child in the street.
I was wrong. A child lies dead in Stoughton and our legislators are still too cowardly to act.
It’s a brutal political truth, but it must be spoken: The leadership of Beacon Hill would rather see dead bodies in the streets than the angry elderly in their offices.
This weekend, 89-year-old Ilse Horn ran down 4-year-old Diya Patel at a Stoughton crosswalk. A few hours later, this little girl was dead.
Just three weeks earlier, 75-year-old Parvin Niroomand crossed two lanes of traffic to hit and kill 33-year-old bicyclist Misty Bassi near UMass-Amherst. According to police reports, instead of stopping to help, Niroomand simply drove home.In between these two tragedies, we’ve seen a 93-year-old crash through the walls of a Danvers Wal-Mart; a 73-year-old plow through the crowd at a Plymouth veteran’s memorial; and an 84-year-old slam into a storefront in Somerset.
What haven’t we seen? Any action by the gutless gentlemen (and ladies) of state government.
We are the only state in the country that grants licenses to 85-year-olds as though they were 35-year-olds, with no additional testing or screening.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, drivers 75 and older are more likely than any other group - including young drivers - to be involved in an accident with fatalities. Texas A&M found older drivers far more prone to wrecks caused by perception problems as opposed to speeding.
AAA found that drivers 85 and older have a fatality rate nearly four times higher than that of teens.
Dead children in the streets, spinning tires in our storefronts, a stack of statistics proving how dangerous older drivers are - and how is Beacon Hill reacting?
Cue the crickets.
It’s absolutely shameful. Democratic Sen. Steven Baddour of Methuen - where Piro’s Bakery recently had to pull an 87-year-old’s car out of its plate glass window - has had a bill before his committee for years. As a committee chairman in a one-party Legislature, Baddour is essentially all-powerful - if he wanted a senior-driver testing bill, it could emerge tomorrow.
Instead, he tries to pass the buck. “We couldn’t pull it together,” Baddour says.
Pull what together? Since when is Beacon Hill a democracy?
The fact is the same Legislature that could shove Speaker Sal DiMasi down our throats and gives itself pay raises in a recession could pass a bill on elderly driving anytime it so desired. Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray could have the legislation on Gov. Deval Patrick’s desk in time for lunch.
They can do it, but they won’t. Our pols won’t step up on behalf of 4-year-olds like Diya because kids can’t vote. But seniors never miss an election. You can laugh and call them Grandpa Simpson or the Golden Girls, but among legislators they’ve got a better nickname: core primary voters.
During last year’s presidential primary, an 86-year-old driving to the polls at a Randolph elementary school veered his car into a crowd of second-graders, nearly killing a girl. How did Massachusetts pols react? More testing for older folks?
Nope. Some opted instead to close their schools on Election Day.
No comments:
Post a Comment