Sunday afternoon, some people approached a Ford F-150 stopped at a red light in Evergreen Park, Illinois. The driver was slumped over his steering wheel. When the people asked if the driver, 81 year-old Edward Carthans of Chicago, needed any assistance he turned them away and drove off. A short time later Carthens was involved in a four-car crash about a mile away. There were no serious injuries, but Carthans fled the scene, reaching speeds of nearly 100 mph for a mile towards Oak Lawn before running a red light, turning towards oncoming traffic and driving straight into a car carrying nuns from Little Company of Mary Hospital, killing Sister Jean Stickney, 86, and Sister Kab Kyoung “Anna” Kim, 48. Eleven cars total were involved in the second accident, with over two dozen people injured, eleven going to the hospital, two of them in critical condition.
Carthans’s driving record was clean and toxicology tests will be performed during autopsy in order to determine if he was under influence of medications or was suffering a medical condition prior to the incident.
(Editor’s note: This is another instance that raises questions over driver’s license retesting at a certain age. We love and cherish our mobility in this country and rightfully so but at a certain point don’t we need to take a look and make sure that the people who have a license are actually fit to operate a motor vehicle? We’re not suggesting a max age you can have your license, but a recurring test every couple of years once you pass 70 or so doesn’t seem like a bad thing to do either. Are wrong on this? There are times when these incidents seem almost funny like when someone drives through the front of a coffee shop and no one is hurt but the cups, but there are now multiple incidents of elderly people either careening into crowds of people or like here, simply driving in an out of control manner that results in the deaths of innocent people. We feel horrible for the family of the driver as well as the victims but something needs to happen here going forward. We have a huge portion of the population that is aging rapidly and headlines like these are going to be looking more and more common we fear – Brian)
Source: ABC 7 Chicago (CLICK FOR LINK)
I agree completely but it will never happen. One thing old people do better than anybody else is vote. No politician will ever do anything that might piss off the over 70 demographic.
Illinois already requires older drivers to be retested on an increasing frequency as you get older
I’m having a hard time picturing exactly how all this went down. Until the facts come out, I wouldn’t pin the blame on the age of the driver. There are plenty of crazies out there that are jacked up on various pills and drugs, driving drunk, and plain old road rage. Most of these people weren’t mentally sound before they put whatever into their system.
It would be nice if there was some solution to keep these people out of the drivers seat, but at a citizen’s level the best we can do is drive a stout car and watch out for the crazies so you can try to evade them.
There was video of the scene from seconds after it happened. It was not pleasant. Eyewitnesses all agreed he drove directly into stopped traffic at high speed.
In Cali, as long as you have a clean record, they only expect you to send in your check for a renewed license. That included the elderly drivers. But, there have been many publicized crashes including an 86 old man plowing through dozens of people at Santa Monica’s farmer’s market. They now require anyone over 70 to take a written and have their eyes checked. My mother had to do that. They did not require a road test. Half measures in my opinion.
In reality, as you age, your motor skills go. They are absolutely necessary to operate a 4000 lb car safely. I am terrorified when I see an elderly person who cannot walk 100 yards without a scooter or walker getting into a car. They don’t have the strength or the motor skills to walk, but they are operating a car. Anyone else think that is as dumb as a intoxicated driver behind the wheel?
Sean is absolutely right that politicians are scared to make the elderly take tests that may not allow them to drive anymore. They do vote and often.
What to do about old people? We are all going to be there someday and may be very stubborn about giving up our freedom. Grandpa stopped driving in his 80s of his own choice, leaving his ’56 Pontiac without a dent on it in the driveway. Dad was just renewed, passing all tests at 92 and seems to know his limits (including that he needed a smaller car). Who is going to tell him to stop driving when he’s been so careful all his life? I knew a driver perhaps 70 who drove into ditches and ran into stationary objects, does that make 70 where we have the cutoff? There is a DMV and there are police officers…and there are the sons and daughters to monitor. In most cases, when it’s time to get off the road, people do. Maybe a fender gets dented first, maybe there’s some heated “discussion”, some conflict, and then giving in. Almost always, that works.
They make great stories when they happen but I personally have never witnessed a wreck caused by an old person. Those I have seen were caused by 1. Inept or aggressive drivers 2. Drunk Drivers 3. Drivers on cell phones or texting 4.Drivers on Meth or other 5. Drivers racing or testing their limits. All 16-65 years old, like “us”. All needing to have something done about them, probably most having someone near to them who could have seen it coming and prevented it but who didn’t make the tough choice.
Driving on the roadways is a gamble, for all. Not my favorite part of the deal.
never mind an age threshold for retesting, EVERYONE should be able to regularly demonstrate driving skills. In North America, people think it’s their god given right to have a drivers license, and most licensing tests I’ve seen only demonstrate you know how to OPERATE a vehicle (in a very basic way). DRIVING is a completely different skill than just operating a vehicle. Have you seen the “America’s Worst Driver” (or the Canadian equivalent) TV shows? Those people were GRANTED licenses, and are actually out there on the roads with the rest of us. A very scary thought.
How out of control is the situation? The governments are forcing the auto makers to design idiot proof vehicles (eg. stability control systems, EXTERNAL airbags to minimize the injury to pedestrians you plow down, etc., etc.) instead of governments just not giving idiots drivers licenses.
Off my soapbox now…
I’m with you on that. With all the money we have to throw away each year on excessive fees, smog tests etc., I’d rather pay $50 and endure a bi-annual half-hour test to make me read the manual again and see if I can actually still drive. Me, and everybody else out there I have to share the road with.
Absolutely agree on this one. I would have no problem testing to renew my licence at every renewal point. Instead the Idiot proof car is where we are headed, all the “safety” features and cars that apply the brakes for you etc. Saw a commercial recently for a new vehicle with “a forward crash warning system”, all my vehicles have this, and I have some pretty old ones, it’s called the damn windshield. Try looking where you’re pointing your car! Safety in it’s truest form would be to simply instruct people on how to drive and then ensure they pass a competency test at the end of instruction as well as the renewal retesting. I drive commercially for a living so I see so much in any given shift on the road to make me shake my head. Most drivers now have no business riding a pedal bike let alone operating a motor vehicle of any description. Quite a few make such astonishing choices behind the wheel I truly wonder how they are allowed out in public without supervision and a helmet. I will qualify this by stating with conviction that a whole lot of the people out running with commercial licenses are NO better.
A-men. Instead of idiot proof cars, how about we remove the idiots from our roads. And that could be done easily enough with regular testing to ensure that drivers are competent enough to handle the responsiblilty.
I’d put my 87 year old grand dad’s driving skills up against the majority of the half wit people out on our roads these days. He drove for a living (farmer and had semi trucks) and for his age is still very sharp. I don’t think its fair to take his mobility away when he still gets around so well.
Some sort of test wouldn’t hurt anything every few years but if that’s the case does it not need done for the entire driving population? Whose to say a 30 year old person’s vision can’t go down the crapper too? IMO the most dangerous people on the road are the inexperienced 16 – 20 year olds who think they’re Steve Mcqueen.
I don’t know what it’s like where anyone else is at, but here in Florida every time I have had to renew my license for the last 30 years at least, I ALWAYS see the testers behind the counter doing everything they can, no mater how long it takes, to make sure all seniors get a new license. Every time as far back as I can remember, I have watched seniors being coached through eye tests until, by process of elimination sometimes, they get it correct. This is not being done by accident. This is being done because they vote. This has to change. Driving license is not a birth right. In the interest of disclosure, I have almost all grey hair now.
Its totally an issue of practice, I know I’m not as good of a driver today as when I pushed my limits and did stupid stuff twenty years ago. I think timidity dulls our skills more than age.
True story – A woman I knew decided to finally get her licence at 40 or so .
Went through drivers ed, etc . Got to the DMV window on Friday 4:45 PM
date night . Young clerk that wanted to be somewhere else said
‘ Look in the machine and read line 2 . Woman getting her licence
who should have had her glasses on but did not –
muttered , and I quote , ” I can’t see shit ”
Clerk said that’s fine and gave her the licence w/ no vision restricsions.
After a few accidents in a certain given time everyone should have to have another go round at the testing procedure.
Tell Chris Karamasines and Don Garlits you want to retest them to drive every year – see how that goes!
We had a 86 year woman come to one of our autocross events this year and other than having trouble remembering the course, she did very well. She had also been to rally school a couple of months before that. This is an example of a senior being proactive about their driving skills. I’ve got 30 years to go but I hope I can still race at 86.
It’s very hard to think about this hard time. I think it was the mistake of the driver as he was 80 plus and could not possess the ability to control his car.