At last! This sort of sentence needs to be passed out more often – particularly when you bear in mind the events surrounding the e-petition for Cassie’s Law, which I’ve written about several times previously.
Turner Waddell, 90, managed to get on the A30 in Hampshire and head the wrong way. In spite of being flashed by other drivers, what is left of his aged brain still failed to alert him to the fact that something was wrong – as it would have done with anyone who was fit to drive in the first place.
Waddell travelled for nearly a mile before colliding head-on with Neil Colquhoun.
Neil Colquhoun died (at the scene, if I read the story correctly). The police have stated categorically that there was nothing he could have done, and that he was entirely blameless.
The police also pointed out that Waddell has defective eyesight and was not fit to be driving on the road.
The ITN report is quite poorly written, but the indications are that Waddell received a life ban from driving (I wish they’d explained that in proper terms) and a nine-month sentence suspended for two years.
Let’s be in no doubt about this: Waddell committed this act BECAUSE he was 90, and BECAUSE he was suffering from deficiencies that are many more times likely in someone who is 90 (see update below) than they are in people who are 20 or 30. Anyone who suggests it wasn’t due to age is talking out of their backside.
The bleeding hearts out there who believe that all old people should be allowed to drive “because it gives them mobility” ought to be doing reality checks when stories like this crop up. Some ADIs even specialise in teaching people who should not be on the roads at all – which makes you wonder precisely whose interests they are serving.
We need new laws to prevent age-impaired drivers from killing innocent people, and they need to be removed from the roads by legal force instead of continuing to be allowed to lie on their periodic licence renewal forms.
It’s vital that Cassie’s Law gets more signatures. (Petition now closed)
In an update to this story, it turns out that the the idiot responsible, Dr Turner Waddell, was also in the early stages of dementia! He walks with a zimmer frame and is also hearing-impaired.
It’s a little hard to believe sometimes that that people like this are legally allowed to drive.
It’s even harder to believe that some instructors actually specialise in getting them on the roads, and are continually whinging about how hard the testing system is for the poor darlings? It is appalling – and just as bad, in its own way, as allowing such incapable people out on the roads in the first place.
Judge Keith Cutler said: “If there is any message that should come from this it should be that the elderly and those that care for them – their families and doctors – should think very, very carefully about whether the elderly should still be able to drive on the road.
“There is sometimes a form of arrogance that one can carry on exercising a right to drive when that should not be done.”
Absolutely correct. As I said above, it’s vital that Cassie’s Law gets more signatures. We NEED the Law to change. (Petition now closed)
In a related story, there was a phone-in on LBC 97.3 FM, according to one of the presenter’s blogs. He notes:
Twenty motorists aged 80 and above took their driving test for the first time, according to figures released by the Department for Transport, and 5 of them (including a 91 year old) passed. Why we’re they allowed to do this? Surely this is a bad idea. I wanted to know if you think old drivers should face restrictions? For example, once they turn 70, perhaps they should stop driving? Or take another test? It turned into a bit of a blood bath, with some irate callers telling me that a ban on driving, for them, would bring their lives to a sudden halt. I wasn’t convinced; just because you want to drive doesn’t mean you should!
The problem – the REAL problem – is tucked away in there if you look. It’s old people calling foul if anything goes against them. What you basically have is (some) dangerous elderly drivers who are not fit to be out alone on foot, never mind in a car, arguing that being banned would affect their cushy little lives.
I’m sure that Neil Colquhoun and Cassie McCord – if they can see any of this – who have both been removed from this world by absolutely decrepit people behind the wheels of cars they shouldn’t have been would be happy to hear the nonsensical rantings of these people. And I’m sure their families would, too.
Barkes is right: Just because you want to, doesn’t mean you should!
That applies to all aspects of life.
A lot of people confuse this issue with that of retesting ALL drivers. It’s not the same thing.
This is about confiscating the licences of people who are effectively “too old” or otherwise infirm to drive, and who are found to be so by the police at the time of an incident. This is as a direct result of increasing numbers of high profile incidents involving that group.
It is the police inability to confiscate such licences that led to Cassie’s death.
The whole point here is that if the police find someone to be deficient they need to have powers to remove them from the roads immediately. At present, the police could attend an incident, find someone to have age-related eyesight (or other faculty) problems, and yet they cannot force that person off the road.
To make matters worse, that same driver who the police are unable to remove from the road could immediately fill in a form to declare they are fit to drive and get their licence renewed for another 5 years. Many do exactly this each and every day. It is only by good fortune (and other drivers’ quick actions) that they haven’t had accidents.
It was such an age-impaired driver who killed Cassie McCord – he had had an accident only a short time before, and was found by the police at that time to be incapable of driving safely. But the police were powerless to get him off the roads.
Of course, this leads some of the big-heart/small-brain types out there to start feeling sorry for elderly drivers – as if that is some sort of justification for them to hold on to their licences once they start to lose their faculties. It isn’t.
The fact remains that as we get older we all start to wind down – to wear out – prior to the inevitable end. It affects some people much more than others. There’s no point trying to compare older drivers with younger ones in this respect, or by rattling on about how dangerous other drivers can be.
Younger drivers (especially the males) tend to have accidents because they’re arseholes, but who don’t realise that fact. Older drivers of the type in question tend to have accidents because they simply can’t cut it any more (in many cases, they just can’t see – but tell the DVLA that they can). The two situations are as different as chalk and cheese. The drivers who killed Cassie McCord and Neil Colquhoun were deficient due to advanced age – nothing else.
In 
As regular readers will know, two of my pet hates are dumbing down and deferring responsibility away from where it should be targeted. This ridiculous suggestion ticks both boxes.