Posted on 07/18/2003 2:33:01 PM PDT by Calpernia
When George Russell Weller sped through a packed farmers market Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif., the 86-year-old driver apparently stomped on the gas pedal when he meant to hit the brake. His confusion lasted for nearly three city blocks, cost 10 people their lives and injured dozens more. Even so, legal experts say, it might not constitute a crime.
Tests showed no signs that Weller was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. His statements to police -- that he tried to stop the car, not floor it -- suggest his actions were unintentional. Might then his age be to blame?
The accident has sparked just such a question and renewed the debate over whether states should take more steps to determine when to stop the elderly from getting behind the wheel. The issue will loom larger as the baby-boom generation grows older.
Federal officials caution against concluding that older drivers' skills are suspect. ''Just because you reach an age threshold doesn't mean your driving skills have diminished,'' says Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. ''Teenagers are responsible for far more fatal accidents.''
NHTSA has suggested that states allow doctors, family members and friends to flag elderly drivers to the motor vehicles department, which could then test the seniors' vision and driving skills. The agency has not recommended mandatory testing for drivers who reach a certain age.
Weller had no accidents or violations on his record and had passed vision and written tests at a California Department of Motor Vehicles office Nov. 28, 2000, records show.
''We always told the Wellers they were role models for how the rest of us should be when we're in our 80s,'' says longtime friend C. Richard Hulquist, an ophthalmologist and member of the church the Wellers attend. ''They are active, kind, involved in the community -- just very intelligent and very kind people, both of them. It's been a terrible shock.''
In an effort to ensure that the government is careful about whom it allows to drive, the AAA auto club says states should stop allowing drivers to renew their licenses by mail and should require vision tests for all drivers. ''There are 28-year-olds who can't see well enough to drive,'' AAA spokesman Mantill Williams says. ''We shouldn't be taking the licenses away from people because they turn a certain age. We should just be doing more testing -- for everyone.''
Focusing simply on elderly drivers might also prove politically perilous. As the elderly become a larger, more powerful voting bloc, age-based licensing will likely be ''politically impossible,'' says Barbara Harsha, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, a group of state highway safety organizations. Instead, agencies will have to focus on making cars and roads safer for elderly motorists. ''Street signs have to be enlarged and made clearer, and cars will have to be better designed to accommodate them,'' she says.
Regardless of the steps states might take, legal experts question whether any action will be taken against Weller.
''If you are a prosecutor, what makes this case difficult is that you have a tiny bit of fault, but a huge loss of life,'' says Franklin Zimring, a professor of law and director of the criminal justice research program at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley. ''You probably have an enormously contrite driver.''
If any charge applied, Zimring says, it would probably be vehicular homicide. Less often, a driver might face an involuntary manslaughter charge. In both cases, he says, prosecutors must prove what legal experts call ''negligence plus.'' That means they must show that Weller had a conscious intent to do something dangerous. But only if the driver was impaired by drugs or alcohol are prosecutors likely to file such charges, Zimring says. He says prosecutors would have to prove that Weller knew his capacity to drive was impaired.
Civil lawsuits are almost certain to be filed against Weller's insurance company. ''But nobody carries enough insurance to cover this kind of loss,'' Zimring says.
Another lawyer suggests that police need to answer more questions before determining how to proceed.
''There has to be a lot more investigation,'' says C. Robert Brooks, a Beverly Hills lawyer who represents older people who have lost their licenses in hearings before the Department of Motor Vehicles. ''I would wonder how (Weller) was confused for so long over the difference between the gas pedal and the brake.''
Brooks says he doesn't think the case meets the standards for vehicular homicide, which he says is rarely charged when deaths are not the result of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. More often than not, ''people die in traffic accidents, and the drivers are not charged with a crime.''
I am really into "generational" politics and I think there is one generation that is getting away with a lot.....
I truely believe that if this was a 18 year old or even a 40 year old, there would be charges and a public lynching....
and the AAA comes out with their bold statement how we all should be tested.....just like we should all be treated like terrorists at the airport instead of maybe profiling the likely canidates first...
wouldn't want to step on the elder lobby now would we AAA.....
I say all those families of those killed or maimed should file a huge, huge class action suit against the State of California, the driver's insurance company, and the driver's family, and maybe even the driver's doctor.....
if this one case makes the states and the insurance companies and the families of drivers with impairments sit up and take notice, then there will be some good....
money talks...and if the insurance company pays out $100 million in settlements, maybe next time they will screen those who they insured, just as they do for the teenage population...maybe if they would not insure folks that can't stop a car over the space of three blocks, things like this tragedy wouldn't happen.....
and there is a big differance why teenagers and elder drivers are some of the worse ( thought personally, I think young 20 something women are the worse)
teenagers get in trouble because of lack of expierence, risk taking ....its not their reflexes or their eyesight...or their arthritic knees or poor hearing...
with oldsters, it is a physical and mental and neurological deterioration that causes problems....
The fault - if you want to call it that - lies with the City of Santa Monica. They had sawhorses blocking the streets into the area. They should have used tank barriers.
"Well he's old, so there must hve been no malice"
I was riding my bicycle in this residential area, about to come to an intersection, when I heard this crash to my left. I stopped and looked -- The end of a brick wall nearby that was part of an entranceway to a condo just exploded! In a second, a car appeared in the midst of this explosion. The car continued to drive slowly through the hole in the wall it had just made, pulled forward a bit more, and came to a stop. The elderly driver slowly got out, looked at the front of his car, knocked off some of the bricks that were on the hood of his car, got back in the car and SLOWLY drove off. His whole behavior was like this was the most natural thing in the world -- Darn, it's those bricks again! Oh, well, time to brush off the car! I nervously backed off from the intersection as the old man drove by. What a sight that was! The car was clearly damaged but still drivable. Lots of dents and the bumper was bent at a curious angle. He drove past me and down the road at a steady speed of 15 mph. Every now and then the car would shed a little brick or chunck of mortar it had acquired.
I just stood there for about 30 seconds, transfixed. I would glance at the wall with the large hole, turn to look at the car slowly moving away, look at the wall again... It took a few seconds for it all to sink in. I looked around. No one else was around, I was the only witness.
Then I began to panic. The crash was very loud. Certainly people will come out to investigate the noise. They will see a teenager (me) standing near a wall that had just been destroyed. I was in a Floriduh city that was very unfriendly towards children. Every other day there would be an angry letter to the editor in the newspaper demanding that children not be allowed to have skateboards, not be allowed in parks, you name it. I suddenly imagined myself standing there, a police car pulling up, someone saying, "Someone must have thrown a bomb, officer! Look at that young whipper-snapper over there! He must have done something, stop him!" I turned my bike around and pedalled away as fast as I could, afraid to look back. I didn't even think about reporting the incident to the police, even though I had a pretty good description of the car. I figured no one would believe me because after all, I was just a kid.
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