Crash!

In south Miami not long ago, an 84-year-old woman drove her car straight through a busy intersection at approximately 40 miles per hour. A traffic light showing red was no deterrent.

This heedless driver then smashed into the passenger side of a vehicle carrying Melissa Adele Lindeman, age 15. Melissa is my special granddaughter, firstborn of six grandchildren.

Now, for 20 years I have consistently defended the rights of the older driver. However, this is where I draw the line: "Thou shall not harm my grandchildren. Nor anyone else's grandkids!"

Paul R. Lindeman, M.D., rushed to the accident scene to find wife Suzy Lindeman bruised and shaken, "she came right through the light - she could have killed Melissa! I swerved to try and-" but tears choked back any conclusion.

Bleeding from several leg cuts caused by shattered glass, Melissa, eldest of three daughters, had one arm around her mother, who had been driving. Plainly, the teenager was comforting her Mom.

Dr. Lindeman, an emergency medicine specialist, took photographs and then addressed the aged woman's son and daughter-in-law. "What kind of driver is she?" he asked.

Told she generally is a good driver, he said: "Well, not today. She very nearly just killed my wife and daughter." He added, "You know, next time, people may not be so lucky..."

Remembering the moment, Melissa told me: "It was a really cold and angry voice."

How old is too old to drive? This is a huge national problem that predictably will grow larger and more insistent: this conundrum that asks, "When is it time to give up the wheel?" And, further, who should have the authority to make that decision?

In August of 1984, my earliest piece on this issue opened with a description of driver David T. Green (age 79) losing control of his car and striking two little girls, 10 and seven, playing in their front yard at Winter Park, FL. Seven-year-old, Dana Anne Dietrick, was crushed and killed. Her friend was hospitalized with serious injuries.

The narrative continues, but makes absolutely no sense: Green pleads no contest to "reckless driving" (it's described as a non-criminal offense), is allowed to pay a $25 fine and quickly moves out of the state. He succeeds in escaping reporters, and others, who keep asking, "This is justice?"

"Despite David Green's absence," I wrote next, "the issue isn't about to go away-not for the Winter Park offender, and not for you or me. The larger question remains, 'How old is too old to drive safely?'"

What has changed in the almost 20 years since the tragedy of the two innocent playmates? For one, the nation has grown older. According to the American Automobile Assn., there will be 8,000,000 men and women age 85 and older by 2010, and fatality rates (per miles driven) for drivers 80 and older are the highest.

(Note: most motorists understand the worst drivers are young people traveling at high speeds. Indeed, those under 20 rack up more fatalities than any other age cohort; in fact, they are three times more likely to be in a fatal accident. Therefore, no need to write, accusing me of picking on the wrong group.)

In the recent south Miami collision, both cars were totaled. Fortuitously, all three parties walked away from the crash scene, one that had the appearance of creating life-threatening injuries. "The message I believe that should go out from the incident," says Dr. Paul Lindeman, summing up, "is this woman most likely will suffer no consequences. As far as her record goes, she's clear to drive --as long as she wants, or until next time!"

Moreover, a nagging image that this husband/father carries away from the afternoon of March 29 is of the aged, blank-faced woman, standing now in the hot sun and totally unconcerned with two people she only moments before struck. She continues to nervously rummage through an oversized pocketbook, as though searching for something, a drug perhaps, to help blot out her disturbing reality.

This is not a welcome image --not for Dr. Lindeman, and surely not for the rest of us who, very soon, will be behind the wheel approaching a stop light, trusting all other drivers, law-abiders, to recognize "red" from "green."