Elderly Drivers Can Endanger Other Drivers and Pedestrians in New York

November 13, 2010

Elderly Drivers Can Endanger Other Drivers and Pedestrians in New York

In one day, two elderly drivers injured pedestrians and property in Brooklyn and Queens. In one incident, a 79-year-old driver hit three teenagers while driving against traffic in Brownsville, New York. Personal injury lawyers following the media also learned that a driver, aged around 80 years old, trapped a restaurant customer under her vehicle after she drove her Mercedes Benz into a Queens deli.

The New York Post reports that the deli customer involved in the auto accident is in critical but stable condition with non-life threatening car accident injuries.

The New York Daily News reported on the other vehicle accident in which a 79-year-old was driving against traffic in Brooklyn. His car jumped a curb and hit a cable box, but that didn't stop his 1996 Mercury van. After crashing into the box, the driver put the car into reverse, sped across the intersection, drove up on to the sidewalk, and hit three teenagers exiting a store. Again he tried to reverse, but he hit a parked car. No-one involved in the potentially tragic auto accident suffered threatening injuries.

The two vehicle crashes illustrate what health and safety officials and New York auto accident lawyers say is a problem of elderly drivers. Often, aging drivers cling to the independence that cars give them even though they are losing their ability to operate their vehicles.

"If an individual becomes a threat to innocent people, raising the chances of injury or death for them, a drivers right to be operating a vehicle should end. It doesn't matter how old they are or whether they're driving in Georgia or New York," auto accident lawyer David Perecman said.

Nationally, the percentage of auto crashes involving elderly drivers is decreasing, according to a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit group based in Virginia that studies car crashes. The US Government Accountability Office reached similar conclusions. However, when looking more carefully at the statistics, the positive sounding data may be misleading. The study also counts licensed elderly drivers who do not continue to drive and the fewer miles aging people tend to travel.

While several states have been moving toward restrictions on older driver's license renewals, New York auto accident lawyers know that in New York State there are only very few limitations or restrictions in place for elderly drivers.

"Anyone who is injured in an auto accident in New York should contact a New York auto accident lawyer as soon as possible. However, we'd prefer to see fewer new clients and more laws restricting drivers who have become impaired," said Perecman, a New York auto accident lawyer for over two decades.

Article provided by The Perecman Firm, P.L.L.C.
Visit us at www.perecman.com