Death Race Boomie edition.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office said that Lanham was skating west on East Country Club Road when an 82-year-old woman driving westbound struck him with her car.
“She knew she struck something. She just wasn’t sure what,” Lieutenant Scott Trembley said.
The woman turned around to see what she had hit, but didn’t see Lanham. However, when she returned home, she noticed damage to her car and returned to find police and paramedics at the scene.
82 year olds shouldn’t be driving, and someone should have told that Norwegian that roads in America aren’t the same as Norway.
Like, I wish they were, but they’re just not. Trying to rollerblade across all of America just flat out isn’t safe. There are parts where it might be safe, but in the Midwest and definitely the desert/mountains you’re gonna have to choose between highways or unlined rural streets with distracted drivers at some point.
And that’s not even into how car accidents aren’t the only danger
The article doesn’t say which side of the road he was on.
When I was a kid in scouts, we were taught that if you have to walk on the edge of a highway then it is best to walk on the opposing side of traffic (the left). This way if a vehical is veering off and might hit you, you have some time to react and step off. Rather than them hitting you from behind.
It sounds like the biggest issue here might be that the driver didn’t do her due diligence to check what she hit. Maybe if an ambulance had been called sooner then he might have survived.
When I was a kid in scouts, we were taught that if you have to walk on the edge of a highway then it is best to walk on the opposing side of traffic (the left)
Except for on a hill. Wonder of she was just coming over a small hill and didn’t have much of a line of sight
“82 year olds shouldn’t be driving”. — THIS one shouldn’t have been; some people enter their90s with sight, hearing and reflexes intact.
Personally, I think that starting at 70, drivers should have to take the written test and screening every 5 years. If they fail to pass it they have to re-try until they do pass, and then take the practical exam again.
Every year after 70, in that age bracket a decline happens way faster than 5 years.
I’m of two minds.
On the one hand, my dad literally drove right up to the day he died, and he shouldn’t have been driving for at least the last 10 years of his life. He drove straight into a light post in a parking lot because, “the sun was in his eyes”. It was dramatically sad, because he used to be the best driver around. However he didn’t have the capacity to face his growing limitations.
On the other hand, I’ve been rear-ended more than is reasonable (at least 30 times - I’ve lost count), and I’ve never been hit by anyone older than 60. There are plenty of people middle-aged and younger who shouldn’t be driving.
Maybe everyone should be required to be retested every five years.
The amount of bad that comes with allowing geriatric patients to drive far outweighs the good that comes from allowing 1% of competent seniors to drive.
How so? What percentage of serious accidents are caused by “geriatric patients”? Are they the same group as seniors (people over 64)? If not, should we maybe find a way to not lump them together?
The truth is, most serious vehicle incidents are caused by men between the age of 16 and 26.
Maybe we shouldn’t allow THAT age range to drive, despite all the competent drivers in that group?
My intuition suggests seniors aren’t a greater statistic because they don’t commute for work or school and drive fewer overall mileage.
5 years is too long, a lot can happen in that amount of time at that age. I would say 2 years
It should be gradual. Every 10 years starting at 40, every 5 years starting at 60, every 2 years starting at 70, every year starting at 80, and every 6 months starting at 90.
I would be perfectly happy renewing my license every year if I knew people understood how to zipper merge.
I’d extend that to “…and did it.”
Instead you get people merging early, which results in some guy in his beamer speeding down thelane to merge in at the end, butthe guy in the jacked up GMC pulls out part way down the line to block him and the entire traffic pattern falls to pieces. Forcing an early merge free for all and creating a snake.
And then you have people slamming down to 20mph on the highway hours later for no discernible reason.
I literally watched it happen today.
A few weeks back I saw the initial incident that triggered the zipper snake and it was still going strong 2 hours later on my way back, but had moved a mile or so up the highway.
Non-driving octogenarians have no other good means of transportation outside of Manhattan. It’s like NYC has decent pedestrian travel and everywhere else is … less.
every 5 years
Lol
You have no idea how these thing progress bud, but thanks for the uninformed opinion
It’s a compromise; it’s better than the current situation, and better than removing the elderly’s ability to be mobile in a vehicle-centric society.
The point being 70 is way too late to test, and every five years is too infrequently…
Honestly everyone taking it every five years might be ok from 16 to like 50? But not even just from age, lots of shit can happen before 70.
Once someone hits 60, it’s time for annual certification.
That’s just how aging works. And it’s certainly how accident mitigation works, you don’t wait till everyone is effected at some extent, you start *at least before the majority are statistically effected. That way you identify people as they lose their abilities rather than hoping they make it another five years without an incident serious enough to draw attention to
And that’s not even getting into how this kind of testing benefits the elderly population by early identification and then early treatments of conditions.
With people living longer and longer, this will become a bigger problem.
One of the greatest downfalls of design in America are Stroads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroad They’re anti pedestrian.
This happened on a county road, really not intended for pedestrians. https://www.google.com/maps/@38.8418081,-97.47458,380a
Oh yeah that’s even worse. We have roads like that all around here and we get deaths every year as well.
Yeah those roads can be sketchy to drive on sometimes if there’s any environmental imparment let alone taking rollerblades.
And someone couldn’t see him? Was the air blocking the view?
How does one even roller blade across the continental divide? I guess you could take I 10 thru thru the desert but that is equally crazy.
Well he was hit on “country club road”, doesn’t sound like an interstate. Even under Trump the USA hasn’t detoriated that far.
Every town I’ve lived in with a country club has a road named after it.
They usually started out as a simple access road or the club is or was the only damned thing there. There’s a street near me called waterman because that’s where the water men worked the wells.
I mean there are people that ran across it. Some guy did it 5 times lol. Rollerblading doesn’t seem that bad by comparison.
You can run in dirt, rocks, and grass along the shoulder. You can only rollerblade on smooth surfaces like roads.
Also there’s tonnes of old access roads, trails, and even bushwhacking you could do as needed with hiking or running.
Running would be safer…
You can just step off the side of the road, even a bike could ride on gravel and minor road debris.
Rollerblades need near perfect surface to function. Even a rumble strip would push him closer to the road, and roller blades need a wider path that running or a bike. Even in a traffic lane would be difficult for long stretches.
Like, I’m trying to cut the guy some slack since he’s Norwegian, but if he was living in America he should have released this wasn’t really possible.
Not even getting into the mountain/desert issue
Every six months or so I pull up to a light next to someone with oxygen tubes in their nose.
If you need oxygen you should not be driving.
But I get why. Around here a ten minute trip by car is easily an hour on public transit, followed by walking miles. Ain’t nobody got time for that, especially if you have to haul your own O2.
I love driving, especially in my car, but we need better solutions for people who shouldn’t or don’t want to drive. I see them every day on the road.
It would at least mean I’m dealing with a professionally trained, drug tested bus driver instead of someone who may not even know where they are.
(Which is how they drive.)
which way’s country kitchen buffet?
Sort of a hit and run. Old woman heard she hit something but didn’t see what, then got home and saw damage to her car, and then returned to the scene. Sounds a bit fishy, really.
This country is dangerous for anyone who wants to take their time traveling across it. I recall a hitchhiker bot was violently dismembered somewhere in Philadelphia right after successfully hitchhiking across Canada with no incident.
Amtrak is pretty safe
reminds me of the poor guy cycling the world and was killed on the road in Northern Australia some years back.
Or MIT prof, Seymour Papert, who was visiting Hanoi for a conference and had been discussing how to build a mathematical computer model of Hanoi’s notoriously chaotic traffic to present at the end of it. He ended up getting hit crossing the street and ended up in a coma for weeks. Complications from it eventually killed him.
That’s the most American title I’ll hear this year.
Was going to comment that this sounds exactly like america.
Also, for a “good laugh”… she was an 82-year-old who KEPT DRIVING. He was found laying on the side of the road. IN KANSAS.
What at awful way to die: On the side of the road surrounded by 330ish million people who don’t care about you, and if you do make it you’ll be bankrupt from medical debt.
Oh my… I forgot that the need of healthcare is equal to the personal bankruptcy.
Holy fuck that’s horrible. Still hard to imagine that there’s people who call US the best country in the world and aren’t part of the 1% that owns everything.
You’d get taken to the ER. If you are a tourist in Norway you’d also get billed for the full amount.
Do you think there would be a difference between the bill in the United States and the bill in Norway?
I already know the answer. Do you?
The lady who hit him has auto insurance and that’ll pay the bill.
It might cover part of his funeral costs.
State minimum is $25k. Them there’s underinsured motorist coverage. Then, after that, a court may take her assets to pay the expenses. The family can get at least $250k for “wrongful death,” but potentially more.
Well that’s a great metaphor for the current state of that shithole country 😂
