| Brad Wright on Elderly Drivers Alright you lucky persons you. Brad here to give you folks a little something you all enjoy. Another essay about another thing that I really HATE!!!!! I've spoke on this subject for years, but it just dawned on me that I should right this down. Many of you have already heard my little spiel, but a few of you haven't. You won't find any verve or gentility here! Do any of you out there love driving as much as I do? There is nothing like jumping in your own car, rolling the windows down, blasting "Hair of the Dog" by Nazareth, and hitting the open road. All the adventure that this world can offer is laid out before you in a black rocky stretch of highway with thin yellow lines separating you from pure freedom and ultimate disaster. However, an epidemic has been sweeping this country for quite some time and robbing red blooded Americans (like myself) of the natural rights that we own and love. What is this epidemic you ask? Elderly Drivers! Blue Hairs, Geriatrics, those people that ride 45 miles an hour in the left lane of the highway with the right turn signal on, call them what you will. I know that not all old people are alike. I have the pleasure of knowing a 75-year-old man who runs marathons annually and drives 65 in a 35 just like every other normal human being. I'm talking about the old people who really act OLD! Now I'm not a hater of the elderly. I have two wonderful grandparents who I love very much (those that know me personally can back me up on that). I just don't think they should drive. That's all. Today alone, I had a very old man pull out of a gas station parking lot, damn near causing me to smash into the side of his truck. If he were one second early in executing his very slow, unhurried defensive driving maneuver, he would have been killed. I say that he and he alone would have been killed because I was driving my pimpish 88' gray Buick with the mismatch front end and that sum bitch can take any direct hit! That old man wouldn't have lived another day to take his Centrum Silver. If you are a regular visitor to my page (and I'd like to say thank you to those of you who are, and welcome to those who are just discovering it) you know that I am an employee of Food Lion, a local grocery store here in Fayetteville. I deal with the public on a daily basis and a lot of our customers are the elderly, God knows how many people they almost killed driving up there. One thing that always makes me think, or rather cringe in indescribable horror, is that these people cannot write their own checks due to the fact that they are not strong enough to open up the leather cover that holds them. I have hundreds of little old ladies and little old men that come through my check out line everyday that have limbs that no longer function, ears that can longer hear, and eyes that no longer see. Oh but they have a fucking drivers license! "Oh excuse me son, can you write out my check for me? I can?t see out of my left eye and my right arm doesn?t work." A lady once told me that as she was pulling out her newly renewed license. They can't walk 10 feet without having to sit down and rest, but they are some how able to drive a 3000-pound hunk of solid steel that contains 30 gallons of combustible gasoline! Their vehicles become a speeding casket of impending death! Do you ever notice that it seems like the older the person is, the bigger the car they drive? Have you ever seen an elderly man driving a Geo? Hell naw! I'm pissed that every time I pass a Lincoln Navigator or a Cadillac Escalade, all I can see is a white plume of hair above the steering wheel. Even if their old eyes worked they still couldn't see because their bodies are so old they shrunk below the level of the damn dashboard. And what the hell is the deal with driving slow. News flash Grandpa, you?re not getting any younger! If you were old don't you think it would make better sense to drive ridiculously fast? I mean wouldn't you like to get to wherever you are going before you keel over and die? I don't know how many of you out there keep up with the news, I do because I have to stay sharp on current events to entertain you people, but everyday there are news stories about how an 80 year old woman mowed down 50 people at a church picnic with her Chrysler. Last week, a 73-year-old woman driving home from the airport went north on the southbound lane of Interstate 95. She managed to cause a 20-car pile up, but thankfully no one was killed. Next time, call a cab or get thicker glasses to read your map better Granny. About 2 years ago, an 83 year old woman driving an Expedition (go figure) dropped off her great grandson at elementary school and then backed over 6 children killing 3. It is very unfortunate that 3 children's lives were lost that day but here is the little twist on the story. There was a distance of at least 200 hundred feet between her and the 6 kids. Confused? Let me explain. When she dropped off her grandson, she thought she had the car in drive when in fact it was in reverse. She then pressed the gas, but instead of stopping the vehicle when she realized her error, she continued pressing the gas until she collided with the brick fa�ade of the building about 175 to 200 feet away pinning 6 kids. The ancient bitch managed to take out the flagpole on the way. Here's what I think really happened??Between hits of her medicinal joint for her glaucoma, she put the pedal to the metal to catch the last 15 minutes of Sally Jesse. God forbid she misses the segment on the 14-year-old bi-sexual midgets who like to do cocaine off of a dog's ass while having sex with a 48-year-old blind foreign bulimic man (who is dead). Anyway, too stoned to realize that she was going backwards, she managed to take out a symbol of freedom and 6 kids. The dilemma of elderly drivers cannot be easily solved. Gone are the days when to rid yourself of "undesirables", you just rounded them up into a ghetto, making them live 15 to a room and having them forage for food in the sewers. There is an age restriction on how young a person can be to drive a car but not how old. The older a person gets the more infantile they become. The aging process seems to recycle itself. You start having to eat smooshed green peas, you are not able to walk, and you begin to crap yourself and have to have someone else clean it up. Someone has to salve up your nub that you got after you lost your leg to diabetes. You become a giant helpless baby that has the ability to tell the same joke 40 times in 15 minutes or tell you the story of how they had a threesome with President Taft and a one-legged French prostitute at very inappropriate times. What happened to the days when all an old person was known for was sitting on a tree stump on a lush green hill and telling folk tales. Did we not all gather around and have a listen? I agree that it is very difficult to find a solution to old drivers because of the fact that the "old" has such an enormous role in government and legislation. I personally would hate to see my grandparents have to go to the DMV every month and take a driving test but I wouldn't see it as a negative thing, just merely an inconvenience. Write your congressman and stir up some controversy. The road is too damn cluttered as it is, so old people, stop pissing me off, get off the road, and get on a fucking tree stump! Always living in his own perfect little world and enjoying every second of it, Brad |
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