Fatality

There is a deadly mountain road, a narrow two-lanes wide, complete with switchbacks and blind curves, that has earned distinction as racking up one of the highest fatality rates in the US. It bisects the geography between Temecula Valley and the Coachella Valley and has become a favorite raceway for motorcycle riders who straddle their revved up crotch rockets and see who, if anyone, can make it the fastest from point A to point B. Often, they miss a turn and spend their final earthly seconds free-falling through space from one level of the road to another, perhaps 500 feet straight down.

Yesterday, the fatality involved an 86-year-old driver of a 30-foot motorhome trailering his personal vehicle into the desert for a bit of R & R. The male driver is dead at the scene and his 84-year-old wife in critical condition in the hospital. The good news is that, although the motorhome involved a couple of other vehicles in the accident and was witnessed by a police officer at the scene, no one else was injured.

This is wrong on so many levels that it's hard to recount, but what the hell is an 86-year-old-driver doing behind the wheel of a humongous motorhome, towing a pov, on a road that is dangerous for any vehicle, much less his rig?

I believe that driver's exams, both written and behind the wheel, need to be passed at least every three years by anyone over the age of 65 who continues to drive a vehicle, but especially those who take on the huge SUVs and the motorhomes. Research has proven that a "normal" driver cannot see to the sides and/or behind a large SUV, which led to the installation of back-up cameras in these vehicles. This state requires that those who ride motorcycles are properly licensed, but assumes that anyone who has a driver's license can handle a recreational vehicle also. Not true.

Elderly drivers often lose not only peripheral vision, but the physical ability to look to the sides, as well as behind, the vehicle and make quick, reflexive adjustments to driving conditions. Driving the rig that this very elderly driver was, it's a wonder he didn't go off the road on the way down, rather than misjudging the braking situation when he came into the final stretch and encountered the first traffic signal.

[Update: The news reports indicate that the accident investigators think that the brakes may have burned out on the way down the winding mountain road and then failed at the intersection, causing the accident. This could well be true, as keeping the huge motorhome on the road while coming down the narrow, dangerous mountain road would require almost constant braking.]

There are accidents that are truly accidents, and then there are potential accidents just looking for a place to happen, which is, I believe, what happened to this elderly couple. We can all laugh and say that 60 is the new 50, but being behind the wheel of this recreational rig is no laughing matter for an 86-year-old traffic fatality, his critically injured wife, and the other drivers on the roadway!