SALINE COUNTY, Kan. (KWCH/Gray News) — A Norwegian man attempting to rollerblade across the U.S. was killed in a hit-and-run in Kansas, officials said.
The Saline County Sheriff’s Office identified the man as 24-year-old Joachim Lanham.
Lanham was documenting his rollerblading journey across the U.S. on Instagram. According to a post from his family, he was hit by an SUV on day 22 of his journey from New York to Los Angeles
I’m assuming you don’t drive, and hopefully you never do.
I think you’re missing the point here. The individual is not the issue. The fact that any 82 year old is hurtling around in 2 tons of metal oblivious to the world outside is the issue (or at least part of it). Do you think this woman is some kind of exceptional case?
My gradfather drove far into his 90s, and only stopped when he became deaf. Never hurt anyone or did anything unsafe. The obliviousness really depends on the person.
I do favor frequent testing for older drivers, though. When things go wrong, it can happen suddenly and people are often in denial about their continuing fitness to drive.
My grandfather also drove into his 90s and had no accidents. However, he had macular degeneration and struggled to see. The DMV knew he couldn’t see well and still granted him extension after extension. We had to sit him down and talk him into giving up the car because the DMV would’ve let him keep going until somebody got hurt.
Frequent testing for the elderly would definitely save lives.
I agree totally about the testing. Old people often drive until an accident or near miss demonstrates their inability to continue. When you live in a world where driving is a necessity, of course people will push themselves to do it until they reach a point of failure.
I’ve been yelling it into the void since the 90s - Mandatory Annual Testing After Sixty-Five. And not the book test. Get in a car and drive with a human who can gauge your ability and mark any decline.
I’d like to see that and also re-testing maybe every 5 or 10 years for young and middle-aged drivers. Both book and practical, because people forget the finer points of the rules and also sometimes new ones get made (e.g. new NACTO recommendations for cycling infrastructure).
This is a decent idea, but the tests are already way too easy anyway. I want difficult tests where you have to learn to drive like James Bond to even get a license in the first place.
I feel like the test difficulty should be random after the person has been driving past the age of 21.
So a person who is a first time driver at the age of 16 gets and easy test, then another easy test at 21 if they passed, then theyre randomly assigned the hardest possible test at 26 if they passed that one, then theyre assigned a somewhat easy test at 31 if they passed that one, then theyre randomly assigned an insanely hard test at 36 …
And then for other drivers and wanna-be-drivers taking the tests are also randomly assigned varying tests of varying difficulty and different times.
Itll keep a driver guessing as to what type of test theyre gonna face and it makes cheating by sharing written answers harder for the written tests since different drivers who are friends will be given different tests. And itll obviously make cheating nearly impossible for the driven portion of the tests.
Staying alert, reactive, and proactive is an important part of driving around ANY heavy metal death machine…cars included.