How the heck do people...
kimberley wrote: get their freakin driver's licences?!?! i swear there is a gumball machine somewhere near my house just popping them out like a pez dispenser  .
my excitement for yesterday was the neighbor knocking on the door just before 5pm to inform us that someone has driven through his fence and ours! 
a woman in her late 50's i would guess was driving northbound on my street and lost control of the car, mounted the curb, went over the side walk, went through 2 sides of the neighbors fence and stopped inches away from a tree in my yard! the distance from the curb, where she entered, to this tree has to be about 25ft! she told the cop that she wasn't doing over 35km/h. ya right! the fence would have stopped her if that was true! she might have knocked the first wall down but it definitely would have stopped her from smashing thru the second one! unreal! i really want to go out and start petitioning the licensing board to retest everyone over 55yo!
a month after we got our brand new saturn, some 68yo idiot ran a red and smashed our front end. luckily Jamie saw him and braked or the damage would have been way worse and Jade was in the car! the jerk tells me that his light was green! WHAT?! our advance had been green for a minute already, which means that his light had to be red for at least 2 minutes because there is a delay between lights! luckily i had 2 people give me their info as witnesses and the one witness told the old man off because he knew the light was completely red and the old man was lying or blind!
check out the fence...
kimberley replied: 
kimberley replied: what used to be my gate.
Kaitlin'smom replied: OMG how scarey, I agree its seems some people do get the out of some maching. I just dont get why people drive wreckless. I know most people think its there right to drive...um no sorry its a privilage. I get so mad at some drives. If I got a $1 for everyone who have almost hit me or caused me to be freeked out I would be soooo rich.
mammag replied: Good Gracious! That's why it's so scary to head out there. Some people are completely clueless!
coasterqueen replied: OMG! Glad no one was hurt. UGH! People!
I have a HUGE issue with elderly and driver's license. I think they aren't retested enough and are not only a danger to others but to themselves.
An elderly man hit our parked car in our apartment lot back in college in an area where kids were playing. He thought he pushed on his break and hit the accelerator instead. He TOTALED my car literally. I just thank God that no one was hurt because there were so many kids out that day playing and if one would have gotten hit they wouldn't be alive today. The man got away with not paying a thing for my car because of his insurance *issue* and didn't get a ticket because it was a *private* lot. It was ridiculous!
kimberley replied: ugh Karen! i feel your pain. the old man that hit us got nothing either! the cop told me they don't do retesting until 80yo!! 80?!? please tell me that is a mistake! Nope, they can't see, they can't use the toilet, they can't hear worth a darn and have the reflexes of a tortoise but they can drive until they are 80!
i am so thankful no one was hurt as there is always someone walking down my street.
coasterqueen replied:
Yeah, it's HORRIBLE the way the testing is. Also one day I was waiting at the driver's license facility to renew my license and there was a man probably in his 30's, maybe 40's taking the eye test. He failed that darn thing 6 times NO JOKE and the woman kept helping him, saying you just have to get a few more right so you can get your license. Ummmmmmm, huh? HE failed it....don't give him a license! If he can't read the friggin' alphabet off of a little card how in the world is he gonna read signs and see lights, etc! It's like putting future murderers on the streets so they can get in wrecks and kill our loved ones.
My2Beauties replied: OMG that is absolutely awful  ITA about the elderly people with their DL's! I have seen so many elderly people on the freeways just asking for a serious collision! One time there was this elderly woman in front of me trying to merge onto I-264 which here in Louisville is one of the easiest expresways to merge in because the merging lanes are so long (whereas our other expressways give you maybe 25 feet or so to merge...no joke) but this women was doing like 20 mph trying to merge and everytime she got almost all the way over for whatever reason she veered back over into the merge lane and almost caused a ton of wrecks, I hate to be mean but I laid on my horn until she completely merged! I dont want to scare people but she was running out of room and she was about to crash into a wall not to mention make the others behind her have a hard time merging as well! I also hate how they do like 25 mph in the fast lane on the expressway..isn't that lovely? I have to literally scream at an older person at least once a day while driving (of course not to their faces but to myself) bcause they have no clue what is going on! I think people should be tested again at age 60-65 myself!!
Boys r us replied: Oh my goodness!!! That's insane!!!
kimberley replied: don't even get me started on the eye tests! my sister is legally BLIND in one eye!! did she fail her driver's test... NOPE! she is out there terrorizing the streets of Vancouver with ONE EYE! ::shudders:: glad i live on the other side of the country from her! 
chloe&tysmommy replied: OMG that is soooo scary.. glad everyone was okay and nobody was hurt!!!! 
MommyToAshley replied: OMG! How scary!!!!! I am sorry that happened, but so glad the kids weren't in the backyard!
Josie83 replied: O my gosh I'm so glad that noone was hurt. I can't believe how bad some people are at driving. Bad drivers make me irate!! xx
kimberley replied: so the neighbor came and gave me a copy of the police report and said that the lady was charged with careless driving (6 points). YAY for some justice in the world  unfortunately the fences probably won't be repaired until spring.
Kirstenmumof3 replied: OMG that is just awful! Will her insurance pay to have the fences fixed? What is wrong with people today! I know my FIL has serious road rage! I hate driving with him. When he gets frustrated he just starts speeding, it's so scary!
texasp3 replied: YIKES!!! I'm so glad no one was hurt. And while ITA with the poor testing of elderly drivers on our roads... what you really don't want to get me started on is teenagers!!!
Not ALL teenagers, obviously, just like not ALL elderly people are poor drivers. But dang... I pick my son up at school every day (he's in 10th grade) and that parking lot is a MAJOR life-threatening event for about 20 minutes after the last bell rings. Those kids are peeling out of there, tires screaming, suspensions rocking... and it's a RESIDENTIAL area. The exits from the high school lead onto house lined roads full of little kids getting home from other schools.
It pisses me off EVERY DAY. And once they're out of the lot it gets WORSE. They literally go careening down these two lane residential streets and will blast past other cars - weaving in and out like they were on the freakin' Texas Motorspeedway. 
Ahem. Anyway... all this reminds me. I was planning to call the police and ask if it would be TOO much to have them park a patrol car at the worst exit (I can tell them which one it is since I dang near get hit there every week). You know... just to see and be seen.
Alice replied:
Thank you. I was going to post something similar, but you beat me to it.
As a high school teacher, I went to WAAYYY too many (yeah, I know that even one is too many) funerals for kids who thought they were invincable.(sp?) Like the group that was hurrying home to make curfew and went through the lowered railroad crossing gates-- right into the path of an oncoming train. Of the 7 kids in the car, only one survived. I could give you lots and lots more stories, but I don't think it's necessary to make my point. And even after a teenager dies, it takes a few months max before they're back to driving like it's no big deal. You want to grab them by the collar and yell: "Weren't you even here 2 months ago??? Did you see the hell we all went through??? How could it not make a bigger impression on you???"
Yes, there should be a system for retesting driver's licencses. And, while it would be a huge pain and bigger expense, maybe we should all have to be retested every 5 or 7 years-- right down to the road test. (OK- this will never happen) But there are so many drivers out there who don't believe it will happen to them.
cdefmomma replied: I am sorry to hear about your fence and I agree about the lisence thing.
About two months after we bought our house we woke up to a large crash. We thought someone was breaking in and we saw a spot light circiling our yard so we went outside and there was a car that had crashed through our neighbors garage and it litterally took out the whole side of the garage. The car came to a stop due to some railroad ties just a few feet from the side of my house that my baby boy was sleeping on. If it wasn't for those railroad ties my baby would have been smashed. It was a drunk teenager. Thankfully he wan't hurt. He was doing so well infact that he took off running and abandoned his car.
kimberley replied:
i don't know how you do the licensing where you are, but here they have a graduated system that i think is better cuz it keeps teens off the roads longer 
you have to be 16yo to do the written and vision test. if you pass, you get a G1 learner's permit. you must be accompanied by a driver who has been licensed over 4yrs at all times, zero blood alcohol, other driver must have less than .05% BAC and highway driving is forbidden. and they are not allowed to drive between midnight and 5am. you have to hold this permit for a year before you can take the road test to get the G2. if you pass the G1 road test (just street driving), they can drive alone but again, zero BAC and amount of passengers limited to # of working seatbelts. you must hold the G2 permit for at least a year before you can take the G2 road test (highway) and have a full license. each step costs $40-100 so for a lot of teens it takes years for them to be driving alone. i wish they would up the starting age to 18yo but i can live with the system now. teens aren't the bigger problem in this area tho i know what you mean about the souped up cars and the drag racing driving. it is annoying and dangerous and sadly it is lethal a lot of the time.
texasp3 replied:
We do have a graduated system here, kind of like what you describe...
Once they pass the paper test, a teen must hold an instructors permit for a minimum of 6 months before they can try for a provisional license. The provisional license is for another 6 months during which they can not have more than one passenger under the age of 21 who is not a family member, can not drive between midnight and 5am. There are paper and road tests before the provisional license too.
This was put in place in 2002 and is a step in the right direction at least.
A&A'smommy replied: OMG thats crazy!! I agree they should really be more careful about who gets a drivers licence we nearly hit someone today because THEY pulled out in front of us GRRRR someone going the other direction nearly hit them too because that person pulled out!!
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