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news
Mick Harvey via Northamptonshire Police.PNGFamily of man killed while riding trike urge elderly motorists to get eye test
The family of man who was killed while riding his electric-assisted trike by a driver aged in her 90s who has since had her driving licence revoked due to problems with her eyesight have urged older motorists to get eye tests.
Mick Harvey, aged 85, was killed in Desborough, Northamptonshire on 21 May last year after the motorist drove into him from behind, say Northamptonshire Police.
They added that the father of two, who had four grandchildren, was wearing a hi-viz jacket at the time of the crash.
The woman has not reapplied for her driving licence and has said that she will not drive again. No charges were brought against her, with Mr Harvey’s family said to have “fully understood and supported the rationale for not proceeding with a criminal case.”
However they are now urging elderly drivers, or to anyone whose eyesight has deteriorated, to have regular eye tests to ensure they are still fit to drive.
In a statement issued through police on behalf of his family, Mr Harvey’s son and daughter, Richard Harvey and Jane Slocombe, said: “Our dad was a much-loved man and an active member of the community in Desborough. He was well-regarded by everyone who knew him and this was evident when more than 200 people lined the streets on the day of his funeral last June, many ringing bicycle bells in tribute to him.
“He was a quiet and gentle person, who had time for everybody, and was an active member of the community and of St Giles Church, where he volunteered as a communion server and did electrical work for them over many decades.
“We do want something positive to come out of our Dad’s death which is why we are making a strong plea to elderly drivers, in partnership with Northamptonshire Police, to please ensure you are still fit to drive.
“We also want to reach out to everyone with elderly relatives, to encourage them to have a conversation with their family members or friends, around this issue. We appreciate that it may be a difficult subject to broach but it could literally save lives.
“It has been so hard for us to lose our Dad in these circumstances and if we can prevent other people from going through what we have had to, that would mean a lot to us.
"Dad would also have wanted something positive to come from this incident. Please consider the safety of others and get your eyesight tested if you’re not sure.”
DC Bruce Wilson of Northamptonshire Police’s Serious Collision Investigation Unit, commented: “Richard, Jane, and the whole of Mick Harvey’s family are the epitome of class, and the way they have handled this incident, with quiet strength and understanding, has been amazing.
“I strongly admire them for wanting something positive to come out of such terrible circumstances and completely echo their plea for elderly drivers and their relatives to ensure they regularly get their eyes tested and remain fit for the roads.
“By doing so you may just prevent another family from having to deal with the heartache Mick’s have endured.”
Mr Harvey’s son and daughter added: “The last piece of advice we’d have is that whilst this incident was due to no fault of our Dad’s, we’d encourage cyclists to think about the colour of their high-vis clothing.
“Dad was wearing yellow at the time which was quite similar to nearby greenery and though it may not have changed anything, we’d like people to be conscious about the seasons and what colours may stand out better than others.
“One thing we know for sure is that Dad would encourage people to continue cycling, despite this incident. It was one of his greatest loves and something he was very passionate about.
“We miss him so much but the one thing that comforts us and something that so many people have said, is that he died doing what he loved – cycling.”
While medical professionals such as GPs and opticians can advise someone to surrender their driving licence to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency as a result of health conditions including poor eyesight, they cannot compel them to do so.
In its webpage entitled Surrendering your driving licence, the government says:
There’s no legal age at which you must stop driving. You can decide when to stop, but medical conditions can affect your driving and might mean you have to give up your driving licence until you can meet the medical standards of fitness to drive again.
When you decide to stop driving or are advised by your doctor to stop you’ll need to tell DVLA and send them your licence.
Last July, we reported how an 84-year-old motorist was jailed in Scotland after he killed a cyclist despite twice being told to surrender his driving licence due to his failing eyesight in the months beforehand.
> Jail for motorist, 84, who killed cyclist after being told not to drive due to failing eyesight
The High Court in Edinburgh heard that John Johnstone, who had admitted causing the death by dangerous driving of 57-year-old Hanno Garbe near Aviemore in March 2019, was only able to read a registration plate from a distance of 4.8 metres, instead of the 20 metres required by law.
In October 2018, an optometrist at a branch of Specsavers in Inverness told Johnstone during an annual eye examination not to drive because he had cataracts in both eyes, and to surrender his driving licence.
He was given similar advice after attending an eye clinic at the city’s Raigmore Hospital two months later, but continued to drive, with fatal consequences for Mr Garbe.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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21 comments
☆“Dad was wearing yellow at the time which was quite similar to nearby greenery and though it may not have changed anything, we’d like people to be conscious about the seasons and what colours may stand out better than others."☆
⤴Rather odd☡
Certainly wonder if cops actually manipulated the poor victim's family and put these words (effectively, VICTIM BLAMING) into their mouths.
I don't think any bereaved families would accept this rationalisation as to the reason why the killer driver couldn't distinguish between static greenery and a dynamic visible cyclist >particularly contrasting against dark tarmac road surface (as any other road markings), where the driver's eyes should primary be focused on, and not at any greenery that maybe surrounding the road - which may have been likley.
Seems an element of cops more sympathetic to the killer driver being in her 90s and thinking no further threat to vulnerable groups, so will let her off >but what message does it send to all other impaired elderly drivers, too stubborn to give up their 'entitlement', atleast not until they are caught crashing and killing or maiming ?
Yesterday I was at the garden centre and saw an elderley lady being helped into the drivers seat of a high performance Mercedes SL sports car. She required 2 sticks simply to slowly hobble to her car as both of her legs were clearly badly affected by some issue(s) and was almost unable to even get herself into the seat without assistance. I thanked my lucky stars I was driving home and not riding but regularly see her driving the roads and lanes around my usual cycling routes. Scares me to absolute death that people with obvious health issues, like vision or mobility, that impair reactions and ability to control tons of metal are still able to drive and risk the lives of other road users and pedestrians....
Mobility issues have nothing to do with whether someone is safe to drive. But let me guess, you think people in wheelchairs should just stay home, right?
NOT talking about wheel chairs or even invalid carriages.
This about deadly multi-ton vehicles, in access of 100 horse power, capable of causing mass death n destruction☢☠, unabated☡
Well she is not allowed to drive if she has a vision problem. Meanwhile, if she has difficulty walking, then she's going to need some kind of mobility assistance so driving would seem appropriate as long as she can safely control the vehicle. Has she got a record of causing collisions?
As someone rapidly approaching their 70th, and wishing to continue to drive a minibus for the local hospice, I've got to jump through some hoops to keep a licence to drive D1 vehicles, including a medical and sight test. Given the risk posed to other road users, I'm more than happy to do this, the problem is those people who think that it is their right to drive, no matter that they are no longer fit to do so, and the time has surely come to legislate to prevent them.
This has been a well known problem for many years, and I well remember a R4 programme about twenty years ago which featured an optician who despaired of some people who he had told that their vision was no longer good enough to drive, but continued to do so, and even came back year after year to be told the same thing. He bemoaned the fact that there was no way for him to report this to DVLA and ensure that these people had their licence removed. I'm not sure if this is still the fact, but it should be the duty, an absolute obligation, of an optician or doctor to report a person no longer fit to drive to the authorities.
I know from bitter experience that these half blind drivers are extremely dangerous, as two years ago I was knocked off by one in broad daylight.
It's perverse that you have to have a medical and eye test beyond 70 years of age for D1 licence but not for other motorised vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes.
You either need those test to drive beyond 70 or you don't. Clearly DVLA believe the medical and eye test are necessary for driving so all over 70 should have to do it to retain their licence.
So true. All motor vehicles can kill innocent people, and the difference between D1 and cars is marginal, so why aren't all 70 year olds held to the same standard?
"He bemoaned the fact that there was no way for him to report this to DVLA and ensure that these people had their licence removed. I'm not sure if this is still the fact, but it should be the duty, an absolute obligation, of an optician or doctor to report a person no longer fit to drive to the authorities."
That isn't 'fact', it's just his excuse. In fact he did have an absolute duty to report to the police.
A "plea" for elderly drivers to get theirs eyes tested and make sure they're fit to drive isn't going to work. Maybe changing the law so that doctors/opticians have an obligation to inform the DVLA when someone is no longer fit enough to drive might be bit more effective. Backed up with police enforcement of course...
Apart from burdening more paperwork and bureaucracy on doctors, trouble is that some people are likely to avoid going to the doctors/opticians if they think they may be reported and lose their licence.
That in turn may then lead to drivers who might be ok to drive with the correct prescription/treatment going without and endangering other road users.
Simplest way is to make older drivers undergo re-tests with medical/optical assessment as part of it.
It's not the old drivers who scare the bejeesus out of me on a regular basis, it's those still young enough to know it all.
Are you saying that resitting driving tests at intervals is simpler than getting a regular eye test?
My mother is in her 80s and had to renew her driving license last month. All it took was answering 'No' to some questions on a form asking whether she had a series of specific medical conditions. It seems a bit too easy. She took her driving test in the early 1950s and AFAIK has not had any kind of tuition or test since then.
In the 1990s I was arguing in favour of retesting drivers every 10 years but the sense of arrogance and entitlement among many drivers has grown. I find the most worrying drivers are definitely NOT those of my mother's generation.
I'm with makadu on this.
An eye test should used for health reasons and we don't want to put in a disincentive to stop people getting them checked (e.g. eye tests can pick up diabetes). The driving test should be used to assess if people are competent enough to drive a vehicle though the flaw with that is the lack of re-tests.
The bigger problem is poor driving in general, so I think the best way to police that is with the police. If we finance more traffic police we could hopefully catch (and educate where appropriate) unsuitable driving as well as identify those drivers with poor eyesight (e.g. "you pulled out across that cyclist - read that number plate over there to me"). The question then becomes how to finance more traffic police.
No "simplest" wrong choice of words - I'm saying making doctors and opticians report people will discourage some drivers from getting tested in the first place.
By retest - I mean a proper test and medical/optical assesment by an independant test assessor not a self assessment form.
And I agree older drivers on the whole are generally better drivers - but the article was about an elderly driver with poor eyesight killing a cyclist so I though I'd focus on the issue at hand rather than trying to solve all the worlds problems in one go.
"older drivers on the whole are generally better drivers"
The stats are now overwhelmingly against this proposition. The older generation simply didn't get the training required to be safe at the best of times, when they're fully fit and completely unimpaired. Experience helps, but not to the point it outweighs lack of basic training - you can't learn a lesson from experience if you don't see anything wrong.
The drivers most likely to crash are new drivers. The drivers most likely to kill or injure someone are experienced older drivers who have never been trained to drive to the required standard. The actual facts here are indisputable; go look at the numbers.
The last time this issue was discussed the stats were not as you say. Older drivers are principally a danger to themselves.
https://road.cc/content/news/cyclists-widow-urges-annual-testing-older-d...
As I understand it, older drivers aren't necessarily better at controlling a vehicle or anticipating hazards, but they tend to mitigate their failings by going slower and taking known routes that they are very familiar with. Most of the time that's quite effective and the stats reflect this (possibly part of that is due to them travelling at slower speeds).
"they tend to mitigate their failings by going slower"
They think that's what they're doing. In fact they're often driving dangerously by going too slowly, where they're not just driving dangerously while going too slowly.
Earlier today I saw a very old lady in a supermini pull out of a side turning into a fairly big gap on a 60 mph road, and then fail to put her foot on the accelerator and get up to speed in any reasonable amount of time. She nearly got rear-ended by an HGV travelling 30+mph faster than her. Fortunately the lorry driver was alert enough to realise what she'd done and slam on the brakes in time. (Obviously it'd be technically his fault if he hadn't, but a driver doing something so unexpected, in a way that's not visually obvious at first - no brake lights - makes it much harder.)
At the same junction yesterday I saw an old duffer turn right, but do it so slowly that he didn't clear the lane of oncoming traffic in a normal amount of time. The junction isn't blind, but you can't see more than a few hundred metres to the right due to the brow of a hill. Plenty of time normally. Old boy went so slow he was still turning when traffic came over the brow of the hill and approached.
Oh, one more thing, often the old duffers don't directly cause an accident, but do something so daft and unexpected they cause others to crash. It's normal that when you're waiting behind someone to turn right, when they start moving you check if you have time to follow them, and then move off. If they then crawl away unreasonably slowly, they put you in danger.
https://aaafoundation.org/rates-motor-vehicle-crashes-injuries-deaths-re...
That's for the US, but it proves the point - note the misleading way the age ranges are charted.
Obviously the US doesn't have proper driver training for younger drivers, as we do here.
In the UK:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
"In 2016, the rate of car drivers involved in reported road collisions per billion vehicle miles travelled begins to increase with age for groups where car drivers are aged over 70 years old. In England, there were 468 car drivers aged 71 to 75 involved in reported road collisions per billion vehicle miles travelled, which is 28 per cent higher than the lowest rate for car drivers which is the 66 to 70 years old age group (367 car drivers per billion vehicle miles travelled). The rate increased markedly from the age group of 81 to 85 and is 2,168 car drivers per billion miles travelled for drivers aged 86 and over which is the highest of any age band."
That's right, it roughly quintuples between 75 and 85.