92-year-old slams into 9 cars in Piggly Wiggly parking lot
'I can tell you in 23 years of law enforcement, I've never seen anything like this,' police chief says
A 92-year-old man who managed to hit nine cars in a Piggly Wiggly parking lot late last week won't be cited, police in Wisconsin say.
"I can tell you in 23 years of law enforcement, I've never seen anything like this,” Mayville Police Chief Christopher MacNeill told WISN-TV. "My first thought was, ‘You only see these situations when someone is trying to elude police or in incidents of road rage.’”
The elderly driver, Russell Kerr, was pulling out of his parking spot at the supermarket chain on Friday when he lost control of his vehicle, a Chrysler Pacifica.
"His foot got stuck on the accelerator, and from that point, he panicked,” MacNeill said.
Two of the nine cars Kerr hit were occupied, but no one was hurt in the incident, which was captured on surveillance video. Because it was considered an accident, MacNeill said, police decided not to cite Kerr.
While Kerr didn't get a ticket, police reported the accident to the Department of Motor Vehicles, which will determine if the senior citizen needs to retake his driving test.
According to the Wisconsin DMV, some seniors are asked to take a basic vision test when they renew their licenses.
There's a good reason for that: According to the most recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, 17 percent (5,560) of all traffic fatalities in 2012 involved people 65 and older, an increase of 3 percent over 2011. There were 214,000 people aged 65 and older injured in motor vehicle traffic crashes, a 16 percent increase from 2011. And while the number of motor vehicle crash fatalities decreased by 3.1 percent overall in 2013, fatalities among those 55 and over increased.
