Ban the aged

There are certain things you do that you consider to be perfectly safe. Safe for your children, you can relax. Say, for example, walking on a pavement.

On 2 occasions recently, very old people - who quite definitely should not be driving a car - have crashed their cars quite severely into parts of walkways and remarkably neither incident caused any injury. But they could have, should anyone have been on the part of WALKWAY that was driven onto, which is quite terrifying if you choose to dwell on it.

Incident 1, car lost control and reversed fastly down a hill into a lamppost on the non-kerb side of the pavement. Anyone on that pavement would have been seriously injured or, if they were 3ft tall, killed. Turns out lady in question accelerated instead of braking when she realised she was in reverse and hence moving backwards.

Incident 2, car was in a car park at a congested section that it is impossible to drive at more than 5mph in. Swerved to avoid cyclists that gave him/her a fright and managed to mount the pavement and upended a solid post. Which requires acceleration: not usually the recommended thing to do when in perceived danger.

Brakes. Brakes. Not the same as accelerator.

How is it legal for people who are clearly not safe on the road to be allowed to drive? Don't you have to do something once you're over 135?

Grrr.

Meantime my elderly car has decided braking is optional and it is a little disconcerting to find oneself praying for stoppage each time the brakes are applied.

More elderly joy: ancient dishwasher keeps fusing the sockets and dumping water all over the kitchen. Engineer booked for Wednesday to do nothing. He is, naturally, rather old.

Actually, my dishwasher is only 4.5 years old. It's just crap.

Proving that age is not a satisfactory measure of usefulness and capability should be the key.

Uh oh. We're all scuppered.