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Behind wheel, age is no barrier
Older drivers who cherish their independence say age isn't a good reason to take away a license.
By ALEX LEARY
Published October 22, 2005
PINELLAS PARK - When the exam was over and score tallied, John Cox felt his spirit sag. He failed his driver's license test.
"You're going to see a lot of me until I get my license," he promised the man behind the desk.
Cox returned a month later in July and passed. His license is valid through 2010.
"I'll be 103 then," Cox said Friday. "I'll keep driving until I can't. I don't let age get to me."
The often difficult issue about elderly drivers resurfaced this week when a pedestrian was killed by a 93-year-old man who drove 3 miles with a body lodged in the windshield. The death stoked debate about why he was driving.
But the story has another side, perhaps best represented by the legion of elderly drivers who still possess the mental acuity and physical wherewithal to handle a car. Harsh restrictions, or revocation of a license, could deprive them of vital aspects of their lives: socializing, buying groceries or just cruising.
"It's just a joke, but I tell people that if I can't drive anymore, they might as well kill me," Cox said.
Cox was 18 when he got his first car, a Ford Model T roadster. It cost $700. Many more followed: Overland, Oakland, Lincoln, Oldsmobile, Pontiac.
"I was always trading cars," Cox said.
Raised on a farm near Springfield, Ohio, Cox worked as a pressman for a publishing house. In 1958, he moved to Florida with his wife, Lydia. He had $3,000 and his '54 Olds.
Every Sunday for 37 years, he and Lydia drove to Trinity Lutheran Church in St. Petersburg. In more recent years, they arrived in a gleaming white Cadillac that Cox bought in 1986. "Here it is," he said Friday, opening the door to his garage. "It's just like new. It's better than new. Look, there's no rust on it."
The car has 47,000 miles on it.
Cox slid onto the blue leather seat, started the engine and popped the trunk.
"Just like new," he said.
Lydia died in 1995. Cox stopped driving to church and did not go out at night. When he drove, he avoided highways.
Today, he has some hearing loss and has circulation problems in his legs, but Cox says he is fine behind the wheel. He doesn't even need glasses.
He drives only a few times a month, mostly to Publix for items a home nurse does not bring. But he still looks forward to firing up the Cadillac.
"It's been my life story," he said. "Driving a car and going wherever I want to go."
Records show he has not had an accident or received a ticket in at least seven years. He said he was in an accident 25 years ago in Orlando, but no one was hurt.
"I've almost lived a century," Cox said, "and I've still got my marbles." He said he would give up the keys to the Cadillac if he ever felt those faculties failing him.
Until then, he said, "there isn't a reason to stop (driving). I abide all the laws. I do everything about handling the car that you need to do. My mind is still sharp."
Cox lives only three doors down from Ralph Parker, the 93-year-old whose car struck and killed a still unidentified pedestrian in St. Petersburg.
Like everyone else, Cox shuddered at the details of the gruesome accident. But that's no reason, he said, to lump all elderly drivers in the same category.
"You can't judge everybody the same," he said. "I've got what I need to drive."
Les Gotschall feels the same. He moved to Florida decades ago with his wife, Geneva, who died in 1999.
The retirement home where he lives provides transportation, but not always to the places Gotschall wants to go.
"Driving gives me independence," said Gotschall, 95, of St. Petersburg. "And as long as I'm able to do it, I'm going to do it."
He renewed his license last month.
Gotschall takes his car to the grocery store to buy bread and orange juice for breakfast. He stops by Kmart for food for his dog, Candy. For household items, he heads to Wal-Mart.
"I live all by myself, take care of myself," the former accountant said.
Sometimes he makes the 95-mile drive to Bushnell to visit his wife's grave at Florida National Cemetery.
Gotschall thinks driving tests should not be limited to vision or questions. Drivers should have to demonstrate their skills.
Next month, Gotschall will turn 96. He says when he loses confidence, he'll stop driving. His thoughts turned to Parker.
"I don't want to do what that fellow did."
[Last modified October 22, 2005, 07:24:45]
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John Cox, 98, of Pinellas Park, whose license is good through 2010, says he needs his car to get groceries and socialize. "I abide all the laws. I do everything about handling the car that you need to do," he says.
