BY A. SCOTT WALTON
Quick: Hide “the internet”!
Shhhh. Don’t let Grandma see.
Just when you thought it was safe to start suggesting that the significant senior(s) in your life put away the car keys, here comes some expert spouting off about the fact kids emerge from car crashes with fewer scrapes when their grandparents are driving than when they’re in wrecks with their parents.
The news is spreading like free samples of Fixodent on the web.
Note to self: Seek and destroy Paw-Paws Twitter account. ASAP.
According to a study led by Dr. Fred Henretig of Philadelphia’s Childrens’s Hospital, kids are one-third less likely to be hurt in a crash involving grandparents at the wheel, as compared to crashes where their parents were driving.
Can’t you just hear the ‘I told you so’ coming?
After crunching numbers compiled by insurers in 15 states and Washington, D.C. over a five-year period (2003-’07) researches concluded that seniors may have difficulties navigating between Points A and B and strapping car seats in properly, but they were only to blame for seven percent of the collisions that caused injury to passengers aged 16-and-under.
The number of grandparents who are living “independently” longer and/or serving as primary care-givers for their grandchildren makes the car safety survey more relevant than ever. It’s no long a laughing matter refer to the elderly as “Sunday” drivers. They’re out their merging into traffic with us 24/7 these days.
Everybody, buckle up.
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