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New information on store crash
Driver was 92 years old
HERNANDO — More information has emerged following Friday’s car crash into two Hernando businesses that was reported in Tuesday’s Chronicle.
According to a Florida Highway Patrol report, Vincent Carrara, 92, and his wife, Mary Carrara, 91, of Beverly Hills, were involved in a car crash at 4:55 p.m. Friday, in the parking lot of the Shoppes at Citrus Hills Plaza in Hernando.
As the driver, Mr. Carrara was in a parking space facing Gus’s Gold & Gems jewelry store when his foot apparently slipped off the brake pedal and onto the accelerator pedal, causing the vehicle to travel over a concrete parking lot stop, over a raised median and onto the sidewalk in front of the jewelry store.
Carrara’s vehicle continued traveling through the jewelry store’s front window and then through the wall adjoining Citrus Hills Nail Salon, striking several people inside the salon.
Two of the injured people were transported via Citrus EMS to Citrus Memorial Health System and a third to Seven Rivers Regional Medical Center. Salon owner Thi U Do was sent via Bayflight to a hospital in Ocala.
A salon employee who was working Friday at the time of the crash reported seeing an elderly man driving a white Buick sedan traveling in between two cement pillars in front of the stores and then between two pillars inside the nail salon, then hitting the salon’s reception desk, pushing it and three other desks into a raised island in the center of the store where the car finally stopped.
Neither Carrara nor his wife were injured.
Carrara was cited with operating a motor vehicle in careless or negligent manner.
Chronicle reporter Nancy Kennedy can be reached at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com or 352-564-2927.
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Common Sense
92 years old is too old to be driving. At that age, your reflexes are much slower. Plus, cars are more powerful. Crashing through a wall and injuring people is a positive sign that you should turn in your license.
Sorry to Say.......
Sorry to say but, this is not a government issue! When something goes wrong, why is it that people must jump and say the GOVERNMENT (STATE) should do something! Please, you're the people taking away everyone's rights and freedoms! First of all, not many people live to be 92! Next, not every 92 year old goes crashing through buildings! In this county there isn't sufficient enough public transportation to be adequate to be taking away someones license. Then, you don't know if this gentleman had a heart attack & his foot slipped off the pedal or what! All you have is the Comicals report which everyone knows is only half the REAL story! So, before you start jumping to conclusions and taking away MY rights and freedoms do some research. Sure, I have a problem with these elderly drivers around here, they drive slow in the fast lane, they drive right through stop signs and red lights, they drive 35 mph on speed control and they don't even know when to go through a new light on S. Apopka in front of the courthouse because the MORONIC Local GOV'T we have just confuses them by putting in new lights and leaving up additional old lights that really are confusing elderly drivers. Besides, if you start telling your local officials that we need to start acting and growing like a real city maybe we would attract younger settlers to the area with attractive job offers but, until then older drivers will continue to drive themselves because they don't have family close by to help them out because we don't offer adequate employment or housing or entertainment in Citrus County! You want to blame someone, blame yourselves for oppressing Citrus County for the last 100 years and trying to continue it into oblivion!
Brealistic
What if someone had got
What if someone had got killed? Then would take away there license? I mean when a madman with a gun goes out kills someone, it's take away our guns, we need more gun control. It's long over dew that drivers need to have a drivers test, if they can not drive, then people need not have a license. Go live in the Villages where you can drive a golf cart to go shop and eat out. You what to Brealstic, come on This guy must of had to mash the gas pedal down, to jump a 6in car stop, a 8in x 3foot median with shrubs in it, cross three lanes of of road way, then up over a 4in sidewalk, and then thru two walls.
What if.........
How about this scenario.....old man see's car coming and wants to brake hard because car behind wasn't going to let him out...and instead of slamming on the brake he slams on the accelerator crashing through the building! The sad part is that this store owner was previously robbed that week and just had his broken glass door fixed and now an old guy smashes through the store. I'm so glad NO ONE died!
The question here is NOT to regulate life but, to prevent disasterous circumstances. This was an accident....that's why you purchase and have insurance. Look at what the old guy has to go through, he probably got a ticket, his car is wrecked, he's probably going to have to pay for part of the restoration to the jewelry store, his wife is probably in shock and he probably realizes it's time to stop driving and people like you and the media want to continuously take away people's rights! Hasn't he suffered enough without criticism and regulation of all elderly people. Sure, it sounds great on paper but, it's not realistic to take away people's rights. You forget someday you'll be aging and unable to drive. We can say right now OK if your 85 yrs. old you can no longer drive. By the time you reach 85 yrs. old legislation could have brought it down to 70. So, forget asking your neighbor for a ride because they won't be able to drive. Instead of jumping the gun to create legislation you might want to think about how your ideas will affect the rest of the people around you and others in your state! Not that it is not a good idea but, is it compatible to daily living on a regular basis.
As for your gun control solution.....you want more regulation! Well, as we have seen from past gun control proliferation, we see that regulation and legislation doesn't benefit the innocent people in the world. Regulation and legislation only puts more guns in the hands of criminals and mentally unstable persons. As soon as we have an isolated incident, not even in Florida, people are on the band wagon for gun control. Yes, Florida needs to revise some of it's procedures for acquiring a gun but, then what's it going to be knives....you want to fill out all the paperwork to purhcase a cutlery set for a Christmas present or a new flatware set. Come on! Regulation, Regulation, Regulation......Didn't Bush take enough of our rights away? Every time you want regulation and legislation you take away our rights & freedoms. You want gun proliferation tell Wal-mart to stop selling guns. College Campuses have their own police sub stations on campus and it didn't help in preventing college campus shootings! So, what do you think adding armed security at schools is going to do? Nothing! When someone wants to do something they are going to find a way to do it! Pretty soon you'll be calling for armed security to be escorting children to and from classes individually! Great! You hire and pay for it! Teacher's and guns don't mix either! So, where does that leave us! We need to take a long look at what is needed and not rush into legislation that will come back and bite us in the butt!
Brealistic
Yes I do believe that that
Yes I do believe that that when you reach the age of 72 that you need to take a drivers test to see if you can still drive safely to keep your divers license. If you remember back to get a learners permit you had to pass a written test of the laws of the road, and to get a your regular license, you had to take a driving test with a instructor and pass it.
As far as Gun control, the two that I believe in are 1. keep them out of the hands of the criminals, 2. use both hands.
Yes I do feel that there should be armed guards in our schools. If it good for the Presidents kids to have 12 armed secret service agents guarding his kids then it's good for mine. You have got guards at the airports, shipyards, in the banks, then it's about time we start guarding our kids. I believe in the second amendment with on compromise, and I believe in the stand your ground law in Florida. Simply put if anyone tries to mess with my house and my family, I will shot them graveyard dead. Like how the army trains our fighting forces, one shot, one kill. That is my gun control.
The Madhatter
And We See How That Worked Out.......
As I stated previously......College Campuses have their own police sub stations........It never stopped anyone from walking onto campus and shooting students and staff! You think armed security guards is the answer when ARMED police officers can't stop the same thing on college campuses! Please......you're over reacting!
As for driving........fine you take another test and another driving test! We don't need laws and regulation for people to have common sense!
Common sense says don't own a gun or drive when you can't see or when your body cannot manipulate manuevers anylonger......you don't need laws or regulation to tell you this unless your real stupid! People do have accidents ya know & that's why we have insurance to cover the unexpected!
Brealistic
Eldery drivers
I took my mom's drivers license from her at 84 and that was because she couldn't stay on the right lane. You just have to.
Everyday I see and have for 2 years complained of a lady driving down Ft. Island trail taking her grandson to and from school. She drives in the bicycle lane and how she has not hit anything or the grandson screaming from the car I just don't know.
So somebody please take her drivers license away. She drives a older Buick, grayed haired clutching steering wheel. I know she knows because if she catches that you are behind her and that you know she can't drive she pulls over, waits and back on road again.
at their age...
they do not need to be driving. at what point will the state take their driver's license away? their reflexes are not what they used to be. Next time someone could get killed. I hope the salon owner will be ok.