My friend Ana Sylvia sent this:
We used to swim in beautiful Lake Illopango which is a caldera. I guess this guy thinks an eruption of Illopango caused the Dark Ages.
100 thoughts on “History Channel: Lake Illopango Caused Dark Ages!”
Comments are closed.
Sorry,
There’s just too much bad science to finish. How do they connect an eruption in the 500s to the plague in the 1300s.
“How do they connect an eruption in the 500s to the plague in the 1300s?”
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Simple: You start by being an idi0t, add some irrational delusion, and the rest takes care of itself.
Talk about correlation and causality!
Let’s see, temps drop due to volcano, this somehow starts plague due to the temp drop, which causes the Dark Ages.
Linking these two with cause and effect is more that just a bit of a stretch. You can chart world civilization over time to world temp ( cold bad, warm good ) but a single event such as this volcano effects too short of time span to be a major player other than locally.
I didn’t see any mention of the 14th C plague. They were talking about the 6th C one.
Also Ed, it clearly wasn’t local, as treemometers the world over show much badness breaking.
I think cause and effect with plague is tenuous. But they mean this one
“The Plague of Justinian (AD 541–542) was a pandemic that afflicted the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire), including its capital Constantinople. It has been claimed as one of the greatest plagues in history…”
The History channel does like to get a bit excessive presenting tenuous theories and making impact of things as large– and possibly larger– than evidence can possibly permit.
I was more specifically interested in Illopango having erupted more recently rather than way back in before the dawn of time. The lake is beautiful. We used to swim there frequently– taking our little dog who also loved to swim. The shore had a lot of white pumice which we used to play with floating it on the water. Or course we knew it was a Caldera– but never thought of that erupting.
Lucia, the weather disaster of 535-536 is extensively documented in contemporary writings of the church fathers, chroniclers, etc., and I don’t have a citation , but I recall having seen it referred to as “the darkness.”
The geology is stellar, and is hinted at in the video segment, but as usual, History Channel’s over-the-top drama queen hysterics foul everything.
Finally, the connection between the plague and the event is much less tenuous than you think. Crop failures drive the rats into the cities in unaccustomed numbers, and etc.
andyd,
Of course it had an effect. But it was short term and saying this event caused the demise of the Roman world is bat sh** crazy.
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It is also bat sh** crazy to state a direct link between this event and the plague in the 500’s.
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What they have done is first find the date of the enent and then look for something “bad” that happned, and then link the event to the “bad” event as it happend at the sametime. Truly nuts.
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Temps in the Roman world strated droping ( from memory) in the 400’s, forcing a major shift in the populations of Asia into Europe. Colder temps lowered agg yields, also stressing the population. There were also a series of plagues over a long peroid of time that again stressed the population. No one event caused the Fall of the Roman Empire.
I’ve been increasingly more disenchanted with The History Channel. They used to do pieces that were actual history, now you’ve got more (un)Reality TV shows, spurious takes on “history”, and just pointless garbage. It’s really sad to see The History Channel, Discovery Channel, etc. going down the sewer with stuff like this.
Ed Forbes:
Be careful attributing all of that to just mean temperature change. That is less important than viability of agriculture, which relates more to amount of moisture and less predictable climate. Cooler, rainier weather can lead to crop failure as easily as hot and dry. Given that irrigation fixes hot and dry to an extent, cooler and rainier probably has more of an impact than hot and dry.
Anyway, it’s not implausible that crop failures led to increased importation of grain, which brought with it plague-carrying rats. It’s true that the eruption is an impulsive event, but if you lose 25% of your population, that obviously doesn’t recover over night.
I’d like to see better historical documentation of the supposed linkages of the events, but really I don’t see reason to be outright hostile to this idea.
Carrick
Same here. Obviously, it would be easier to link some impact on the Maya to the eruption at Illopango than any impact on Rome. I’d have to read more to even be convinced the eruption at Illopango necessarily caused a large climate change or that the notion is accepted by a broader group of people than this historian.
Here’s another article. http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/aag-eruption-el-salvador%E2%80%99s-ilopango-explains-ad-536-cooling
If we checked, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the same historian. 🙂 But often it’s easier to check through text materials, and the presentations aren’t as “dramatic” as History Channel programs.
In the same vein, I heard a journalist interviewed on the MHz network last night who claimed that scientists in the last few years had pretty much agreed that the past 5 mass extinctions, excluding the KT event, were all the direct results of elevated global temperatures. I know that the PT transition and the eocene optimum had elevated temperatures and in those periods there were mass extinctions, but I was not aware that scientists had concluded what the causes were. The eocene optimum had an earth supposedly heavily populated with forests while there were mass extinctions of certain forms of marine life. The fall off in temperatures after the eocene optimum continued to have some warm periods and evidently without mass extinctions. An Antarctica thawing occurred 27-28 million years ago.
I like to hear scientific evidence and even conjectures on these programs, but what bothers me about this interview was that what this journalist said was taken as fact. He was relating the release of methane from clatharates in the ocean floor to the accelerated warming during these periods and the fact that we currently have huge amounts of methane stored there now and we need to very concerned about the relationship of methane relaease and rapid warming to our current warming – so he had a message to deliver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:65_Myr_Climate_Change.png
Andyd
My biggest problem is that for literally 100’s of plague events through history, this one event is supposed to be directly linked to this one specific plague. They have literally nothing to support a link between this event and this specific plague other than tying it to the same timeline.
Now if they can show a mechanism that B plague becomes active in cooler weather, and can show B plague did become more active in other times of cooler weather, then they have a possible link, but not before.
That said, I wonder what plague outbreaks do look like graphed through time vs temp? Would be kind of tricky to do though as temp in the plague reservoir would likely be more important than the temp where it is vectored to.
The Arabian peninsular underwent a massive population explosion just after the first plague; it leveled the Eastern Church and the Arab troop quite quickly.
Could a large volcano make the Middle East green?
Ed Forbes
Of course not. Even if true, the linkage would be indirect. It would be:
Eruption->cooling. Cooling-> stress on people, environment agriculture. Stress-> weakened population due to hunger, cold etc, larger spread in pests due to people (and animals themselves) migrating to find food etc-> plague bacteria spreads faster and through weakened population.
That would be “cause and effect”, but pretty difficult to prove or disprove. But the linkage is not “eruption caused DNA mutation that created plague bacillus”. So, it’s always going to be speculative.
Epidemiology is hard enough today when people are tracking things and do various tests. Historic epidemilogy? Very speculative.
Here are couple of links to material on mass extinctions in line with the journalist interview I commented on above. I note that for the KT event and the other mass extinctions none are evidently considered caused by impact events and global cooling.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events.html
http://iod.ucsd.edu/courses/sio278/documents/veron_08_coral_reefs.pdf
I believe I saw this a couple of years ago. From what I recall the “killer spores” detected a chill, sprung up, and decided to kill.
Anthrax anybody?
Couple of items on plague
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Wiki on the flea in question
“Experimentally, it has been shown that the fleas flourish in dry climatic conditions with temperatures of 20–25 °C (68–77 °F).[2] They can live up to a year and can stay in the cocoon stage for up to a year if the conditions are not favorable.”
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And current plague reservoirs
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/health/131010/whats-the-bubonic-plague
History Channel lost its credibility when they started pushing UFO stories.
They have nothing to offer in terms of reliably learning things about the past.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Oct 11 14:36),
Totally bogus. The only mass extinction during the PETM was in benthic foraminifera because of the pH change. Horses first appeared about the time of the PETM. Life on land flourished. As far as ocean floor methane clathrates, note that it was much, much warmer at the time of the PETM, It was quite close to the Eocene Optimum, which was about as warm as the peak of the PETM. There is zero chance that the sea floor methane clathrates will do anything spontaneously as long as the deep ocean temperature is as cold as it is. And it would take thousands of years at least, probably tens to hundreds of thousands, for the deep ocean to warm up enough for the methane clathrates to become unstable.
If a higher global average temperature was inimical to life on land, we never would have made it past the Eocene Optimum.
DeWitt:
If you read the second link you will see where the author in an attempt to relate (rapid) warming to mass extinctions has to arbitrarily pick and choose what past temperature estimates (he thinks) are valid and not valid. Then a journalist picks up on this as convincing evidence and in a television interview reels it off as proven fact.
Re: Kenneth Fritsch (Oct 12 12:17),
Journalists tend to exaggerate everything and miss the critical finer points. In the Nature article and the article describing the Nature article I linked in a different thread, I’m betting that the statement in Nature was that temperature anomalies would be higher and that the lowest temperature anomaly would be higher than the highest today, presuming you averaged over a long enough period. But explaining to the general public what was meant by anomalies, assuming the journalist understood, would be too much trouble and would detract from ‘the sky is falling’ meme.
I could find out, but taking a trip to the library or actually paying for the article simply isn’t worth it.
DeWitt
Journalists tend to exaggerate everything and miss the critical finer points.
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You think?
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But seriously, i actually sort of believed juornists until the first time I actually knew the technical content of a story, then I realized that they generally have not tbe slightest clue what thay are talking about, and worse, don’t give a flying F if what they are saying is accurate. IMO, 90% of main stream science reporting is pure and unadulturated… err…. fluff.
Re: SteveF (Oct 12 15:32),
I used to think that 60 Minutes was news instead of entertainment. But that changed when they did their piece on unintended automobile acceleration. They simply couldn’t accept that people make mistakes and think that their foot is on the brakes when they are actually on the accelerator. That wouldn’t do. It had to be the car manufacturer’s fault. The piece where they intentionally lit a car on fire and claimed it was the result of a collision with a defectively mounted gas tank was just icing on the cake.
Not sure what you’re referring to, but stuck throttle/accelerators do happen, there have been recalls over design defects associated with this, and companies have even been known to lie about their product safety. People not knowing the difference between the accelerator and brake pedals, especially in large numbers and only on a limited number of makes and models, strikes me of an Onion headline.
If there was a volcanic eruption in 535AD it wasn’t Ilopango.
Take a look at these Google Earth views. The first is Ilopango. The topography is flattened, smoothed, heavily eroded. The caldera rim is preserved only on the right hand side of the picture; everywhere else it’s gone. Formed only 1,500 years ago? I don’t think so. It’s much older than that.
The second view is of the Lake Atitlán caldera just up the road in Guatemala. Looks a good bit younger, doesn’t it? It’s 84,000 years old.
http://oi48.tinypic.com/205schy.jpg
Carrick (Comment #120156)
October 12th, 2013 at 6:21 pm
On the other hand, if the brake and accelerator were not mistaken, I have always wondered why that person would not realize that the accelerator was stuck and apply the brakes – and even shut the engine off.
60 Minutes is typical of many journalist endeavors today where they have a conclusion when they start their investigation and then dwell almost exclusively on the evidence that favors that conclusion. That is great if you are lawyer but not so good if you are a journalist. Like the story on unintended auto acceleration, the journalist appear unable to present all the evidence and let the reader/viewer make their own conclusions. When is the last time you read/saw a MSM piece presented in that manner. It is like the journalist is judging their audience to be incapable of making a conclusion without lots of their help.
Nothing wrong with a lawyerly presentation of evidence, but it is wrong to present that evidence as if there were not another side of an issue. Kind of like what the IPCC does.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_unintended_acceleration
Notice the connection here between lawyers and journalists.
“Audi 5000[edit]
During model years 1982-1987, Audi issued a series of recalls of Audi 5000 models[23] associated with reported incidents of sudden unintended acceleration linked to six deaths and 700 accidents.[23] At the time, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ( NHTSA) was investigating 50 car models from 20 manufacturers for sudden surges of power.[24]
60 Minutes aired a report titled “Out of Control” on November 23, 1986,[25] featuring interviews with six people who had sued Audi after reporting unintended acceleration, including footage of an Audi 5000 ostensibly displaying a surge of acceleration while the brake pedal was depressed.[26][27] Subsequent investigation revealed that 60 Minutes had not disclosed they had engineered the vehicle’s behavior — fitting a canister of compressed air on the passenger-side floor, linked via a hose to a hole drilled into the transmission[25][26] — the arrangement executed by one of the experts who had testified on behalf of a plaintiff in a then pending lawsuit against Audi’s parent company.[28]
Audi contended, prior to findings by outside investigators,[24] that the problems were caused by driver error, specifically pedal misapplication.[24] Subsequently, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) concluded that the majority of unintended acceleration cases, including all the ones that prompted the 60 Minutes report, were caused by driver error such as confusion of pedals.[29] CBS did not acknowledge the test results of involved government agencies, but did acknowledge the similar results of another study.[26]
With the series of recall campaigns, Audi made several modifications; the first adjusted the distance between the brake and accelerator pedal on automatic-transmission models.[23] Later repairs, of 250,000 cars dating back to 1978, added a device requiring the driver to press the brake pedal before shifting out of park.[23] As a byproduct of sudden unintended acceleration, vehicles now include gear stick patterns and brake interlock mechanisms to prevent inadvertent gear selection.”
Here are a few Zoom-in charts of Temp vs CO2 at the 4 major extinction events not caused by an asteroid impact. Only one is associated with elevated temperatures, two with exceptional volcanism (but not a temp increase, more likely a temp drop) and one is associated with an exceptional ice age.
http://s14.postimg.org/7keqi3mwx/Ordovician_Extinction_Temp_CO2_Zoom_In.png
http://s17.postimg.org/f880w4p3z/Devonian_Extinctions_Temp_CO2_Zoom_In.png
http://s17.postimg.org/93bes725b/Permian_Extinction_Temp_CO2_Zoom_In.png
http://s22.postimg.org/ohnz5qvch/Triassic_Jurassic_Extinction_Temp_CO2_Zoom_In.png
The temp estimates are a 1 million year gaussian smooth of isotope data covering every few thousand years so this is the highest resolution you can get without blowing up your computer. The CO2 estimates have a resolution of 1 million years or so in the later periods to 10 million years in the earlier periods.
Kenneth, I admit I don’t watch 60 Minutes and that’s an interesting example of fabrication by the show if the claim is actually true… it’s right up there with Rathergate.
Regarding this:
Or put in neutral, which does work. I’m not sure what to make of cases where the car just keeps going, but you don’t need more than a few seconds of unintended acceleration to cause an accident.
Also I suppose it’s theoretically possible that people that drive certain models have greatly increased chance of mistaking pedals. Given that this is a theory to explain sudden acceleration that is itself untestable and greatly benefits the manufacturer, hopefully you can see why I would look at this just a bit skeptically. If it happened on all makes and models, I’d rate this as a plausible explanation.
Anyway there have been known problems, many acknowledged directly by manufacturers that have lead to recalls, and some that lead to recall without direct admission of error. The Wikipedia source includes many of those.
There were issues with cars in the 1980s with respect to shift lever position. You could have the car ostensibly in park, but it could really be in reverse. The car would crank while it was in reverse, engage and shoot backwards. It’s obvious why this is dangerous and could lead to accidents. The Audi 5000 was one of many models that had this problem.
Stuck throttle wires in older cars is a know common cause of accidents. Here is a scenario: you merged onto an Interstate with pressure applied to the accelerator, you take your foot off the pedal, and it keeps accelerating.
Issues with the electronic cruise control is another (I owned a car in the ’80s that could surge when it hit a bump while on cruise control). My foot wasn’t even near the pedal when this happened so it was obvious what cause and effect was. The solution in that case is not to use the cruise control.
Issues with the floor mat is an acknowledged issue too.
But there are cases where floor mats weren’t installed and the car remained “frozen” in full acceleration model. Given that software bugs do happen (push button ignition switches are fully computerized, so pressing the button isn’t a manual override to a software issue), there needs to be overrides for this.
I don’t know all of the details, but Toyota had a big recall where they went back and installed a manual override on the brakes to override the electronic throttle control. That seems like a good approach to me, and I’m surprised it wasn’t present in all models with electronic ignition switches.
Reading the Toyota story, I noticed they had the “three-second power button mash” that a lot of PC’s have:
Wonder if that is in the owner’s manual?
“I don’t see reason to be outright hostile to this idea.”
Boy, I sure do.
Plague swept through Greece to Norway:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Bubonic_plague-en.svg
Plague occurred from Louisiana to Michigan:
http://www.offthegridnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/bubonic-plague-united-states-400×288.jpg
The SPATIAL variation of climates impacted was huge compared to relatively scant temporal variations.
That’s to be expected since the pathogen spends most of it’s time in the vectors of rodents, fleas, and humans, and commerce, such as it was, helped spread things around.
Ascribing plague to climate seems to me to be the worst of confirmation bias.
Bill Illis,
The sun’s intensity was lower in the distant past, at a rate of about 1% reduction per 100 million years. So half a billion years back the intensity above the atmosphere was about 65 watts per square meter lower than today. If we assume comparable albedo, that means the global average net flux about 11 watts per square meter lower than today. To make up for that lower solar output you would need radiative forcing roughly equal to eight times higher CO2 (3200 ppm). There is a lot of uncertainty in comparing today’s energy balance with the geological past, of course, but you should consider solar intensity if you are going to compare estimates of past temperatures and CO2 levels to evaluate sensitivity to GHG forcing; a reasonable swag is a doubling of CO2 for each 150 million years in the past would compensate for the sun and yield an energy balance close to today’s.
Climate Weenie, I don’t think the argument was that “scant temporal variations caused the plague.” 😛
SteveF (Comment #120164)
October 13th, 2013 at 12:14 pm
Bill Illis,
The sun’s intensity was lower in the distant past, at a rate of about 1% reduction per 100 million years.
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That is a little high. It is about 0.75% per 100 million years and then if you plug that into Stefan-Boltzmann, you get very close to a straight line of just -0.46C per 100 million years.
http://s2.postimg.org/xlp5eknvd/Change_In_Temp_Solar_Luminosity_Over_Time.png
http://cips.berkeley.edu/events/planets-life-seminar/kasting.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_evolution_(English).svg
So at the Ordovician extinction, Earth’s equilibrium temperature was only about 2.0C lower due to the weaker Sun. But the temperatures were 19.0C lower than indicated by CO2 alone.
Bill Illis,
I just eyeballed a couple of graphs to come up with the 1% per 100 million years. Maybe it is a bit lower, but it sure doesn’t look like 0.75% on the graphs. But regardless, if you calculate the amount of CO2 that would be needed to generate a similar level of forcing, you can see that it would take a lot higher level than today (4 to 8 times higher 500 million years ago). If you want to consider how CO2 influences temperatures (and I assume that is why you are generating those graphics) you need to make an apples to apples comparison, not plug a forcing value into the S-B equation… The Earth is a lot warmer than SB predicts because of atmospheric resistance to radiative cooling. The higher CO2 levels of long ago most certainly could have compensated for all or some of the lower solar intensity. S-B just tells us how much the net ’emissive’ temperature changed when the sun was less luminous, not how much the surface temperature changed.
Carrick (Comment #120161)
October 13th, 2013 at 10:45 am
I seldom watch 60 Minutes, but I always warn the wife about their having a conclusion and then building a story around it. That does not necessarily falsify an issue they might have sided with, but the reporting is very suspect. They would do better if they had a discussion with some of the issues you have put forward here, but I think they are aiming at an audience with a dumbed down approach.
Kenneth:
I’m sorry… were we discussing 60 minutes or the CAGW community. /cheapshot
Re: Carrick (Oct 13 10:45),
The evidence for pedal confusion as the major cause was that the same model cars with the gas and brake pedal in the same positions but with manual instead of automatic transmissions had much, much fewer reported instances of unintended acceleration because you usually push in the clutch when you hit the brakes. Instructors at performance driving schools also reported that it was not uncommon to have to grab the student’s leg or shut off the engine when the student thought he was on the brake but was actually on the gas.
Most cars then didn’t have enough power to continue to accelerate with the brakes applied even if the throttle were stuck wide open.
Starting the car while it was in gear or having the transmission come out of park on it’s own were problems that have now been solved, but they were not the subject of the 60 Minutes piece. I can’t start my car unless the clutch is on the floor. Automatic transmissions now won’t come out of park unless the brakes are engaged. I don’t have a throttle cable to stick either, it’s drive by wire. I guess the pedal return spring could break, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a microswitch or something on that too.
DeWitt:
It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison: If the problem is with the cruise control subsystem (that is a known failure mode), then the manual (which won’t normally have one) will not exhibit the failure mode. I’d also like to look at numbers across models. As I said before, it shouldn’t be the case that one particularly model has 1000 reports, and others less than 10.
You’re assume that the brakes have been serviced. 😉
There is as switch that is supposed to protect this, but it can fail. Assuming you get a check engine light (you are supposed to), this ends up being an owner failure-to-maintenaince problem, but it does happen. And amazingly there are still models being sold that don’t have interlock systems to prevent you from starting it in reverse (there would likely be service issues like an engine that stalls when you first start it).
I don’t know if there are any US transportation approved vehicles that have throttle cables. More often the cable binds while you try and press down the accelerator, and the cable breaks. However, if it is sticking, then it’s not like you didn’t have a warning before something catastrophic happened (like the throttle remains engaged when you release the pedal).
I wonder if the people who’ve studied the failure have considered that subsystem failure may have contributed to the problem. I’d hope so, because nobody seems to be claiming that there’s a problem with sudden acceleration events in nominally operating vehicles.
Carrick, DeWitt,
I think that the incidence of ‘sudden acceleration from start-up’ claims has dropped to almost zero since interlocks were put in place (step on brake to allow shift out of park). That alone suggest that nearly all accidents (though maybe not 100%) claimed to be due to the car suddenly accelerating from a parked position, were in fact the operator simply pressing on the gas instead of the brake. It is also true that there were many more such incidents for elderly drivers than for younger ones… another reason to think it was mostly the driver, not mechanical problems. (Where I live, there is a sizable population of very elderly drivers, and it is inevitable that some who drive really ought not be driving at all; they do cause serious accidents due to physical inability to safely control their car.)
SteveF
After the age of 90, Jim’s father did things like not notice he’s accidentally pressed the garage door opener, closed the door and then backed out. Jim helped him fix the garage door. All sort of other mistakes of this nature occurred. We were hoping he’d fail his drivers license test. . .
The combination of poor hearing and lack of focus both brought on by age contributed to these. (Jim’s mother had given up driving years before. Thank heaven!)
Visiting my Dad in his retirement center, I saw all sorts of things flustered old ladies would do in cars and needless to day, driving with Popsie-Wopsie was scary.
Oh. I went to a nearby strip mall. Someone driving through the parking lot had driven through a plate glass window. This was even a lot with no parking directly in front of it– the arrangement is storefront, covered sidewalk, two-lane wide driving lane, then the parking area. I asked for details expecting the answer to be “drunk”. The clerk sitting out front waiting for the repair people said it was an elderly couple, driver past 80.
Now, I’m not going to claim I’m a perfect driver who never does anything stupid. But the rate of odd mistakes people make as the age definitely increases.
Elderly people do not want to give up their licenses. Unfortunately, driving tests really don’t test precisely what is required– as it’s an attention issue. I can guarantee you that quite a few of these people insist there is no problem, all these accidents are just freak things that can happen to anyone. But really, other that students who *just* got their permits and who might put cars into the wrong gear and hit the gas too hard, people very, very rarely back into closed garage doors. And student drivers do not back into closed garage doors from the inside of the garage.
Other than creating a self-driving car there is nothing that can be done to prevent elderly drivers from having very strange accidents.
lucia,
I think if my father were still capable of getting in and out of a car on his own, he’d still be driving at the age of 102. Becoming incapacitated after his second hip fracture was what finally made him stop driving. Several years before, he had had a fall and concussion. His doctor had his drivers license revoked and we all breathed a sigh of relief. But his ‘friends’ helped him get a new license. I think he had to take the written test about six times before he passed. Beyond a certain point, driving while old is no different that DUI.
SteveF, if I’m not mistaken, reports of sudden acceleration have increased, not decreased. Part of that no doubt is because of greater awareness of the “issue”. But I can’t get to the data because of the shutdown but it’s at http://www.nhtsa.gov There are also more car companies selling cars in the US and so more opportunity for error.
I don’t doubt that improved safety standards have reduced the relative risk of any failure mode. This is by the way an example of “adaptation” versus “control”. The US government championed 55 mph speed limits to improve safety. Well it turns out the way to improve safety the most rapidly is to make the vehicles safer to operate (antilock brakes, air bags, etc). The 55 mph speed limit also created other safety issues (like increasing the crowding of traffic on highway due to the lower average speed). The proponents of 55 mph speed limits apparently never understood that there are other issues with vehicle safety besides conservation of energy…
Anyway, here’s a Consumer Reports study.
The data certainly don’t support the contention that it is just a throttle/pedal confusion, otherwise you’d expect mistakes to be equally likely with all vehicles. Either that, or Honda and Nissan drivers are just that much smarter than other people. GM with a 23% share of vehicles, had only 5% of the reports. Toyota with a 16% share of vehicle, was around 41%.
Most chronologies place the end of the (Western) Roman empire in 476. These new age scientists are really thick.
freslider, this story is referencing the Eastern Roman Empire, not the Western.
Lucia,
“Other than creating a self-driving car there is nothing that can be done to prevent elderly drivers from having very strange accidents.”
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Strange, yes, but also often tragic. A pair of identical twin girls in my daughters high school graduating class were t-boned by a 85+ YO lady… who just didn’t notice that she had a red light at an intersection. They were 18 years old; one died and the other nearly did (head and neck injuries). They took the old lady’s license and ‘prosecuted’ for reckless driving, of course, but that does not address the issue of driver incompetence from advanced age. Like many issues related to car safety, it is a political football, and here in Florida, no politician is going to insist on confirmation of competency for the elderly.. no matter the number of roadway tragedies. Just one of the many of the reasons I find politicians such nice people.
My father who died at 94 was still driving around his very small town at 92. My siblings and I had long conversations about his giving up driving years before, but it is a matter of independence that older people are giving up and driving in their mind is a big part of that. In IL after 80 you have to take a driving test for a license every year and my dad failed the test one year about 4 times before he passed. Every year after that he passed the first time – go figure.
When we finally got him a caregiver and I was able to convince him that the caregiver would drive him wherever he wanted to go he gave up driving. My dad was not the easiest guy to get along with, but his caregiver, named, Peter, who was a Czech studying to qualify for a medical degree in his home country, got on with my dad just great. We called him St. Peter. When Peter drove my dad to all my dad’s activities he was a big attraction with all my dad’s lady friends young and old. I am sure my dad enjoyed the attention that rubbed off on him.
When my dad was still driving, I used to ask about all the scratches on the sides of his car and he would say what do expect when you have a hard time seeing to the sides. I never knew whether to laugh or cry when I heard that. As I get older I think I realize that a big part of older peoples’ driving problems has to do with their inability and difficulty in moving their heads on their necks from arthritis.
My dad was in my car with my wife and me with me driving when I pulled out of a strange gas station and side swiped a refuse can just beyond the gas pump. When I would do my lecture on driving for my dad he would always bring up that incident. My reply was always, yeah, Dad and I am only half old, but that point never made it through.
SteveF,
Illinois does require those older than 87 to renew their license annually. Jim Sr. passed his test in December 2011. Then he collapsed in early January, we moved the two to assisted living. He never drove again and in July 2012. Legally, he could have driven!
One reason we hoped he’s fail the test in December is that we wanted to him to be forced to move to the assisted living place. (He had cancer and was weak from chemo and periodically would suffer blood loss, which was the cause of his collapse. He really did need to move, but wouldn’t. )
We had our dad in assisted living while he was recovering from a lawn mower accident – he flipped over his riding mower into a ditch. His car was in the garage for repairs and we thought he was off the road for awhile if not for good.
One day I get a phone call from my dad which was a surprise because as I recall the land line service was down. I asked him where he was calling from and he told he had borrowed a cell phone and a ride and was calling to tell me he was at the garage picking up his car.
He said the only way he could tolerate assisted living was having a car.
We all, if we live that long, are going to face these same issues. Getting around if you have access to public transportation or can afford to have someone drive you is not so bad, but if not, you are giving up a lot of independence. Plus all older people are not bad drivers just as not all young people are good drivers.
Carrick,
That NHTSA site is so fraudulent. NHTSA is part of the DOT and they are not shut down because they aren’t funded through the general fund. I was just in a meeting on Friday with several staff from FHWA.
Kenneth,
“We all, if we live that long, are going to face these same issues.”
.
I have told all my kids the same thing: If it is Alzheimer’s, give me a pistol. If it is physical incompetence, take my car keys. Nobody has the right to endanger others lives through incompetence. Fortunately, I can still break 80 on the golf course, at least once in a while, so the bigger danger for me is Alzheimer’s. 🙂
My grandparents, aged 80 & 78 were run over walking home from the grocery store by an 80 year old woman. She put the car in reverse then hit the gas instead of the brake. After the crash she went home laid down and died. Couldn’t live with what she had done.
There’s nothing kind about letting people drive who shouldn’t drive, whether its because they are drunk or because their senses and reactions are diminished through age.
I guess we can all recount accidents that might put a given age group and gender in an unfavorable light. The graphs in Figure 3 and 4 in the link below tells us the general story about auto accident death rates by gender and age. Unfortunately you do not know that much about an individual driver from these statistics anymore than you know about crime rates based on general classifications of people.
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810853.pdf
SteveF, I once had a boss who was a scratch golfer for years and then on reaching his sixties he would shoot in the mid seventies. He used to complain that he was going to quit golfing because he could not stand the frustration. It was if his life as he knew it was over. A lot has to do with your perspective I suppose.
Kenneth,
I suspect the breakdown over 65 is frightening…. Not much change from 65 to 70, then a rapid rise in fatality rate starting at 70-75. It would be impolitic to show just how dangerous the very elderly really are behind the wheel…. But they are dangerous.
We spent the summer moving my parents from their home of 55 years to assisted living nearby. Circumstances required me to go through their financial records of that period looking for cost bases for the house which we were selling. In the course of this, I found a number of checks which My Dad had written to various individuals in amounts ranging up into the high 4 figures. These were attached to notes accepting the check as full and complete payment for damages. These had been written between the time my Dad was 85 and 92 when, although he continued to pass the Illinois driver’s test required annually of folks that age, he finally was convinced he shouldn’t drive any more when he couldn’t find his way home.
Obviously he had been paying off the victims of his driving mishaps.
Incidentally, his father who drove all the way out to the end of his life at 88 had done the same thing, and my dad discovered it the same way I did.
We’ve seen three clear cases where the state’s driving test does not identify the people who shouldn’t.
Mother wanted to bring her Buick (she’s 95) with her on moving into assisted care. Facility said it would only allow it if she took a hospital provided driver’s test. She fought it, but acquiesced eventually, and flunked. At this point she agreed that it was probably for the better.
Father in-law drove until 94, but was caught napping at a stoplight. Mother in law, at 97 backed into another car in parking lot, didn’t hear the noise, drove off, and was caught. She agreed with the cop that her driving days were over.
My great grandfather drove locomotives for the Soo in North Dakota and continued until he died in his ’80s. Family lore is that the railroad wouldn’t let him go out on the line after he passed 75, so was reassigned as a hostler – guy who fires up the loco early in the morning and shunts it out for whoever is going to make the run.
One might accuse the children of gross negligence in allowing at least the elderly car driving hazards to continue. I had thought that telling each of them that they were putting us in a very difficult position because the survivors of an accident caused by them would surely ask us why we had not gotten them off the road. In four cases, this didn’t work.
Maybe we’re wimps.
Carrick,
Other than the order from right to left, pedal location on cars is not specified as to size, separation and relative levels as far as I know. GM, for example, has a larger vertical separation between the brake pedal and the throttle than other brands(or at least it did in the last GM car I drove). So to put on the brakes, you had to lift your right foot more as well as moving it to the left.
Other than faulty cruise control, which only applies when the car is already moving and the cruise control is on, I don’t see any other mechanism to explain ‘unintended’ acceleration other than hitting the wrong pedal. The cruise control on my car won’t engage at all below 25 mph. Cruise controls on automatic transmission cars, in my experience, can’t apply full throttle either.
SteveF, you are, of course, correct that we need a more detailed breakdown of the drivers over 65 to see the increased risk in driving as we get older. I found a paper linked below that details some of the issues of elderly driving and fatality rates.
One issue is that the elderly are more fragile and more likely to be injured fatally in an auto accident because they are, well, old. That condition has to have an effect on the fatality rates that goes beyond driver competence and judgment.
“Compared with drivers in the 30-59 age range, older drivers were twice as likely to die in a car accident. Per licensed driver, drivers 75 and older kill fewer pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and occupants in other vehicles compared with drivers aged 30-59. The majority of the harm caused by elderly drivers is inflicted on themselves and on other elderly passengers, as 75% of people who die in crashes involving elderly drivers are either an elderly passenger or driver themselves.”
You then have the issue of what directions these rates are going into the future.
“The fatality risk among older drivers has declined with each subsequent generation. There has been a reverse trend for the youngest drivers, as their fatality risk has actually increased with each generation (see Graph 1).
Fatal crash involvement rates for drivers aged 75 and older were nearly as high as those for drivers aged 16-19 years old. Each age group’s fatal crash involvement rates declined from 1997 to 2006, but the rate for drivers over 70 declined at a faster rate in comparison with 35-55 year olds each year.”
http://www.senatormoore.com/issues/indepth/seniors/resources/Elderly%20Drivers%20Research.pdf
DeWitt, to make it clear I don’t think very many of the actual reported sudden acceleration events are from stop. Most of them occur while you are at running speed. Check out the cases listed in Consumer Reports:
If you don’t have the automatic cruise engaged, that means you already have your foot on the accelerator, which makes the explanation of how you mistook the accelerator for the brake rather an awkward one at best. In cases where you’re merging, that means you were accelerating at the point where it occurred. It also doesn’t require that your vehicle go into full throttle to cause an accident, as with the cases where people were going in a curve on an on ramp.
As to possible causes, Toyota has acknowledged that the floor mat can shift and jam the accelerator pedal, so that seems like a really obvious explanation for many of them. The electronic throttle control system is a commonly cited cause, so sensor failure and a lack of fail safe testing in the software would be a potential cause. Some automatic cruise controls use (or used) radio frequency signals, so RF interference would be a possible explanation (imagine a ham radio in a vehicle behind you running illegal signal levels, this more common than you might think…it’s very hard to catch somebody operating illegally in a moving vehicle).
We also have few legal rights over our parents. To a large extent, that’s as it should be. One set of adults shouldn’t be able to dictate the life choices of another. We know this with young people– at a certain age, parents no longer have any legal right to dictate their choices. (Parents often having more resources may be able to exert control both to good and ill effect, but they don’t have an legal right to compel adult children to do things.)
The difficulty is that as people age, they do start to have lessened abilities. Often, their judgement as to themselves is impaired. (Heck, it can be when we’re younger too! 🙂 . And worse, we know as we see their mistakes accumulating that they are on a downslide. But to take away adults rights you need to go through quite a few hurdles– and it could involve going to court. This is very difficult.
Heck: If I could dictate her choices, I for one, would love to get my 80 year old mom to make the sensible decision to sell her house and move away from the edge of (or inside) the flood plain. She won’t do it. So you can see how close (or inside):
She insists she is not “in” the flood plain because she’s not in the blue area (1% chance of annual flood.) She’s in the black area (0.2% of annual flood) . So you get to decide if you think she’s “in” or “not in” the flood plain.
She’s never flooded. But owing to the drama, I wish she’d move. But it’s not my call and she’s of generally sound mind. Nothing I can do about this!
Carrick,
I put Consumer Reports in a category only slightly higher than 60 Minutes. They’re what Pielke, Jr. calls stealth advocates, claiming to be honest brokers only reporting the facts, but instead carefully selecting the facts they report to support their agenda. In the case of 60 Minutes, they even fake the data if necessary.
That’s, IMO, a classic example of pedal confusion. If the brakes had actually been applied, the cruise control would have disengaged and the car slowed down. The driver was applying full throttle, not full brakes. For that to have been a cruise control failure, you have to invoke multiple systems failing at the same time, i.e. the cruise control brake interlock, the brakes themselves as well as the throttle control. Hitting the wrong pedal is the simpler explanation and, as I mentioned above, we know from the experience of performance driving school instructors that it does happen and when it does, the driver is not a reliable witness.
Kenneth
Another difficulty is figuring out the appropriate statistics to use. For example consider: “Per licensed driver” may not be appropriate. Also “fatalities” may understate the problems for elderly drivers.
On “per licensed driver”: Before he retired, my father commuted by car. He probably drove at least 50 miles a day. Many years we took at least one family vacation involving a drive to Buffalo NY or to Florida.
After he retired, he mostly drove to the grocery store, Walmart and so on wracking up at most 5 miles a day. He never drove long distances any more (thank heaven!) and nearly all his trips were repetitive paths (i.e. same grocery store. Same Walmart.) Most trips were at low speeds. Naturally, most accidents are also at low speeds. Heck, when the old guy ran through the stores plate glass window, he was probably doing no more than 30 mph. You can break glass at 5mph!
My father-in-law and many others have a similar pattern. After the age of 90, his driving was mostly limited to visiting us, visiting Robert and David (my brothers in law), going to the grocery store and going to the doctor. And more and more, we would persuade him to let us pick him up and drive. Part of the reason the elderly have fewer accidents per licensed driver is they log fewer miles per licensed driver.
On fatalities: you can’t just look at deaths. You need to also look at total accidents. No one died when the guy ran through plate glass window. No one died when my father-in-law backed up into his closed garage door. Many, many of the problems old folks have do not result in death. Obviously, death is a worse outcome than for other accidents, but these other things are problems too. (I’m rooting for self driving cars myself. 🙂 )
I am under the impression that none of the sudden acceleration cases over the years have an actual verified cause. The current Toyota suit started going south when NHTSA found no design flaw and a study of the incidents showed the victims were (very) disproportionately elderly drivers. The residual theory is that the floor mats catch the pedal.
For plaintiffs, it’s important to file when the media climate is favorable and settle before the fed govt and others slowly gather the data and the causation theory weakens. (Same pattern with the GM X-Car litigation–once the full NHTSA accident data was published, the outstanding injury suits all died.)
The frequency of self-reported incidents are always affected by media coverage and should be discounted accordingly.
Toyota as a company is historically utterly terrified of the American legal system and bent over backwards to make this go away. They will spend $3 or 4 billion on cosmetic repairs, PR, modest damage awards and legal fees. They will get some of that back in drag-along repair sales and it now appears there will be no big jury hits.
The quick response media-litigation rhythms and the slow feedback response from empirical science are almost predictable phenomena (Bendectin, breast implant auto-immune disease, X-Cars, etc.) and tend leave a misinformation residue even when clearly resolved.
BTW: I have no theories about sudden acceleration one way or the other.
Sudden acceleration is always the result of a jerk. 😉
On a more serious note, I’ve had a few incidents when the cruise control caused unexpected acceleration. It never caused an accident, and in all cases, application of the brake pedal was effective at disengaging the cruise control. Nevertheless, from my personal history I wouldn’t discount the possibility of the cruise control software/circuitry going awry.
George,
Don’t forget how Audi was nearly driven out of the American market by a phonied up 60 minutes report.
Or the (in)famous NBC hit on GM, where they used fireworks to ‘enhance’ how vulnerable certain trucks were to side impact gasoline explosions.
DeWitt, the cases that I included were quotes from actual reports. I’m relying on that, not anything other. You haven’t adequately explained why certain models have a much higher confusion rate, nor why sudden acceleration events appear to occur where the foot was obviously already on the gas.
Differences in spacings or physical size that causes nearly a 10-fold increase in pedal mistakes? Sounds like we need a new safety standard if that’s true….
George Tobin:
That is certainly one acknowledged mechanism.
I trust the NHTSA about as much as Consumer Reports, which is to say, if they quote something, I’ll accept that as valid without checking, and that’s about it.
Toyota did add a brake-override feature that cuts off the throttle when the brakes are applied hard. I wonder why that isn’t always there on all makes and models…
HaroldW as I mentioned above, I had a car that would suddenly accelerate when it was in cruise control after I hit a bump. Hitting the brakes alway stopped it, as did turning off the cruise control.
I’ve experimented with the cruise control on vehicles that I rent, and had a Ford truck I was driving once where I “resumed” from low-speed. It may not have been full throttle speeding up, but it accelerated faster than I would have.
test (fiddled with zbblock due to cloudflare enabled spam/hack.)
I found some interesting and a bit dated statistics for accident rates by age and gender. Accident involvement for elderly drivers is less condemning for that age group than fatal accident rates for the elderly – which goes along with the fragility issue. Also interesting is that accident rates for female to male against age increases generally with age and appears to cross 1.00 in the early 20s years of age. The conjecture is that it has to do with less miles and thus driver experiences for females resulting in more accidents.
Also interesting that the public pronouncements seem to want to condemn adult children of the elderly for letting them drive and much less is said about parents of teenagers when the accidents rates are higher for the teenagers. In our legal system parents should have more “control” over their children than over their parents. Also the fact that older people drive less should not be statistical held against them as that is a good thing. We should look at accidents for numbers of people in the age group.
The fact that older people, in general, have slower reaction times and even can be more easily confused than when younger is not in dispute. Neither is the fact that drinking and taking dope can have similar effects, in general, on people of all ages. Neither in doubt is the fact that younger people, in general, can apply poorer judgment when driving..
http://www.senatormoore.com/issues/indepth/seniors/resources/Elderly%20Drivers%20Research.pdf
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/1007/83596.0001.001.pdf
jsessionid=3BDE63A76471C02A9E2CE6C12B09AE6B?sequence=2
Carrick,
If it were hardware or software related, then it should be reproducible and should be similar across different manufacturers as the software and hardware aren’t all that different. That pretty much leaves driver error with a likely contribution from ergonomics.
As far as the foot already being on the accelerator, a loss of concentration for some reason followed by a sudden recognition that one was traveling faster than intended followed by not moving the foot far enough and pressing on the wrong pedal is still more likely, IMO, than any other cause.
A definitive piece of data that seems to be lacking in these reports is any mention of brake overheating. If one were traveling any distance at speed with the brakes on full, they would heat up a lot. Also, with ABS, you know when the brakes are on full because the pedal vibrates as the system regulates the pressure to keep the brakes from locking. I suspect a lot of people don’t know this because they may never have actually used the full capacity of their brakes. It takes some getting used to.
Thinking more on the subject, there is the dreaded ABS ice mode. If you apply the brakes very hard, very fast or hit a bump under braking or a lot of other things and more than one wheel starts to lock, the computer thinks you’re on ice and reduces either brake pressure boost or reduces brake system pressure and possibly shifts brake bias towards the rear axle. In that case, instead of the pedal vibrating, it becomes very hard. Based on some searching, it’s not at all clear that applying more pressure to the pedal makes much difference. You apparently have to take your foot off the brakes completely for it to reset. There’s an ABS warning light on the dash that will come on, but I would be surprised if a driver noticed it in a panic situation. But cruise control should still disengage. Most of the references I found on this were from sports car and high performance driving related sites, no mention of unintended acceleration, just too little deceleration.
I’ll tell you who certainly *didn’t* die in a car accident.
Uh. Sorry. Couldn’t think of a better transition than that.
I haven’t heard any public pronouncements condemning adult children for “letting” their parents drive. I think a lot of adult children are frustrated they can’t stop some who have clearly gotten too confused to drive, but that’s a different thing. The confusion when driving can lead to all sorts of issue in addition to accidents — getting lost among them. Jim Sr. got lost once in 2012 — in Dupage county where he’d lived for years. I think one of the main reasons Rosemary (mother in law) stopped driving is she realized she became confused got scared not being sure how to get home.
On the young drivers issue: No one disputes young drivers get into more accidents.
What we should look at depends on what we are trying to learn. The paper you linked agrees with me on this.
As I said before: I look forward to self driving cars! 🙂
Yes, that’s why we get charged more for car insurance.
I have to expect that the data being discussed is used in the development of the actuarial tables already, of course.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #120210)
October 15th, 2013 at 5:29 pm
I agree that based on the analyses that almost all of these unintended acceleration incidents are driver related. Of course, it makes a better story when the problems can be blamed on the auto maker. Biased and poor investigative reporting do not help increase our understanding in these situations – much like global warming reporting.
DeWitt:
Some of these are known problems, like stuck throttle cables and floor mats jamming the accelerator. I’ll note that throttle cables are still widely in use.
As to purely electronic issues, unless you understand the cause of the failure, it’s very hard to reproduce in a lab. What was the CPU temperature at the time of the failure? Was there a nearby source of EMI, and if so what amplitude and frequency content? This is a case of absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
As to this “the software and hardware aren’t all that different”, I’m afraid you are mis-informed. The hardware isn’t just the CPU it’s the network of sensors and mechanical design that matters. Each vehicle type is a unique system in that respect
Of course this is untestable speculation. So what? Their tin-foil hats could have slipped too. Prove me wrong.
It’s my impression that most reported cases only involve a few seconds of acceleration, but have you looked at any of the actual reports?
In the case I linked above, it isn’t mentioned either way, but then the vehicle ends up rolling at 120 mph. I don’t think it was a sudden acceleration event though, I think it was a stuck throttle cable in an already depressed accelerator pedal.
I think a more plausible explanation than errors that asymmetrically affect certain vehicles is that “sudden acceleration events” should be described as “unstoppable acceleration events”. If you look at the Toyota recalls, you’ll see “The accelerator pedal may become stuck in partially depressed position” in reference to a worn accelerator pedal.
Carrick,
I’m not the one wearing the tinfoil hat here. In the end, it’s 100% driver error regardless of the initial cause as the driver should have put the transmission in neutral.
Andrew_FL,
Good to see you are alive and well. Grad school, yet?
I think it is also interesting that all four of the over 90 drivers in my family passed their state driving tests annually having lost most of their navigational skills – could get lost a mile from home.
My apprehensions about facing the family of the victims of an accident caused by one of my parents was more a moral one – I doubt that there is any legal obligation to get one’s ancestors off the road once they’ve lost it. I didn’t want to be in that unenviable position, but was unable to muster the nerve to take away my mother’s keys. There are logistical issues, too.
Many of the people whose decline through aging should get them off the road have no realistic alternative to driving to support living in their own homes, shopping, etc.
If you take the keys you have to solve those issues too, or at least we thought we did. And we did solve them, but that’s a well off-topic discussion, familiar to our hostess and likely some others.
I would add that the idea of “knowing when to quit” is a nice thought, but not born out in practice by the elders I know. Almost all have left the road only after an event.
People may not be good judges of their own prowess. I discovered via a couple of episodes during my flying years that I was not able to recognize decay in my abilities until presented with clear outside evidence like having to miss an easy approach – after flying all night on no-sleep. I thought I was sharp, and clearly wasn’t. I suspect that this may be universal.
Our plan is to move into a CCRC while we still can muster most of our wit, such that we will no longer “need” to drive and can taper off with some semblance of grace.
A good CCRC, Meadowlakes near Princeton NJ for example, can be like the university, where you can surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. Ah, er,… likely easier for me than you 😉
John
Actually I’m working now. Kinda been running low on money so I figure if I don’t want to wind up in debt I better put any further education on hold for a while.
Personally I’ve always felt that we should get back to the pre-social security idea of children taking care of their very elderly parents when they get to the point of being unable to support themselves. But you can’t make people do it, of course.
But that kind of thing used to be more common. I think we should try to identify the incentive structure that changed that, at least.
By the way, what’s happened to Jeff, anyway?
Andrew_FL
The elderly don’t want it. The ‘younger elderly’ really don’t want it. It puts them in the position of older teens and those of college age — those with money may not have a legal right to force anyone to do things, but they hold purse strings.
Id? When moving his business to Michigan, he got very busy. And I think he’s focusing on his business. Hobby blogging is something that ebbs and flows for most people.
Yeah, there is certainly the issue that, generally, you can’t force people to do things they don’t want to do, or shouldn’t.
Andrew_F
Not forcing people can be pretty challenging. We were faced with parents who could no longer mind the store. Mid-90s, living in house built for them in 65, Dad with a pleasant flavor of dementia, and Mother losing control of food-prep hygiene (no examples out of respect for this wonderful blog), no idea what checks were being signed, bills not paid, broken things not fixed, etc, not to mention the driving.
Their wherewithal did give us choices though. We hired a personal business manager to mind the store, had all the mail intercepted so bills wouldn’t be tossed, got control of the check book and cancelled all but one credit card. But this wasn’t enough. Mother insisted she was perfectly capable of being Dad’s care-giver, and she sort of was, but what if she fell “and couldn’t get up?” Dad wouldn’t know what to do.
So we gave her the choice of assisted living either in their house or at a nearby (really nice) CCRC. The in-house choice required remodeling of one of the bedroom-bath setups to make an apartment with some privacy for the live-in. I was able to design it so it could be undone to sell the house.
Mom thought about this for a couple of days and decided that moving to the CCRC was a better idea, she couldn’t deal with having “someone under foot.”
I must credit mom with one of the funniest observations on situations like this.
“At this age, there is no more keeping up with the Jones’s. They’re all dead.”
There is a lot more to this than I’ve written here, but I suppose most of it would be similar to other people our age’s (71) experience.
There is also the Medicaid dodge which I think would curl your hair if you heard it, and it seems widely exercised although to my mind it is immoral – maybe criminal.
Details of how this works if anyone is interested.
Well I meant more society forcing individuals personally. I think the children and parents themselves have to work it out amongst themselves. Children should try to do what is best for their elderly parents if they can, but we can’t make them.
Andrew_FL (Comment #120238),
What did you study? What kind of work are you doing?
Mechanical engineering, and presently I’m doing some office work for a company my father works for, but I’m presently looking for a second job. I have a few promising leads but I haven’t heard back from anyone yet. ‘Course the job market kinda sucks right now but it could be worse.
Andrew FL,
Please contact me via my company web site: http://www.cpsinstruments.com (email is there).
DeWitt:
Let’s look at a realizable sudden-acceleration scenario: You’re merging onto an onramp and your throttle cable sticks. You have maybe two seconds before impact.
“The driver should have put the transmission in neutral” is one that may or may not work here (you might get rear ended if the traffic is heavy), but there’s not a lot of time for mulling over solutions in any case.
Hardly a tin-foil hat scenario.
And of course, it’s not 100% driver’s error regardless of the drivers response, when you have equipment failure, unless it is a maintenance issue.
I’m probably too late on this thread but if you’re still here:
j ferguson,
What is the Medicaid dodge?
Anyone,
Wouldn’t the money saved by giving up driving enable one to use a taxi from time to time? My plan for later is the assumption that if I can’t walk down the mountain (45 mins), I probably can’t live in my house either. So I’d walk down, do my shopping and have a taxi take me back up – and save money if that was about once a week.
Kendra
Your in Switzerland right? In the US, the cab strategy could work in larger cities. But it’s not practical the far suburbs and definitely not as you get far out in the countryside. The US is very sprawling.
That said: Even here, the need for a car could be eliminated but it would involve giving up many things many of the elderly value — even if only symbolically. I would say that in the case of both my mother and my in-laws, it is/was very important to them to be seen as independent, self sustaining, and in no way declining. They don’t even want to be see themselves preparing for the time when they will no longer be able to take care of their selves, house, lawn etc. I think to them, having these things was not only something they wanted for practical reasons when they had kids, but for symbolic reasons. It’s important to many to specifically see themselves as “home owner” and not “renter” and ideally of a single family dwelling. This is also symbolic as much as anything else.
In this context, the idea of moving to an apartment or condo was a step they resisted (or still resist.) So, it is always something to be done ‘in the future’ when they — by their own self assessment– can no longer do these maintain a ‘single family dwelling’ at all.
I don’t know if things have always been this way. But at least with my parents generation, I see this element.
In contrast, my grandfather and his wife moved to a gated condo community that had ran regular mini-vans to the grocery stores, malls and other places so one could live there without owning a car. (This was especially useful for the people who vacationed there as they could fly from their ‘main’ summer home in a northerly state, spend time in florida and not own a car. But elderly could also use it year around. And my grandfather’s wife did use it– even considering it convenient for grocery shopping. She didn’t consider the ‘inconvenience’ of having to remember the schedule or even fit her own habits into the schedule as a problem.)
You’d think these places would catch on but …. not so much.
Even where some of these places exist, to get people to move there, the facility generally has to provide them the illusion that they will still drive.
The Devonshire where my in-laws moved after my father-in-law collapsed has provisions for residents to have cars. A few do have cars. Few of those who have the cars use them because– while one could move there at the age of 55 and live in what amounts to a cross between a hotel and luxury-dorm, almost no one actually does move there at that age. Those that do are generally in wheelchairs and so on. So what generally happens is the kids pester their aging parent to move… and the fact that they can ‘keep’ the car is essential to getting the parent to decide it’s ok there. Then once they are their, dinner is included, and as day-to-day choices unfold, the elderly residents end up not driving to the grocery store, mall and so on. (In many cases, these same elderly parents hadn’t been driving to anyplace other than the grocery store, so, you can imagine it makes sense they wouldn’t suddenly begin driving to other destinations after moving.)
So most the residents at the Devonshire who do go on outings use use the mini-vans– or are so far along that in the end, on a daily basis they chose to never avail themselves of the mini-vans just stay in the Devonshire itself the way my Father in law did!
In the end, much of our ‘elderly driving cars’ problem has to do with (a) sprawl which we have a lot of and (b) what American’s value.
Lucia, yes, I’m in Switzerland, and I probably do see things differently due to that. Among others, most people don’t own their own homes – never have.
But the idea of independence is still an issue – for instance, I’ve noticed many assisted living institutions are within the town – so the “inmates” only have to walk out and down the street to be “in the life” so to speak, for instance at a cafe. So they are not dependent on either driving themselves or being driven to be out in the world.
As far as driving goes: my grandmother lived with my family for many years – but in a garage apartment – in fact, the main reason my family bought that house (which I hated). Somewhere around her 70th year, they did somehow talk her out of having a car, so she was dependent on my mother to take her. I don’t remember any issues of her having been unable to drive.
My own mother gave up driving of her own accord. She had a fright when “it was decided” that the car she was used to – my father did most of the driving until his sudden death – was too unreliable and was sold and replaced. She also hit the gas instead of the brakes. Nothing happened except her fright – she was diabetic and had lost feeling in her feet and had depended on the movement from accelerator to brake being the same in the new car as the old.
She was in assisted living for 3 years after a kidney failure crisis that began when she visited me in Zurich. The first year, I stayed with my brother and made day trips to the very-isolated assisted living – which had been an emergency, temporary solution. Then she got into a permanent situation, with two rooms. Both on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. That allowed me to visit her and stay with her for several weeks each year, with my husband joining us for several more. We love to tell stories of having vacationed in the old folks home!
The overwhelming feeling I came away with was the problem of isolation. Independence had already become old news. If someone visited, it was an incredibly big deal. Little old ladies and men would proudly show off that they had a visitor. This put my brother in a horrible situation – he worked, had his own family, the home was miles away, so he always got to be the jerk who only showed up for half an hour once a week – not always even that.
I’ve read your previous posts re Jim’s family – and must say I am quite impressed with the caring and time that you both were willing and seemingly happy to put in to the situation.
I probably underrated the independence aspect. OTOH, I didn’t mention my sister-in-law lives nearby – but since we are not “close friends” – I definitely prefer to see a future independent of asking her for favors. I do happen to have friends in the area, who would help out by taking me to various other places than the necessary – and they are all younger!
I think what I’m starting to see is that there is the independence aspect and the isolation aspect – and that it depends on the person’s situation which takes on the most importance. Many, many years ago, in the Berne area, my mother started to notice that the farmhouses all had a mini-farmhouse on the property – she was so impressed that that’s where the older generation went to live when the younger took over the farm – they’re called stöckli (not to be confused with Thomas Stocker, haha). I think what she liked was that the older generation stepped aside and let the younger generation take over – but they didn’t get kicked to the curb.
Just a note – my mother in law here still drives at 85 – yes, just tested – but she did drive down here 2 years ago (3 hrs through the mtns) – but now only grocery store, etc. But what unnerved her here was the going down the mountain – only one-lane and the one going down has to back up unless obvious that the one coming up is closer to a turnout. It was inability to turn her head. So all she had to do – her Italian is fine – is tell the other car at an impasse that they would have to either back up or get in her car and back up for her!
Kendra,
The “Medicaid dodge” is a scheme to take advantage of the US Medicaid program (welfare) to have the government pay many of the last years of a parent’s medical expenses rather than the parent. In the US, the last several years of medical expenses for the elderly can be very (VERY) expensive and can include charges not otherwise covered by MediCare (US government insurance program) such as full-time nursing care.
Medicaid is not available to people who might otherwise be able to afford the care through their own resources.
The dodge is to have the parent give his wealth to the children rather than leave it in his estate. This way it is taxed, but the children do get most of it. The parent now has no money, qualifies for Medicaid and the government pays for his/her nursing care.
There is a look-back period, which i think is five years to prevent this being done at the last minute, but plenty of people appear to do it anyway.
In short, the children are grabbing the parent’s money and throwing the parent onto the welfare of the state – at the expense of the rest of us.
Kendra
Yes. If the normal living pattern for most Americans was to live in apartments in heavily populated ares, then the assisted living institutions would likely be there too, and people could just go out. But generally, that’s not quite the case.
This can be the case. Particularly if, for some reason, the elderly person does not want to hunt for a place near their child or no place near exists or the places that are too expensive or are seen as too expensive. Also: very many elderly do not want to move in with their kids which could save costs. But it’s considered undesirable. Period. Their kids might not want them to move in either. It goes both ways.
I think back when people had farms and to some extent, mechanization was less than it is now, this arrangement made a huge amount of sense because the older people knew they didn’t have the physical strength to do many farm tasks. And if people got used to it, they saw it as natural especially if the reason to move is seen as generosity — the older make room so the grand children can live in the big house– rather than decrepitude. How one views the move can matter because people don’t like to see themselves as being forced to move because they are becoming incapable.
My mom still drives. But I know she avoids driving at night. I don’t worry about her driving yet. But I do worry about her living alone … on a flood plain. OTOH: I don’t lose sleep over it. There is nothing I can do anyway and it’s not like floods happen constantly.
j ferguson (Comment #120366),
Nice description of the Medicaid dodge. The five-year lookback provision makes it a little more difficult, but generous gifts (currently up to $13,000 per person per year) are tax free. So grandma can easily fund all the grandchildren’s college via gifts over multiple-years. Everything counts toward the lifetime gift/inheritance exclusion limit (about $5 million), but it is easy to see how generous gifts more than 5 years before expensive nursing home care likely means the family probably won’t lose much of Gandma’s estate due to nursing home costs…. and can stick it to the taxpayer.
SteveF (#120369)
“So grandma can easily fund all the grandchildren’s college via gifts over multiple-years.”
As I understand it, direct payment of tuition is outside the gift-tax provisions. So the $13K per person per year [apparently $14K now; see link below] can be given in addition to funding the grandchildren’s college.
There is a lifetime limit to the annual gift-tax exclusion. But it’s high enough that it wouldn’t affect most families.
Link
Carrick,
Try reading something other than Consumer Reports.
With rare exception, yes, it is. As a driver, you should be able to keep control of your vehicle even when equipment fails. Occasional equipment failure is simply going to happen. But drivers are taught and tested on how to control a car under normal situations, not emergencies. As a result, they usually panic when something goes wrong, compounding what might have been a minor incident into a major disaster.
If a car continues to accelerate when you think you’re applying the brakes, you’re not actually applying the brakes. If you’re ever in this situation, put your left foot on the brake pedal and push hard. Then take your right foot off whatever pedal it’s on. There is no way the car is going to continue to accelerate. A 540 hp car could be stopped, barely, with a wide open throttle from 100 mph. Stopping distance from 100 mph for a 2009 Camry V6 was increased from 347 to 435 feet feet with a wide open throttles ( http://www.caranddriver.com/features/how-to-deal-with-unintended-acceleration ). Even starting at 120 mph with a WOT, the Camry was slowed to 10 mph before the brakes faded completely.
Or this
Carrick,
From DeWitt’s link:
Occam’s razor.
SteveF,
DeWitt has stead-fastly refused to accept any information that doesn’t fit into his preconceptions of the problem description. That’s not Occam’s Razor, that’s looking at the evidence with your eyes closed.
I don’t doubt that pedal confusion explains some portion of the reported events. For those, you see an increased incident rate for older drivers.
I accept that a brake pedal in a properly working vehicle will stop a car (if the brakes fail for whatever reason of course they won’t stop the vehicle). I accept that given enough time, you can work out to either put the car in neutral, turn the engine off, etc.
I also accept that a certain percentage of reports are fabrications—people hear about these, then fabricate a story to avoid taking fault for an accident.
For all of the following scenarios (which are based on real-life events), what do you think the probable outcome is (assume you have just a few seconds to respond):
1) You apply the gas pedal and the throttle cable sticks, so the car continues to accelerate as you merge onto a busy interstate, or you approach a section of road where you’ve now exceeded the safe operating speed (e.g., curve).
2) The floor mat shifts and prevents the accelerator returning to an “unpressed” state and you have a few seconds to impact.
3) The cruise control fails either due to a malfunctioning switch or EMI, the vehicle surges forward and you have a few seconds to impact.
It’s important to recognize that these are all scenarios that fit into descriptions of actual accidents that were categorized as “sudden acceleration” events.
The Consumer Reports article I linked to above is no less plausible an article than the Car & Driver or Motor Trend. What makes one group trustworthy and other not? I suppose it’s whether they shill for the industry or not.
I looked at the brake pedal issue a bit more: It does turn out that there is a complication for automatic brakes.
If your throttle is stuck wide open, and you pump the brakes, it can cause the brake system to fail to provide adequate stopping power:
The recommend operation is to put the car in neutral, then apply the brakes (without lifting foot off), to bring it to a halt then turn the engine off.
Carrick,
“1) You apply the gas pedal and the throttle cable sticks, so the car continues to accelerate as you merge onto a busy interstate, or you approach a section of road where you’ve now exceeded the safe operating speed (e.g., curve).
2) The floor mat shifts and prevents the accelerator returning to an “unpressed†state and you have a few seconds to impact.
3) The cruise control fails either due to a malfunctioning switch or EMI, the vehicle surges forward and you have a few seconds to impact.”
.
All three: step on the brake…. hard. And make sure you are not actually on the accelerator. 🙂
As for shilling: Consumer Reports is an advocate for… well, consumers. I don’t think that makes them particularly qualified to evaluate claims of sudden acceleration (or any claim of safety related product malfunction). I think Motor Trend offends manufacturers as much as shills for them… they do lots of comparative side-by-side evaluations, and end up saying one car is better than the others. By the way, I actually had the floor-mat issue in a car many years ago (I think it was a Dodge Minivan); I stepped on the brakes to slow the car, then held the brake in with my left foot and pulled the accelerator up with the toe of my right foot once I figured out what was happening. (I later cut the floor-mat to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.) I never thought about it again until this thread. I can certainly understand how someone could panic and NOT get on the breaks if this happened, just as I can understand how panic, from any cause, can lead to all kinds of unexpected and unintended actions. You should see the crazy things that otherwise sane people do when trying to back a good size boat into a slip under difficult conditions (like strong cross current or wind). I expect John Ferguson has seen some of this as well.
Hello All.
Gong back to the “plague” theme…
The plague that hit the Eastern Mediterranean in the 540s lasted till the 740s or a little later. In 747/48 it turned Constantinople into a ghost town, and the city had to be forcibly repopulated in the next decade. See the Chronicles by Theophanes and Nikeforos for this.
As for the start of the plague in the 540s, bishop John of Ephesos provides this eyewitness description, which was copied into and preserved in the later Chronicle of Zuqnin:
“Now when the plague became momentous, it started to cross the sea toward Palestine and the region of Jerusalem, while terrifying phantoms also appeared before people at sea. As the pestilence was spreading from one place to another, numerous spectres of boats of copper were seen, in which what looked like headless people were sitting, holding poles of copper. They moved along in the sea in this way, and were seen going where they were destined to go. These dreadful spectres were seen in every region as shining copper and in the form of fire, especially during the nights. Likewise, headless black people were seen, sitting in the shining boats, going along quickly in the sea, in such a way that people almost expired while looking at them! Those boats were seen going toward Gaza, Ashkelon and Palestine, and with their appearance came the beginning of the plague.†(Chronicle of Zuqnin, Part III, pp 96-97.)
What do you think?
All the best,
Captain Squid.