Woman dies near Nora Springs
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One has to ask if age was a factor in causing the driver to not yeild at the intersection of Echo Avenue and U.S. Highway 18 near Nora Springs. So it was reported by the Iowa State Patrol.
Mary E. Ott, 81, died in the accident that sent two others to the hospital. She was a passenger in a Cadillac driven by Richard E. Ott, 83, also of Greene. The vehicle was northbound on County Road T24 (Echo Avenue) when the driver failed to yield to a Chevrolet van driving west on U.S. Highway 18 and was struck by the van at the intersection, according to the Iowa State Patrol.
David Baker, 37 was taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital. The passenger in the Ott vehicle was flown to Mercy and the driver of the car that failed to yield died. The driver was 81 years old.
I once represented an elderly woman who drove only to the nursing home to visit her friends, to the doctor when the need arose and to church every Sunday. Her children thought, "What trouble can she get into with the little she drives?" Of course the unfortunate choice they made was buying her only the minimum limits of automobile liability insurance coverage. On a very nice day she was driving along a rode she'd driven a thousand times, ran a red light and t-boned a Volkswagen Rabbit. The young family inside the Volkswagen was seriously injured. The baby in the back seat was thrown out a window broken during the collision, was run over in the intersection and died. It was a tragic event. Don't make this same mistake, buy adequate insurance and when your time comes stop driving. As we age sensory and motor skills deteriorate. I'm not saying the Ott woman had sensory and motor skills that contributed to this accident, but her age certainly raises the question that will need to be explored in any civil litigation.
Should she have been driving? You answer the question.