Driver Accused Of Causing Cyclist To Crash

Just about any person, place, thing or state of being can be a tool or a weapon.  Included in the latter category are advanced age and the knowledge and wisdom it brings--for some people, anyway.  Among the "things" are the pharmaceuticals and the automobile and its many safety and convenience features.

Age, pharmaceuticals, the automobile and one of its features in particular came together to endanger the life of a cyclist in Gerry, an Erie County, New York town near the Pennsylvania border.

Dale Reynolds of Meadville, Pennsylvania was driving along Route 60 when he flashed his high beams at a cyclist traveling in the opposite directions.  High beams, of course, can be useful in dire situations, when the weather is brutish and visibility is poor. But those same lights are too often used to bully and otherwise intimidate cyclists, pedestrians and other drivers.

According to New York State police, Reynolds showed "multiple signs" of drug impairment, which resulted in his arrest.  Oh, and he's 82 years old.  I'm not saying that there should be a cut-off age for driving.  But I think there should be more frequent and stringent testing of senior citizens' reaction times and other cognitive abilities if they are to be allowed to continue driving.  You have to wonder, not only about Reynolds' reflexes, or his judgment:  He ought to know, at this late date, not to drive while impaired.

The failed sobriety tests resulted in his arrest for impaired driving--and causing the cyclist at whom he flashed his high beams to crash.  Gerry EMS workers took the cyclist to a local hospital as a precaution,  while Reynolds was taken to the State Police Barracks in Jamestown, where he was processed, charged, released and scheduled to appear in Gerry Court later this month.

While there are cyclists who ride carelessly and flout laws, my four decades-plus of cycling have shown me that drivers are too often not held to account for endangering, deliberately or not, cyclists.  While I am not hoping for a long prison sentence for an 82-year-old man, I am hoping that Reynolds gets whatever help and treatment he needs and, if necessary, his driving privileges restricted or revoked.