Crash at Florida Farmers Market Leaves 6 Injured

An elderly driver. A busy farmers market. And Friday, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, another lurching car that sowed panic among vendors and customers.

Nine days after an 86-year-old driver crashed his Buick into an outdoor market in Santa Monica, killing 10 people, a 79-year-old man apparently lost control of his automobile at the farmers market in Flagler Beach, north of Daytona Beach.

According to Flagler Beach officials, Louis Nirenstein, a polio victim who uses a wheelchair when not driving, was in the weekly market’s parking lot shortly after 10 a.m. He was getting ready to leave after shopping, he said, when the gas pedal of his Crown Victoria station wagon got stuck.

The car “sped out, struck three vehicles, and careened directly into the center of one of the booths selling peaches and strawberries, striking two of the tables,” Flagler Beach Fire Chief Jon Macdonald said. “Six people were hit.”

The people hurt were hospitalized, but Macdonald said their injuries did not appear serious. The fire chief, who arrived first at the scene, administered first aid to a 7-year-old girl whose left leg had been run over.

“She still has the tire marks,” Macdonald said. But he said the limb didn’t seem to have been broken.

Last week’s incident in Santa Monica, in which more than 50 people were also injured, riveted nationwide attention on older drivers and whether they present a heightened risk to themselves and others. On Thursday, a lobby group for the country’s road builders and related industries released a report in Washington that said Americans age 70 and older are driving more these days and are involved in more fatal accidents. The study covers the period from 1991 to 2001.

“Elderly drivers drive an average of 37 minutes a day, 27% more than a decade ago,” said Carolyn Bonifas, a spokeswoman for the Road Information Program, which did the study. At the same time, fatalities of older drivers have gone up 27%, the report said.

“There were 2,494 older drivers killed in road crashes in 1991, and that increased to 3,164 in 2001,” Bonifas said. In that decade, she said, deaths in all age groups combined rose only 2%.

After Friday’s crash, Macdonald said, he had to coax Nirenstein from his station wagon, which was covered with strawberries from the fruit stand he rammed.

“He was visibly upset,” Macdonald said. “He knew he had caused injuries.”

Later, Nirenstein, of Palm Coast, told Associated Press he wasn’t to blame.

“It wasn’t my fault,” he said. He said he couldn’t budge the accelerator of his 1991 Ford once it was depressed, and that it was unfair to compare him with the driver from California.

“I’ve got my wits about me,” Nirenstein said. “Once in a while, a car will let you down.”

Donna Kearney, a Police Department secretary in the town of 6,000, said that the incident was being investigated and that charges were pending. The toll might have been higher, she said, had the weather on Friday morning not been overcast with a threat of rain.

“We only had a third of the crowd we have there usually,” Kearney said. “If this had been a nice sunny day, it would have been disastrous.”

Last week, George Russell Weller told police he might have stepped on the accelerator instead of the brake before plowing through the outdoor market in Santa Monica. Though he had had a clean driving record until then, California officials revoked Weller’s license. Police have not yet decided whether to file criminal charges.

Bonifas said the Road Information Program study had been made “very timely” by the Santa Monica incident.

“It is important for older drivers to make an honest assessment of their skills, perhaps by limiting their driving to daylight hours and familiar routes,” she said. “Yet it might be necessary for a loved one or doctor to step in and take away that permit.”

As baby boomers age and increase the ranks of America’s older drivers, her group is also recommending increasing the size of lettering on signs, creating turn lanes or widening existing ones, making road markings brighter and placing signs farther from intersections to give drivers more time to react.

“Those are improvements helpful to older drivers, but also to drivers of all ages,” Bonifas said.

In 2001, the group said, Florida led the nation with 268 older drivers killed in accidents, a 70% increase in 10 years, followed by Texas with 254 and California with 224.

Earlier this month, Gov. Jeb Bush signed a law that will subject Florida’s seniors to a new requirement if they want to stay on the road. Starting Jan. 1, residents of the state 79 and older will have to undergo vision tests to renew their license, which can be every four to six years depending on their driving records.

“We definitely want to make sure the road stays safe,” said Joe Lawrence, a public information specialist with the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in Tallahassee. “As of now, you can renew up to two times by mail or the Internet. If you have a good driving record, it can be 18 years between vision tests.”