The open road

Author and columnist Carl Hiaasen is known for comical mystery stories set in South Florida. Nearly all have a strong environmental stance and concern the runaway corruption, greed and graft that characterize the state. A typical story might include a hit man who walks around for a month with the decomposing severed head of a pit bull clamped to his arm.  Hiaasen’s books are hilarious; the reality of Florida is less so.

What about an elderly driver tooling around all day with the body of a dead and partially dismembered pedestrian halfway through his windshield?  Florida seems to give a free pass to anyone with a driver’s license. You can renew by mail and never again have to take as much as a vision test.  A few years ago, a neighbor of mine was hit broadside by an elderly driver. Several ribs were broken.  The confused driver attempted to back up so that the victim could exit his BMW but then stepped hard on the gas and rammed him again, breaking some vertebrae this time.

According to a CNN story, yesterday a toll booth operator in St Petersburg saw to his horror 92 year old Ralph Parker drive through his booth on the Sunshine Parkway with a body protruding through the windshield and called the police.  The victim, with one leg severed has not yet been identified.

According to authorities,  Parker who renewed his license two years ago, did not seem to know where he was or what he was doing, but loved to get in his car and drive for the sheer enjoyment of the open road.