Callers reported to the police around 1 a.m. on Monday night that a white Fiat Panda was speedily driving through the same streets in the center of the Italian community of Bondeno. When the carabinieri stopped the car just a few minutes later, they were more than astonished: a 103-year-old woman was driving.
As several Italian media reported, the senior woman’s driver’s license had already expired two years ago. The insurance coverage for the car had already expired. The officers suspected that the woman was disoriented and therefore kept driving through the same streets.
The police issued a fine and had the vehicle picked up by a tow truck. He loaded it up and took it to the place the woman wanted. The police then drove the woman home to Vigarano Pieve, around nine kilometers away. According to her own information, the lady, who was born in 1920, was visiting friends in Bondeno and was on her way home.
As the newspaper “Il Resto del Carlino” writes, the elderly woman had already been stopped by the police a few months earlier. Apparently she also wanted to have her driver’s license renewed afterward, but she was unable to do so. Nevertheless, she got behind the wheel again.
In Italy, people over the age of 50 have to take a fitness test every five years, from the age of 70 every three years and from the age of 80 every two years. At the end of February, the EU Parliament addressed the question of whether driving license holders have to have regular medical checks. But the majority of MPs decided against an EU-wide regulation and advocated that national governments should decide for themselves whether they want to introduce mandatory regular health checks for drivers.
Before new rules come into force, a compromise must be found between Parliament’s demands and the position of the EU states. Negotiations on this will only begin after a new European Parliament has been elected in the summer.
Watch the video above: The cost of driving licenses has skyrocketed over the last few years. On average, a student driver pays 3,070 euros for driving training. Union transport politicians are of the opinion that this has to change – and want to reduce costs with various measures.
Quellen: La Repubblica, Il Resto del Carlino, DPA
