All right, it's tied down for our, um, we do this every month. It's our, uh, Racine County,
uh, staying safe program. I get distracted here for a second. I Racine County, uh, traffic
safety commission staying safe program. And with me this morning is, um, Tom Ditter,
he is the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission. Good morning. Good
morning, Donna. Good morning to the listeners out there. You made it through the smoke in
the rain. I did. They used to didn't smell the smoke. No, no, I, I don't, but you do. So
that's all that counts, isn't it? I will keep you safe. Remember I was law enforcement.
I did. Yeah. I was in the blue door. Now I'll keep you safe from the smoke. All right,
now every month we talk about a different aspect of staying safe in the community, whether
it be a bus safety, um, let's say we had drive, uh, let me go through some of the list
here we had in the past. We had snow plows. Oh, it seems like a million years away, doesn't
it? Snow plows safety rules of the road, the highway work zone safety, water and boating
safety last month was motorcycle safety. And we had a picture here. We had one of the
officers with his, uh, canine was here, right? Yeah, it was a good picture. Now this
is a real touchy topic driving in your older years. Now a lot of people say, well, I don't
care. I know how to drive. Yeah, this is very, very touchy and because I had to live through
it with my mom, my dad, he knew when time was up. My mother, she kind of knew too, but,
um, it's still tough when you got to take the keys away. Yeah, because your eyesight starts
going, your distractions, your reaction time goes, hey, it's kind of tough. So this is
a tough topic. So let's talk about this growing older and driving. All right. Well, uh, you're
right. This is kind of the, uh, you know, how they once in a while would talk about social
security being the third rail of, of topics. This certainly was, uh, how, how we got going in this
direction was I was with a program called Rasing County Triad, which was a crime prevention
and safety program for older adults, senior citizens, if you will, it was started by the
Rasing County Sheriff's Department many years ago. And one of the topics that we came up with
was, um, how should we approach us with dealing with the older driver? Because we've got an aging
population, not just here in Rasing County, but, you know, certainly, you know, the United States
and actually around the world. So, and, but we wanted to approach it with some sensitivity,
if you will. And, uh, so, uh, poster was developed a year ago and in conjunction with the Rasing
County Traffic Safety Commission. And many of the same, uh, information that we had put out
probably, you know, probably going at 20 years ago is still prevalent today. The good thing about it
is I think people are becoming more aware of this issue. And they're doing, you know, the,
the self-assessment, if you will. And that, that was the, the main idea behind the, the poster
was not to go there and say, you have to stop driving or whatever, but no, do it yourself. Do
a self-assessment work with your family. The positive aspect is there's a lot more, uh, availability
of, of transportation. You know, when you're dealing with this issue, you're dealing with pride
in your dealing with independence. And nobody wants to give those things up as, as we age,
but yet, you need to be, you know, a safe driver. We, we all, we, anybody that's a motorist,
a pedestrian, even a person on a bicycle, uh, you know, there's rules of the road. And, you know,
we're, you know, when you think about it, we're interacting with each other on, on a public highway.
So, it is tough. And, um, I mentioned earlier to you that my mother, she still was good driver
in her late 80s. The problem was when she took my father who was an op, you know, on set of
dementia in the car. She had, she was very distracted by him. He would rest his hand on the
gear shift, which panicked her because he would pull it. And all he needs to shove that car in
reverse and the car will fall apart. And he would play with the door handle on the car. So,
she's very distracted. And I said, you can't do this anymore. I said, yeah, I can handle him.
I said, no, you can't because I couldn't do it because I drove with them too. And it's, it's
full time. You got to watch him because he's pulling on things and they're not out of meanness.
He just, you know, bored and he's pulling on things. And I looked at the side of her car.
She had a Cadillac and it was all dented up and scratched. And part of that was in the parking space
of the apartment building she lived in. He was between two concrete pillars and it was hard to
park the car. Even more than I parked it. You had to take a few shots at it to slide it in there
and she would get it scratched up. And I said, mom, you're depreciating the car. Look at it.
And she says, it's not that bad. They said, it's that bad. And I said, I promise you,
I will drive you anywhere you want to go. You give me the call and I will come pick you up,
but you can't drive anymore, mom. Come on. And she said, you're right. And I kept my word when
she used to call me up. She says, I have to go to the store. I'll be right over.
Well, but she was very fortunate that I was only five minutes away from her.
Even still. But a lot of people don't have that same advantage. They may have somebody that
typically that what I've seen is that families sometimes when people grow up, they move away.
You've got maybe one relative where they're somewhat in the area, probably within an hour's
drive or whatever. I mean, the closer the better. I mean, there are sometimes where eventually
his families evolve and things change. People that bring their parents into their own home to
live with them and so forth. So again, like most other things in life, there's their straight
off. But one of the things you mentioned about seeing some of the nicks and dents and so forth
on cars, especially I'll say the passenger side of the vehicle, because people a lot of times,
one of the first things that seems to go with people is the vision. It's not as sharp as it had been.
And they also can't judge distances as well as they couldn't their earlier years. So
those are those are things that that come up. One of the things we may want to direct the people
to the website. If they want to follow along, we're just going to kind of go through some of the
things that we have on the poster today. But that's yeah, staying safe or receiving counties. So
if you google that, you can you can find the poster. And we're going to go over more of the poster
coming up in a moment. Again, it's at Racine County staying safe when you get there.
Is it calm? Or is it? You can put in calm. This morning, just just just just a little bit. Yeah,
just Google it. Staying safe. Racine County. Google it. Click on staying safe. And you'll see the
poster there we're talking about. I'm going to talk about science at maybe time to stop driving.
Let's come it up in just a moment. It's our county summers statewide text to win contest to
WRJN. Download the civic media app. If you haven't done so already, go down the list. Look for WRJN on
the list. And here's what you do. Type in the word grill. Now that's only good for this hour.
After that, you got to get a new keyword coming up at 11 a.m. 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. So right now,
the keyword is grill send it to us. You're in the running for a pair of club level seats for the
Milwaukee Brewers. And you're also in the running for those getaways to the Dells and Door County.
So download the civic media app. Look for WRJN. Click on it and text that keyword grill grill.
And you're in the running. Even if you don't win the, you know, the Brewer tickets, you're still in
the running for the getaways to Door County and also the Dells. So do it now. All right, before you
forget. You only got till seven. I had to late at a clock to do it. It's only this hour. And we'll
keep her money. Get throughout the hour. Okay. Right now it's time for Pete with the beats.
On your entertainment beat, I'm Pete Schwabba, the King of the Hill actor who provided the
voice for character. John Redcorn has been killed in a shooting. TMZ reports that Jonathan
Joss was found at the side of a road shot several times. First responders tried life-saving
measures, but pronounced him dead at the scene. Sources say Joss was shot by a neighbor after
a disagreement. Police did track down the shooter within a few minutes. Joss played Redcorn
from season two to season 13 of the hit animated show. Jonathan Joss was 59 years old.
The Penguin Secret Crush is no longer a secret. Danny DeVito had a good old-fashioned showbiz
crush on Catwoman. The twins star said when he was in Batman Returns, he had the hots for co-star
Michelle Pfeiffer. DeVito sat down with Colin Farrell, also known for his role as the Penguin,
on varieties Actors on Actors podcast, where the two traded Batman stories. DeVito said Pfeiffer
was his secret crush. DeVito says he lusted after her and loved her. Lucky girl. For Marshall
is fun, tune in to Nightlight with me, Peach Waba, weeknights from 6 to 8 p.m. on the Civic Media
Radio Network. North Beach is open, and so is Racines Beachside Oasis. The perfect place to grab
those summer refreshments while you enjoy the sand and surf on the lakefront. Go to their Facebook
page, Racines Lakeside Oasis, for the entertainment lineup, and enjoy our timeless hits as you relax
on the beach. All summer long. That's me like a beach swale on the beach, the dad bod.
We have top-ditter here. He is the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission
every month we come in. We talk about a new poster, and this time it's older drivers,
and this is a tough topic with me because I went through it with my mother. Not my dad,
my dad just said, I'm not dry. He didn't want to drive anymore. He just said, I'm done. I
don't want to do it. I've been driving home my life. My mother was a little different case,
but she gave up the keys willingly when I explained to her everything, and some people are willing
to give up those keys though. That's absolutely true. What you're doing is you're taking away
independence. You are. But again, as I mentioned, there's more options today other than just relying
upon your family or the next or neighbors, something like that. You can even call up or groceries
can be delivered. That's the big thing now. Yeah. They'll drop it off right at your doorstep.
Everything can be delivered today. Exactly. Just make one call and they'll
deliver it. Science, it may be time to stop driving now. This is only for older people. If you
have older parents, listen to this. This is important now because you don't think about it,
because your parents have been driving you everywhere since you're a little toddler,
and you can't imagine them not driving you. Let's talk about that.
All right. Well, again, for the people that are able to log on and look at the poster,
either now or later, you know, if it changes in health or medication, I do want to say
as some people don't realize that, but even people that are not older drivers,
sometimes if you get a new medication for something, it could impair your driving. So just be
aware of that with things. And certainly, most people think of, okay, the obvious things,
if you're driving under the influence of the alcohol or marijuana or something like that,
but I mean, you can take certain medications that are legally prescribed to you that can affect
your, you know, your driving ability. So just be aware of that regardless of your age,
especially for older people. Some things like, you know, surprised by other drivers or pedestrians
like, well, where did they come from? Well, that can happen to anybody, but if you notice it on
a regular basis, something to keep in mind, have near misses or minor accidents again.
Now, these things exclusively mean it's time to, you know, give up the driver's license,
but something to be aware of. Something that may happen pretty commonly is, you know,
of the comments, other people, especially your, you know, your family members that maybe you're
giving a ride to, they start commenting on their driving or they won't say anything, but they'll
say to their, their brother or sister, boy, dad really, his driving ability is really declined.
So, you know, and that may be the, the first source of, of even the, the, if he will, the children
being aware of what's happening, you know, with their, with their families. Problems reading
road signs. Again, vision changes as we age. Other drivers, honk at you, blow the horn, do other
hand gestures or whatever. Maybe that's something to be aware of. And here's a big one. This actually
happened to my father getting lost in familiar areas. He had some property that he would
literally drove to for 50 years. And there was one day where it's like, geez, I'm not
quite sure, you know, we're, you know, where I'm going type of thing. Now, he compensated for a
short period of time with like a GPS system. Okay, he was still a good driver and so forth, but
that was one of the first red flags that came up to us for the family. You know, it's, I feel
terrible. I want to, I want to just cry listing to this because it's so sad when you got to do
this kind of thing. And people say, well, my eyesight's fine. Well, you know what, it's not only you,
but the poor other souls on the road. You know, you may take out your car, but you don't want to
take out somebody else at the same time. Well, I've said to people over the years and then maybe
that would be a motorvader for people to really again, do the salt assessment and have the hard
talk with with the family or whatever. Nobody in the right mind should want to injure or kill
somebody else as a, you know, motorist pedestrian bicyclist would have you. And, you know,
I would remind people that you're better off pulling out early than staying too long where
disaster can can happen. People honking at you too. That's another one. It is especially if you
start, you know, doing some unsafe lane deviations or cutting people off or whatever. I mean,
the horn is not, you know, meant, you know, you blow the horn and you wave because you're saying
a little to your neighbor. It's actually a safety device. So people should be aware of it.
Talk at the Tom Detter. He is the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission.
We're talking about staying safe, older drivers this morning. It's not only taking the keys away.
It's, you know, when you should know when you should get a new pair of glasses,
when you should get your hearing checked, things like that, because you got to hear this stuff too.
I was in the incident where I was driving on spring street and we were coming up to the
highway 31 on spring and it was during the winter and the woman on the left of me was an older
driver and she was just slowly coming into my lane. Well, I know where to go. There was a big
mountain snow. So I drove over into the snow bank and she never even noticed me and I was window
to window with her because I was looking at her. She never even knew I was next to her and she just
kept going and I didn't slam the horn on because I didn't want to panic her, but I drove into the
snow bank. And there's an older lady and she just didn't realize there was a car next to her.
And luckily it was me and not somebody who slammed into her. I was able to just drive off into
the snow. Even the guy behind me honked the horn at me and he was saying, okay, I said, yeah,
I'm fine. I just, you know, I want to crash my car. So we're talking about older drivers.
And as a police officer, you probably had a lot of dealings with them. When you had to pull people
over, do you ever have to tell the, and you look at them and you say, you shouldn't be driving
anymore, but you won't say that. Or did you? Not necessarily. You know, from a, from a statistical
standpoint, actually, the, the drivers that we had a lot of contact with were those between
like 17 and 25 years of age. 17. That's the worst. Yeah. Because they don't share insurance
companies would, you know, bear bear the sound in terms of likelihood of crashes and things
like that. But if you look at it statistically, the older drivers are actually fairly safe
considering, you know, the entire age of, they're probably involved in half the crashes versus
the 17 to 25 year olds. But there is something there was a provision that both law enforcement
people have and, and physicians have were a report can be sent to DMV for, for the DMV to get
involved in a person's life to bring them in for either medical testing or, they do that.
In some cases, they wrote, yeah, and that's existed for a long, long time. I don't know how frequently
that happens, but there is certainly the ability to do that. Also, just be aware that right now,
at least in the state of Wisconsin, there's no special testing, perhaps, you know, in terms of
road testing or that you have to have your vision checked more frequently, however, it's still
the burden or I won't say burden, but responsibility is still with, with the motorists. But keep in
mind that may be changing. I know Illinois just had something where they were looking to say, well,
you know, at age 75, we require a road test for people that they have to go out with an examiner
kind of like the way you did when you first got your driver's license, you know, and some states
go with a more frequent vision testing. That seems to be the real keys with vision testing and
then the ability to understand commands and, you know, remember what you're doing.
Well, I like this section because I just learned something here that never knew before that a report
from a physician can cancel your driver's license. Yes. I never knew that. It can be, and that
may be the way that the family will, you know, perhaps interact with with a physician.
The whole idea behind this is to keep everybody safe, all the motorists, everybody on the highway,
you know, certainly your loved one, you know, but nobody wants to see anybody get hurt here,
and we'd rather have people again work with their family, do the self-assessment if you will.
It's a matter of pride and independence, but, you know, if you notice that there's problems
developing, yeah, be assertive about it, do it on your terms, you know, as best you can.
So, you know, there's some things that we talk about, you know, and some of these applied to people
with any age, you know, have a safer trip, you know, avoid poor conditions. Yeah, if it's, you know,
snowstorm coming up, well, regardless of your age, maybe that's not the day to go out driving.
You know, pick well-marked lighted routes with easy parking, avoid left turns with no traffic
signal. That's one thing I think older drivers may be a little bit more involved in more of those
intersection type crashes, if you will, where there is no left turn arrow or whatever, and they
they make the left turn, what they call an in-law enforcement, you know, making the turn without
yielding the way while making a left turn. Drive the post-SPEed limits, you know, if you're really
slow, you can be a hazard as well, especially keep that in mind with, you know, like driving down
the freeway and so forth. There are minimum speed limits for that reason. You seat belts and all
trips, just seats and beers for good visibility. Again, most people don't do that. I mean, if you're
borrowing a car or something, you may get an adjust to seat or whatever, but I know sometimes for
me, it seems like the beer will just can't a little bit differently and have to take a look and,
you know, readjust it or something. That applies it in the age. And again, consider using alternative
transportation for longer or unfamiliar trips, you know, not a bad idea. In today's world though,
we've got the advantage with, you know, GPS and things like that. Overdrivers. There's something
we're now hoping for. Overdrivers lift. There's transportation. These, I'm going to put a plug-in
for the aging and disability research center of Racine County. I believe that they keep tabs on
what transportation would be available for older adults, whether it be for medical transport or
for, you know, getting into the store shopping. What have you? And overdrivers will take any way
you want to go? They certainly will. Now, as you got the active credit card, you can go to New York City
if you want. That's right. We're going back home, Donner. I never took it over. Oh, okay.
Because I drive. You know, I just, I never took what I've grown up in the city. I used to cabs all
the time, but sure. Sure. Sure. You know, well, even even that, yeah, that that whole industry has
changed. I recently went down to the Orlando, Florida area with a, with a friend of mine. And we
relied exclusively on, on Uber down there because it was expensive to get a rental car. And for
what we were planning to do, it wasn't worth it. So the, the few places we went, we used Uber,
and it was very, very convenient. I just have a problem giving it on my credit card to people
that I don't know. I know. I just, that's just, that's just right. It's secure. I know, you know.
But, yeah, Tom Ditter, who was the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission,
talking with us this hour. Every month, we have a new poster we're talking about. This time,
it is older drivers to get to the poster. Just Google Stank's Safe Racine County. And am I
right there? Stank's Safe Racine County. You are right. And we're also, let's make mention that
we're on Facebook and Instagram. Okay. Well, look at you branching out into the future. Well,
I tell you, Facebook is hardly the future. That was quite a topic that we had at the end of
the last year about how do we relaunch this program? You know, this had been around for years
and years and years. And I give you credit for reaching out to us and saying, hey, can we
get this, you know, where you get this going? You know, we're starting. I was, I found a wallet
here in front of the radio station and I had credit cards and everything in it. And I said,
well, I get to get this to somebody. So when I got off the air, I ran over to the police station.
And I said, I found this. And while I'm waiting for them to come to me, there's a poster from
years gone by still on the wall. And the information's still good on it. It doesn't matter when it's
from. And I said, what if they do this anymore? And that's where the idea came from
a finding that wallet there on the street. Well, we're, we're glad to be back. We're glad to be
both on the air and back, if you will, now an electronic form. With a few minutes, Tom,
that is here. He is the vice chair of the Racine County Traffic Safety Commission. We're talking
about older drivers this month. And you can check it out. If you just Google staying safe,
we're seeing County, you'll find it there. Click on it. And you'll see all the topics we've
talked about since this has been revived and a lot of good topics. This one's a real important one
though, because it's tough. If you, if you have older parents, you know, if your parents aren't
going to make the decisions to stop driving, you can have to have a sit down with them and kind of
explain it. Sometimes it's not like my mother's, yeah, here are the keys. I don't care. And
sometimes they fight it out and they say, Oh, I know what I'm doing. And I have a feeling I'm
going to be one of those people. I'm going to take the keys away from me one day. Oh, I know what
I'm doing. You know, as I'm cast on my leg, my arms in a sling and the car's all banged up,
I know what I'm doing. Let's talk about the biggest risk areas out there now.
Well, again, some of these things, I think, are maybe more of a challenge, if you will, for older
drivers, because
