Authorities will be re-thinking the ease with which elderly pensioners can renew their driving licences after this week’s horror where a 91-year-old priest actually drove over one of his parishioners on a zebra crossing, and attempted to keep going.
“The man did not even seem to know he had driven over the woman,” a shocked witness told Jornal de Notícias.
Firemen who heard the commotion ongoing in the road – right in front of the fire station – rushed out to find 63-year-old victim Teresa Veiga “completely underneath the car”.
JN reports that the injured woman was transported to Braga hospital with “fractures all over her body” while the priest, Father Lima, was reported to be in a state of shock.
Shocked too was driver Manuel Rodrigues, who saw Father Lima’s car keep going “a few metres” after hitting his victim.
It was the woman’s husband, who had been walking with her, who managed to get Father Lima’s attention by shouting, said Rodrigues.
Described as a driver “who normally goes slowly”, Father Lima is understood to have had the sun in his eyes when he hit the victim.
It is exactly the same reason given by an octogenarian driver in the Algarve last week who fatally injured an elderly war hero as he crossed the EN125 to buy oranges.
