DORVAL — Five years ago, Lino Cierzo lost his wife. It was something that deeply affected the demeanor of the normally carefree 71-year-old, his daughter Carmela said.
But he started turning a corner about a year ago.
“He was accepting it,” she said. “I saw him differently.”
Yet Cierzo’s life ended when a car hit him shortly after 8 p.m. on Oct. 7 on Provost Street in Lachine.
Although he could talk after the accident, he suffered a brain hemorrhage that plunged him into a coma.
He died on Oct. 12.
Police are still investigating the cause of the accident, but Cierzo believes that the motorist struck the man because he was a senior citizen.
“He told police that he didn’t see my father,” Cierzo said.
She said that she believes licences should be more tightly regulated by regularly testing for vision and having a doctor sign paperwork confirming someone’s fitness to drive.
READ MORE: Elderly motorists can test if fit to drive
Some people who Global News talked to agreed with her.
“There should definitely be a cutoff limit for your licence, without a doubt,” said Michael Gizewski, who was walking down St. Catherine Street.
However, not everyone believed in a one-size-fits-all remedy.
“It definitely depends on a number of factors — vision, mental competency. I don’t know, but there should be a test to determine that,” said Andrew Willcock, who says his parents stopped driving in their sixties.
The Cierzo death hearkens back to a situation a year ago, when an 80-year-old driver mistook the gas pedal for the brake and slammed into a Laval daycare.
WATCH: Laval family and daycare speak out a year after crash injured baby girl
No one died in that accident, and in both cases, the driver was not charged by police with an offence.
Police can order a person to undergo testing but they have to observe that person driving erratically first.
WATCH: A closer look: Elderly drivers in Quebec
Perhaps the cruelest irony regarding the death of Lino Cierzo: three years previous to his death, he had decided to stop driving at the age of 68.
“He had to have cataract surgery done,” his daughter said.
“He basically said, ‘I don’t want to drive anymore.”
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