I see it every day, as a lot of LEXUS owners are in that age group, and many are at the point where they need to get off the road.
I've been there long enough to know too many who have already lost a spouse - maybe the one who used to do all of the driving! It is real sad. You get to know these people - like you are part of the family (I want them to think of, or depend on me as such, with their car problems). I see them come in after first diagnosed with cancer, or after a stroke, or heart attack, and 4 months later, or 6, or 12 - always seems like yesterday - here they come again looking like they have aged 10 years or more! Real sad.
I keep telling our management that we need a collision center estimator in our building, as 8 of 10 cars have some request for touch-up or estimates of some degree. Most touch-up requests are really way beyond that, but the ones that are hard to keep a straight face with are those who seriously think you can simply "pop" their front or rear bumper back into shape after they have hit something hard enough to cave it in.
LEXUS has a really cool feature avilable on the LS and GS models that warns you when you are too close to another object (PARK ASSIST), with warning tones and a visual display in both the instrument panel and the navigation screen if so equipped. It doesn't help some of these folks at all! Of course 1/2 of them turn it off, or don't know they have it, or how to use it. I'll send a driver out to pickup their car for service, and it comes in with a request for an estimate from the collision center, and guess what? My loaner car comes back needing an estimate from the collision center!
And just exactly WHO gets the best insurance rates? The good driver discounts? WHO is responsible for our insurance rates SKYROCKETING? I know the young male teens are certainly responsible, but no less so than a lot of our seniors. If so many of our insurance company executives weren't there already themselves, they would change the rating system. My $.02
