Halifax boy dies after being hit by vehicle
Driver, 76, charged with motor vehicle homicide and crosswalk violation
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HALIFAX - A 7-year-old boy riding his bicycle with his father died yesterday after he was struck in a marked crosswalk by a car driven by a 76-year-old Plympton woman, police said.
Bystanders rushed to the boy, identified by police as Herbert Whitaker, after the 11:53 a.m. accident on Plymouth Street and attempted to revive him as police responded from their station only steps away. Whitaker, who lived less than a mile away, was pronounced dead at Brockton Hospital at 12:44 p.m.
The death was the fourth allegedly involving an elderly driver this summer in Massachusetts.
Marcia Chadbourne, who allegedly struck Whitaker, has been charged with motor vehicle homicide and failure to yield at a crosswalk, said Halifax police Sergeant Ted Broderick. She will be summoned to appear in court at a later date.
Authorities said they had no indication that Chadbourne was speeding as she ap proached the crosswalk, which is in a 35-mile-per-hour zone, Broderick said.
Police also had no evidence that she tried to slow down.
“There were no external issues. No drugs, alcohol, or sun in your eyes. It was high noon,’’ the sergeant said.
Chadbourne did not answer calls to her home last night.
“Obviously, it was a tragic accident,’’ Broderick said. “They were a father and son crossing the street on a bike ride, and the operator didn’t see them. . . . It’s just an awful thing all around.’’
Herbert Whitaker and his father had been wearing helmets, authorities said.
A second child, about 3 or 4 years old, was riding on the father’s bicycle and was not injured, police said.
A woman who works near the crosswalk said that vehicles rarely slow down as they approach what she described as an extremely dangerous site.
“It’s always difficult to get across. The cars don’t stop,’’ said Frances Smiley, who is employed at the T.C. Sports Den.
“You take your life in your own hands, especially on a busy Saturday. Everyone goes right through the crosswalk,’’ she said.
Broderick said this was the first fatal pedestrian accident in Halifax in several years.
This summer’s spate of fatal accidents involving elderly drivers has sparked a call for legislation to require testing and tougher regulations for older operators.
A bill sponsored by state Senator Brian Joyce would require drivers 85 and older to pass a road test and eye test every five years to have their licenses renewed. Massachusetts drivers currently are required to renew their licenses every five years and to take an eye test every 10.
In the other fatal accidents this summer, a 4-year-old was struck and killed June 13 in Stoughton by a vehicle allegedly being driven by an 89-year-old woman; on June 30, an 84-year-old Malden woman died when her husband crashed into another car in Woburn; and on July 5, a Reading woman was killed when her 92-year-old husband struck her as he backed out of a parking space at the West Dennis Yacht Club.
There have been several other high-profile accidents involving elderly drivers this summer. On June 2, a 93-year-old man drove his car into the entrance of a
Broderick said he did not want to speculate whether age played a factor in yesterday’s accident.
“I don’t know if anybody of any age may have been able to react any differently. I would hate to comment on that,’’ Broderick said.
State and national data reviewed by the Globe last Sunday showed that elderly drivers account for a smaller percentage of accidents than other age groups.
Between 1997 and 2006, a study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Virginia-based nonprofit group that studies automobile crashes, found that crash deaths among drivers age 70 or older fell 21 percent, even as the population of people 70 or older grew 10 percent.
During the same period, the group found fatal crashes among all drivers declined 4 percent; among drivers age 35 to 54, the decline was 2 percent.
Yesterday evening on Fairway Drive, where the Whitaker family lives, a neighbor across the street from them said she was shocked to learn about the accident.
Danielle McIver, 32, said that on her morning run yesterday, she had seen the father and two children leave on their bicycle ride.
“That’s horrible,’’ she said, shaking her head.
“We have a 7-year-old son too.’’
John M. Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com. Globe correspondent Caitlin Castello contributed to this report. 
