Letter: Tips to help an aging community

It should be apparent to anyone living on Hilton Head Island that a good portion of the population falls into the advanced maturity category.

Here’s a warning: many others are headed in that direction.

With this in mind, I have a couple of observations to discuss.

The first involves road planning and construction. Hilton Head seems to be proud of the nicely curved right-hand turn lanes intersecting side roads with main arteries.

What becomes obvious to me is that all of these aesthetically pleasing curves are designed by designers under the age of 30. They obviously don’t have any idea what it is like for someone age 75 or older to have to turn their heads 60 or 70 degrees to the left to view on coming traffic.

The solution: add a merging lane or close off the lovely but dangerous and stupid curves.

Next thought: grocery carts.

I’m sure that handicapped parking is welcome and appreciated by many seniors, but one improvement could be made. I have a recommendation for all retail managers of parking lots. Tell your parking lot attendants to leave a cart at every handicap parking space. Those seniors who use a cane or walker would then have a secure way of entering your establishment since the cart would take the place of other devices that tend to be awkward and clumsy.

Does any of this make sense to you, or do you regard it as just the angst of a grumpy old man? Again, I remind you, you are all headed in my direction.

This story was originally published April 21, 2017 at 4:50 PM with the headline "Letter: Tips to help an aging community."