A ninety-one year old woman crashed her vintage Bentley into a wall last night after mistaking her gas pedal for the brake.

The elderly driver took cuts to her face and had to be taken to hospital following the accident, just yards from her home.

The front end of the classic car was smashed into the wall like tin foil as a result of the impact.

But why is such a silly mistake happening everyday? The Times Colonist provides an answer.

According to their narrative, dubbed Pedal mixups common – and dangerous, a theory of confined spaces confusing drivers seems to ring true.

“Drivers will often feel the sensation of movement when manipulating the brake pedal. Their reasoning is as follows: ‘If the pedal I am using is making the car go forward, then the other pedal must make it stop.’ When a driver is startled and the vehicle has been recently started, a strong idle will often vault the vehicle forward and create the illusion of intended propulsion. The natural thing to do seems to slam a foot on the other pedal, namely the gas pedal. I have seen this happen in the driving school car hundreds of times, if not thousands of times, over the last three decades.”

Well that makes plenty sense, couldn’t there be other reasons?

Some elderly people start to lose feeling in their feet due to nerve damage over an extensive period of time. With that said, being behind the wheel with a numb foot is a disaster waiting to happen.

How do we prevent this?

Some doctors believe there is a direct correlation between those older drivers who shuffle along while walking, instead of taking full strides, and those who will inevitably mistake the gas for the brake most of the time. Maybe it is time to include  a simulated braking exercise when renewing a driver’s licence.

Then again, mistakes do happen. Just ask this journalist who mistook the brake for the gas one summer while driving a golf cart for a real estate company. Smashed right into a garage. It can happen to anybody!