Erica Driscoll was walking her dogs two weeks ago near Pierce and Birwood streets in Beverly Hills when she said she saw a woman driving a bright blue Ford Ranger pickup truck.
It was, she said, the same 86-year-old Beverly Hills woman who struck and killed her husband, Jerry Driscoll, on May 11,
while he was walking their dogs in broad daylight across 14 Mile Road at Bates Street in Birmingham, just a couple blocks away.On this September day four months later, Erica Driscoll said she stared in stunned disbelief at the elderly motorist holding a cup of coffee in one hand and driving a vehicle that was the same make as the one she had been driving when the crash happened.
The same woman who Oakland County court records show has been cited for more
than 20 civil driving infractions dating to 1991, ranging from seatbelt violations to speeding to impeding traffic to disobeying traffic devices and signals, one of which was a plea down from a misdemeanor charge of failing to yield to an emergency responder.
The same woman who the prosecutor in this case said will not be charged in the May 11 death of Jerry Driscoll, 60.
As Erica Driscoll watched the woman drive away, any romantic notion she had that she could someday forgive this woman went away, too.
“She has no remorse, to get in the same type of vehicle that she killed someone with four months ago, a vehicle too big for her, the same type of truck she hit Jerry with,” Erica Driscoll said. “I want everyone to know, the woman who ran over my husband is driving around and living her life and my life is ripped apart.”
On Sept. 22, Erica Driscoll met with Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller and learned that the woman would not be charged in the death of Jerry Driscoll.
"At this point, we have made the decision there is insufficient evidence to bring forth criminal charges," Miller confirmed on Sept. 24. "Details are lacking. It's not just one element, but a lot of questions in this case. ... If we are going to charge, it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt."
The Free Press is not naming the driver who struck and killed Jerry Driscoll on May 11 as she has not been charged. She retains her driver's license without restrictions according to an Aug. 21 Secretary of State driver assessment requested by the police following the crash and obtained by the Free Press. Through her attorney, Jonathan Jones, the driver declined to comment.
Jones also declined comment as civil litigation is pending, but acknowledged, "This case is acutely unique."
The decision by the prosecutor not to charge the driver is yet another crushing blow in a series dealt to Jerry Driscoll's family, who see it as another failure in the system. Among the failures: a lack of pedestrian safety measures, proper investigation by Birmingham police, lax elderly driving laws and better victim advocacy.
Miller cited multiple hurdles that resulted in his decision to not prosecute, including the lack of black box data from the truck, an inability to determine with accuracy where Jerry Driscoll was struck in proximity to the intersection, proving a moving violation, and, most difficult of all, a Birmingham ordinance against jaywalking.
Miller expressed sympathy for the Driscoll family, who he noted is in a "horrific situation" and said the decision not to charge "doesn't sit well" with him, but noted he doesn't "make the facts, I just sort through them."
Some of those facts are clear. Others are not.
How walking the dogs ended in tragedy
Jerry Driscoll was married to Erica for 28 years, father to Owen and Elizabeth, and a retired Birmingham Schools employee.
He was walking the family’s two dogs, a yellow Labrador retriever named Sherman and a chocolate Lab named Wilma, across 14 Mile at Bates Street on the Birmingham and Beverly Hills border at about 8:19 a.m. on May 11 when he and the dogs were struck by the 86-year-old woman who was turning left onto 14 Mile Road from Bates in a Ford Ranger pickup truck.
According to a Birmingham police report on the crash obtained by the Free Press, the driver who struck Jerry Driscoll told the responding police officer that she was turning left onto 14 Mile Road after getting coffee from a nearby shop and she did not see him.
As part of her witness statement, she wrote, “Halfway down block I suddenly see a man in the middle of my windshield!! I hit brakes (and) stopped! Reached into my purse to find phone (and) call 911! Called 3 times before I realized I couldn’t hear so that’s why I got no answer.”
In the police report, one of the responding police officers noted that the woman told him she is deaf and could communicate with him with a cochlear implant that was left in her nearby residence. The officer walked to her residence and retrieved the implant.
The driver has an acceptable medical condition per the Secretary of State driver assessment report, and medical exams conducted by the driver's general physician and vision specialist were considered "favorable." Additionally, the Secretary of State conducted vision, written and road tests on the motorist, all of which she completed successfully.
Three witnesses to the crash were included in the police report. Two of them were a married couple who had also been walking and rushed to help Driscoll as he lay bleeding in the road. The wife in this couple told police the driver had hit Driscoll "squarely, solidly. It was not a glancing blow."A third witness was a motorist who was westbound on 14 Mile Road when she saw the truck driver turn in front of her and “assumed she saw the man and would turn wide or slow, but she drove right into the man and his dogs.”
Photos of the crash scene in the report show the majority of the truck in the center turn lane on 14 Mile Road, with part of the truck in the single westbound lane. A nearby homeowner provided police with home security camera footage. While police said in the report that the crash itself was obscured by trees in the video, it was originally noted that squealing tires from the truck driver’s vehicle can be heard. Prosecutor Miller said subsequent investigation determined the squealing was actually from one or both of the injured dogs.
Navigating through the nightmare
A neighbor of the Driscolls arrived moments later and cared for the injured dogs, while his wife called Erica Driscoll, who was at the gym at the time, to inform her of the crash. Erica rushed to Corewell Health Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, calling on friends to pick up her daughter and meet her there.
At the hospital, Erica Driscoll said she remembers collapsing to the floor as she was told her husband didn’t make it.
Her daughter, Elizabeth, arrived, and they cried together as time passed in a blur. While that time is difficult to recall, Erica Driscoll said she received no real comfort or guidance from hospital staff, and no police officer met her there, which she later learned should have been standard procedure.
These were the first of seemingly many missteps that Erica said have compounded a nightmare for the Driscoll family.
“I am so frustrated,” Erica said. “I tried to follow the system and be part of it, be patient, and I have reached my limit. No justice has been given for Jerry or my family, nor respect.”
She is still fighting to get it.
Few crosswalks for pedestrians, bikers on busy road
Just a few weeks after her husband’s death, Erica Driscoll attended Birmingham and Beverly Hills municipal meetings, pleading for the city and village to implement pedestrian safety measures — not only at 14 Mile and Bates, but at other locations in the city and village, areas where her husband had once walked and even darkly joked he would meet his end someday due to dangerous drivers.
At a June 4 Birmingham multi-modal transportation board meeting, Erica Driscoll was joined by Susan Lamphere, an eyewitness to the May 11 crash who was the first to reach Jerry Driscoll to try and help him.
Lamphere told the board that residents cross 14 Mile Road near Bates Road all the time to go to the library, park, or restaurants and stores in downtown Birmingham.
“We really just want your support and to bring people together to make crossings safer, especially for children,” Lamphere said.
The half-mile stretch of 14 Mile Road between Pierce and Southfield roads carries 20,000 vehicles per day, Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Road Commission for Oakland County, said.
As a result of the May 11 crash, the Road Commission did a traffic study on the 14 Mile and Bates Road intersection. Over the course of six consecutive days in July, camera footage recorded 100 pedestrians and an additional 73 bicyclists crossing at the intersection, which Bryson said is considered not heavy, but a "steady flow."
The data was shared with the city of Birmingham and the village of Beverly Hills. As of mid-September, Bryson was still awaiting word on whether the two communities wanted to proceed with a pedestrian crossing at the intersection, for which a permit would be needed.
Bryson said the communities would be responsible for actual construction of pedestrian crossing ramps, which are extensions of the concrete sidewalks to the curbs. The Road Commission would do pavement striping on the road itself and install standard pedestrian crossing signs. They are not flashing signs like ones elsewhere that are activated by pedestrians.
Lapeer County Prosecutor John Miller said the fact that Jerry Driscoll was walking across 14 Mile Road in an area without a marked crosswalk “is problematic” due to a 25-year-old Birmingham ordinance.
The ordinance, No. 1754, Sec. 110-66, states that "a pedestrian shall not, except in a marked crosswalk, cross a roadway at any other place than by a route at right angle to the curb or by the shortest route to the opposite curb."
Violation of the ordinance is considered a civil infraction.
"Their decision is saying, 'If you are not at a set intersection with a curb or a crosswalk in the city of Birmingham, you can be hit and killed, and there is no consequence for the driver,'" Erica Driscoll said.
Prosecution conflict, delays
Miller said he is not blaming the victim.
The Michigan Attorney General’s Office assigned the case to Miller on Aug. 14, more than two months after the crash, due to a conflict of interest with the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office. That conflict, Miller said, was due to an employee with the prosecutor's office being a witness at the scene of the crash.
Earlier this month, Miller said further delays in a charging decision in the case were caused as he was waiting for an autopsy report and documents from the Birmingham Police. He said he also decided to have the Lapeer County Prosecutor's Office Investigator, Craig Gormley, reinterview some eyewitnesses, seeking further details on the crash.
In the investigator's report obtained by the Free Press, the motorist who witnessed the crash reiterated that she saw Jerry Driscoll step off the curbs with the dogs and "No traffic was near the man, so he had plenty of time to cross the street."
She also saw the truck begin making a left turn that "was narrow but not so much that it would make her believe the truck was using the center turn lane to merge into the westbound lane."
She felt she would see Driscoll and his dogs come into view on the other side of the truck. Instead, she lost sight of him when he was in the center turn lane. As she arrived at the crash scene, she first noticed the dogs in the roadway behind the truck, one in the eastbound lane and one in the westbound lane.
Inconsistent investigation
There are discrepancies between the police report and the Secretary of State driver evaluation.
In the Secretary of State assessment report, it is noted that police, in making the referral for the evaluation, said: "Driver hit a pedestrian who was crossing the street, not at a crosswalk. Driver is also deaf and was not wearing hearing device at time of incident. Driver stated she did not see the pedestrian that was crossing the street. Driver used the middle turn lane as a lane of travel."
But later in the assessment, it is stated that when the Secretary of State conducted the review, the driver "indicated once she was completing her turn she saw a pedestrian in the middle of the roadway with his handsout, attempting to stop her. (The driver) stated she attempted to stop her vehicle to avoid hitting the pedestrian but was unsuccessful."
The police report also incorrectly stated that one of the Driscoll dogs had died as a result of the crash. Both dogs survived despite severe injuries — one with a broken pelvis and the other enduring multiple surgeries and blood transfusions.
As the months drag on, Erica’s anger has escalated, and her grief catches her off-guard — like when she sees Halloween decorations that her husband was fond of, or the boxes of Stove Top Stuffing he loved in the pantry.
Renewed calls for elderly driving laws
She said she fears justice is slipping through her fingers and sees parallels between her story and that of Chris Thexton, a Novi man who lost his wife, Sarah, nearly two years ago on Oct. 3, 2024, when she was run over by a 94-year-old Milford driver.
Phyllis Stafford was ultimately charged in that case with moving violation causing death, a misdemeanor, and sentenced to nine months of house arrest. Stafford later requested a shortening of her sentence so she could return to work in person as a clerk in the Novi 51-1 District Court, where she had been employed for more than 50 years. The judge denied the request.
Erica Driscoll said talking to Chris Thexton has been therapeutic, and she supports his efforts to get elderly driving laws in Michigan, which currently has none.
Sen. Rosemary Bayer, D-West Bloomfield, took up the cause for elderly driving laws and in March introduced Senate Bill No. 847, which proposes that anyone age 75 or older pass a vision test, written test and driving skills test every four years as a requirement of renewing their driver’s license. Also under the legislation, anyone over the age of 85 would need to pass those three tests every year to continue driving.
However, due to the forthcoming election, the bill isn’t likely to see a vote until at least next year, and could see several changes made to it.
Like Thexton, Erica Driscoll hopes the bill will be passed and spare other families the grief they know all too well.
"I just don’t want her to be on the road and kill someone else," Erica said. "My nightmare won't change. Nothing will change that to the day I die, but we have to try to be better, and if we don’t, we're in trouble. ... I can't sit here in my grief. I feel like I've let him down. It's not fair. She needs to not be driving."
Defense attorney Jones declined to answer when asked if his client continues to drive, but Erica Driscoll said she has seen the motorist who hit her husband behind the wheel of that bright blue Ford Ranger truck twice now.
Court fight isn't over yet
Prosecutor Miller said he would reconsider charging the driver in the future if more information about the case is brought forward.
“I am going to do everything in my power to get justice for our family and my kids losing their dad,” said Erica Driscoll, who is pursuing a civil case. “The system has failed … At the end of the day, my nightmare will never go away, and I have to live with this, and so do my kids.
"But maybe someone else won’t, and that is worth my time and energy.”
Reporter Susan Bromley covers Oakland County for the Detroit Free Press. Contact her at sbromley@hometownlife.com
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Four months after Beverly Hills man killed, his family seeks justice
