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Colin Holliday together with Four Seasons Limousine have put this blog together to keep people aware of the changes in this area. We are posting current events, History, Pictures and general news. Please send any info you would like to share to colin@fourseasonslimo.biz.

Low income housing at Prospect Ridge

Neighbors called Stacey Lockard and told her an airplane crashed into her yard, but when she got home and saw the damaged aircraft, it brought tears to her eyes.

"I'm more upset seeing it," she said,

The small plane crashed on her lawn at 39 Briar Ridge Road on Saturday afternoon, injuring the pilot.

The crash took place at about 12:44 p.m., Ridgefield fire officials said, after a 12:35 p.m. takeoff from Danbury Municipal Airport.

When the crash happened, Lockard was in New York visiting her brother, she said. No one else was home during the crash, she said.

Fire officials said the pilot was the only person in the plane when it crashed.

The pilot, Robert Baldwin, of Old Sib Road, Ridgefield, was taken by ambulance to Danbury Hospital, where he was treated for unspecified injuries.

Hospital officials said he was in stable condition.

"He's fine," said Frances Baldwin, his wife, who had no further comments.

She said Robert Baldwin did not wish to comment.

No one else was injured, officials said.

Baldwin issued a "Mayday" call at 12:38 p.m., saying his engine was out, Burford said. Danbury Airport notified emergency personnel in Danbury and Ridgefield that the plane was in distress, Ridgefield Fire Chief Heather Burford said.

Federal Aviation Administration officials said it would be a while before they knew what caused the crash.

When the plane crashed, a neighbor, 56-year-old Kevin McCarthy of Cel-Bret Drive, said he heard what he first thought was an automobile crash in progress and looked out the window to see the plane descending and hitting trees on its way to the ground.

The plane landed upside-down on the lawn after hitting a large pine tree on Lockard's property.

"It happened so quickly," McCarthy said.

McCarthy said he called 911 and ran about 50 yards from his home to the crash site. McCarthy said he didn't know if he would find Baldwin alive.

McCarthy also saw fuel leaking from the plane, he said, "so I was getting nervous."

Baldwin was conscious, but groggy and bleeding from the nose and mouth, McCarthy said, as he helped him from his plane, a single engine Mooney model M20K, which Burford described as "very fast."

Late Saturday afternoon, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection had fuel removed from the plane, which could carry about 70 gallons, Burford said.

Burford said she hoped to get the plane off the Lockards' property by Sunday, but it could take until Tuesday.

Lockard has lived in the house on the property with her husband and their daughter for nearly two years. During that time, she said, she had considered the possibility of a crash, with all the airplane traffic from Danbury Airport.

The plane fell to the ground close to the house's sun room.

"I feel lucky as can be ... usually we're in there on a Saturday," she said.

There were no signs of damage to the house or to utility lines as a result of the crash.

Lockard said she and her family had no intentions of moving, in spite of the crash.

"We love our house, we love our neighbors," she said. "The chances of this happening twice are possibly slim to none."

A elderly man drove into Cafe Oo La La in the Ridgeway Shopping Center in Stamford, Conn. injuring 9 people on Monday

Ralph DeVito is an 86-year-old Stamford native and former Marine who fought in the Pacific theatre during World War II. When he stands, pain shoots through his back, a product of three surgeries in the 1990s. Both his knees and his hip have been replaced. He uses a wheeled walker to get around.

His daughters are concerned about him driving.

"It's a difficult subject," DeVito said on Friday, sitting in the library of the Stamford Senior Center in the Government Center on Washington Boulevard. "I was always a very strong person, and a careful person. If I knew I was going to kill myself I wouldn't drive."

DeVito and his daughters are part of a longstanding quandary plaguing policy makers, law enforcement agencies and families alike -- how do authorities keep unsafe elderly drivers off the road without infringing their rights and access to transportation? The question burst into the spotlight this week when a 92-year-old driver plowed into a crowded Summer Street cafe during lunchtime last Monday, injuring 10 patrons as his car barreled through the glass storefront and came to rest 20 feet inside the eatery.

Before smashing through the cafe, the Honda Civic hit a pregnant woman and a friend sitting outside. The pregnant woman broke her leg, while her friend broke her pelvis and needs weeks of rehabilitation. The driver, Stamford resident Samuel Leighton, was not injured.

Stamford police said it appeared Leighton mistook the gas pedal for the brake when he was trying to park in a handicapped space in front of Cafe Oo La La. Leighton, whose license was revoked by police, told The Advocate he could not remember the accident.

"An accident such as the one that took place this week is the type of thing that may bring it to people's attention," said state Rep. Gerry Fox, D-Stamford, the co-chair of the Judiciary Committee and a member of the Transportation Committee of the state General Assembly.

Two other senior citizens were killed last week in separate accidents on Route 7. In the most recent, Frank Johnson, a 71-year-old Norwalk man, died Friday when his Volkswagen strayed into the path of an oncoming dump truck on the Ridgefield-Wilton line. Last Monday, Merle Singer, a 71-year-old from Mesquite, Texas, died after a station wagon she was riding in collided with a dump truck in Wilton. The 91-year-old driver turned left onto Route 7 and pulled the station wagon directly in front of the truck.

Nationwide, older drivers get into more fatal accident than teenagers. Drivers older than 65 years old were involved in 12 percent of the 45,230 fatal accidents reported nationwide in 2009, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In Connecticut, older drivers were involved in 27 of the 300 fatal accidents reported that year amounting to 9 percent of all fatal accidents.

Fox said Connecticut lawmakers last broached the subject of introducing safety measures for elderly drivers a few years ago during an overhaul of the state's teenage driving laws. He said the issue may be something lawmakers should consider in the next legislative session this February.

"The overriding factor is safety, not only for people who are operating vehicles but for those on the roads and sidewalks, and this instance in the cafe," Fox said. "So if we can do something that will further enhance safety, then I think we need to look into it."

Fox said lawmakers must still protect the rights of the state's aging population.

"People age differently, so I don't know if you can use a black-line test to determine whether people can drive," he said.

DeVito said he would support an individualized approach to testing for elderly drivers. Some of his peers have no problems.

"I guess that's the only way," he said. "How else can you tell? You have to check your reflexes."

The Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles requires drivers 65 and older to renew their licenses in person every two years.

Pine Mountain