“She’s like a little sister, I believe in her, and I managed to pass on my passion for tennis to her, it’s great”, said while presenting Cléo to the magazine “8:30 p.m. on Sunday” (replay), the double champion of France and number one French wheelchair tennis player Pauline Déroulède, amputated with one leg after being knocked down in 2018 by a 92-year-old driver. On the day of her accident in 2015, the little girl was three years old. She was shopping at the market with her older brother and her mother who also lost a leg in similar circumstances. Pauline said to herself that we had to fight to prevent this from happening again and that we had to legislate.
“I wanted to convince Road Safety to organize a prevention campaign, except that they did not follow me, she says, but that didn’t discourage me. I told myself that I was going to convince private partners to organize a road safety campaign… In France, we had never seen a road safety clip talking about fitness to drive. We see drunk young people who take the wheel or who go too fast, but we have never seen a simple senior, like the one who mowed us down, cause an accident because he no longer sees anything, no longer moves, the opposite the pedals…”
“You have to do a technical check of the driver”
“The bill that I am defending is to introduce a driving ability test for all drivers, not just seniors, with a more regular frequency from a certain age, says Pauline Déroulède who is preparing for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. It is a question of reforming this control of the driving licence. There is a technical control of the car. You have to do a technical check of the driver. It’s that simple. I absolutely wanted Cléo to participate so that she and I play the victims of a road accident involving an unfit driver.”
“If this man had passed a driving test, Cleo says in the clip, he would no longer have the permit. And Pauline and I would still have our two legs.” The sportswoman, who has become a relative with her partner Tiphaine, recalls: “This little girl was three years old when she got mowed down. She’s going to have to build her whole life on one leg. And every time there’s an accident in which a driver’s unfitness is at stake, I have anger that comes back in a very acute way. It’s difficult to manage but at the same time it restores strength, energy to continue this fight, to continue to convince the government and the population to do something. is a mission that is useful for everyone.”
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