LANTANA, Fla. (AP) -- A 92-year-old man who drove a lawnmower on city streets after his drivers license expired died when he collided with a car on his way to the grocery store, officials said.
Alfonso Rivera, of Seminole Manor, had been driving the John Deer lawnmower for more than two years, taking trips to Costco and adding a basket to carry groceries.
He was driving the mower to El Bodegon, a supermarket, when he attempted to cross a street and collided with a 2003 Toyota driven by Joseph Berlangero, 84, according to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
Berlangero tried to avoid the collision by changing lanes, deputies said, but Rivera was thrown into traffic and died Sunday at Delray Medical Center.
Despite his children's objections, the former landscaper and father of 10 drove the lawnmower around town, traveling over school-zone speed bumps and competing with heavy traffic roads that funnel into Interstate 95 onramps.
``He would go on that lawn mower anywhere he could at anytime he could,'' said Rivera's daughter Alicia Salas. ``We took away his tires. He would ask where they were. We took away his key to the lawn mower. He made a new one out of a piece of metal. He was something else, that little old man.''
Funeral services were planned Thursday at Dorsey-E. Earl Smith Memory Gardens Funeral Home in Lake Worth.
