Meet the 102-Year-Old Texas Driver Who Just Renewed Her License

The centenarian got her license for another two years, loves the independence.

ByABC News
July 14, 2016, 12:16 PM

— -- A 102-year-old Texas woman renewed her drivers license for another two years yesterday and told her story from nearly a century driving.

Helen Maddox passed her driver's licence renewal test yesterday and told ABC News that while she does not drive much, she loves the independence a license allows her.

"I don't want to drive because there are too many crazy people driving these days," Maddox said, "but I want to be independent and if I need to drive I can. I have a Cadillac."

The centenarian told ABC News she was born on July 28, 1914, the day World War I started. She started driving in her early teens.

"I was driving when I was 13 or 14, we didn't have to have drivers licenses at that time. You could just drive," Maddox said.

She remembers the car she used to learn how to drive. "My dad had the first Dodge that was delivered outside of the city of Detroit."

She told ABC affiliate WFAA-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth that she went on a girls' road trip to Key West and Ernest Hemingway hit on her.

In 1930 she had another memorable road-trip from when she had the care. “I said to the girls, 'Let's go for a ride over to Ann Arbor. That's where the boys are,'" she told WFAA.

Maddox said that her my favorite people are Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, and Winston Churchill. Among her most prized possessions is a handwritten letter from George W. Bush.

PHOTO: Helen Maddox, a 102-year-old woman, just renewed her driver's license.
Helen Maddox, a 102-year-old woman, just renewed her driver's license.

The 102-year-old offered one final piece personal advice, as she reflected back on her life, "I love people. That's the main thing, to love people and smile, it doesn't cost you anything to smile."