so i guess he can't smell his bullshit either

At least you tried

Even if he had a disability that would impact his driving, it means he shouldn't be driving. That is a 1 ton killing machine. If you are not fit to drive, don't drive. Now of course sense of smell is completly unrelated to driving ability, but trying to use a disability to excuse bad driving is like saying "don't blame me, I shouldn't even have a liscence"

Bullshit. Of course, it has been proven that lack of sense of smell can dramatically decrease one's quality of life and be even a cause of depression. Smells are more important in our lives than we think. This is not an excuse for him, though. No matter what, if you don't think you're able to drive, you just shouldn't try even if there's no apparent disability.

OP here. Thanks for all the comments, especially those about how I should break his legs haha. In all seriousness, she's fine, aside from being a little shaken up. Who knew a near-death experience would be stressful for someone?

Report the incident to the cops. Let them also report it to the DMV so that he can be tested for other disabilities like loss of peripheral vision and hearing. If he is proven to have those, he loses his licence. On the very least, when you file a claim on his insurance for PTSD or physical therapy for your sister, his premiums will go up. Let the B_st_rd pay the price. Your sister got lucky, maybe someone else won't be. Report him.

The only plausible explanation I can think of is the driver let his inability to smell encompass his attention, he put driving in the back of his mind while he was thinking of his disability, then blamed the near accident on his disability instead of his inattentiveness.

Sue that dipshit.

OP again, just as a little extra detail for those of you saying he was depressed/ not focusing due to his lack of smell: After he almost hit her, I started... expressing my feeling about the situation. He calmly stated that he has " hyposmia", and that caused him to not notice she was there. He said this in the same way that one might say that they are prone to randomly passing out at the wheel. One on-the-spot google search later, including him confirming the correct spelling, and we found out what it meant. I still have the theory that he isn't actually disabled, and thought it meant something else, and would be his get out of jail free card.

He obviously didn't smell the car coming