Anyone got tips for successfully convincing someone to stop driving?

[Regret2019]

She's always been a bad driver, slow reaction times, strange decisions. After an illness she had to stop, but shes better now and is keen to start driving the hour on A roads to where one of her non driving grandchildren lives.

The family are split - those of us who live in cities think she shouldn't drive again and that the £1000 on insurance alone every year equates to a lot of taxis. The country lot are far more relaxed about the elderly/unlicensed/over the limit ect driving

DB took DM's car and keys "to look after them" while she was in hospital for an operation and DB kept "forgetting" to drop them back again.

She was a very unsafe driver in her later years owing to confusion, hallucinations and poor situation perception. Yet she was pretty wiley about passing memory clinic tests by distraction - often by sabotaging them as she'd throw a huge tantrum about some aspect of how she had been treated - such as accusing the doctors of only testing her "for the money". She would also rest up for 2-3 days.

She was still demanding her car keys back in the weeks before she died - telling everyone she needed to get out in her car - despite the fact that in reality she was bedridden and the care home staff had to use a hoist as she couldn't stand unaided.

iknow - my imagination isn’t good enough; actually wait did he forget the handbrake? But in any case if you could say how, that would be good 😆

I second driving assessment centres! Police community support officers are also very good at talking it through with people when there are safety issues. Or if it’s less about safety my local council did a great booklet about how to decide when it’s time to stop driving, taking into account medical issues, finances, convenience etc. Check out your local authority online.

I almost had to have this conversation with my Dad who had cateracts and couldn't see properly. He has always been very active and independent and the thought of him being unable to drive was just awful....however once I realised that if he had an accident and injured someone I would have felt like it was partially my fault for not doing anything.

I really wouldnt have had any choice.

Thankfully he ended up getting his eyes done very quickly and could see well enough to drive.

OP, It doesn't matter what all the other relatives think. What would you feel like if your relative injured or killed someone and you hadn't done anything???

I'm not entirely sure I understand how he managed it but something about putting his car in the garage putting it in (what he thought was) neutral before getting out to check if it was in far enough and then it moved (having been accidentally left in either drive or reverse) and leaping in to hit the gear stick and knocking it the other way drive/reverse when it collected him and ran him over. The details are very sketchy as he is hugely embarrassed and only very reluctantly told us 3 weeks after it happened having sworn mil to secrecy!

I worked as a specialist dementia nurse and I once shopped a patient to the DVLA.

It was just in time, too. They wrote to her GP and asked for an assessment. The next day she ran someone over, then reversed into the people who came to help the victim.

The police turned up later and told her that she could give them the keys to her car or have a driving assessment the next month.

She gave them the keys. And she never knew (and neither did her family) that it had been I who had reported her to the DVLA in the first place.

Tried to persuade DF for ages. GP told him there was no DVLA reason to stop driving but suggested if df was his relative he would want him to stop. So DB and I agreed to remove the keys. He was furious but then accepted it.

I agree doctors don’t always know and can’t assess driving in many cases. I have remembered before we took keys etc when with my dad it was really clear he shouldn’t be driving and we were nearly there with him - he asked at a doctors appointment (I was with him). The doctor quite rightly from his POV said ‘I can’t see any medical reason for you not to drive’. My dad was jubilant - I was not. My dad was a crafty old thing.

My fil ran himself over with his own car My father ran himself over with his own car. He was about 35 at the time.

I ran myself over with a moped when about 16. It was small thankfully.

My DF had his cateracts done several years ago and was marvelling how amazing it was that he had (apparently) perfect vision....but the amount of very obvious stuff he seems not to see now makes me wonder just how poor his eyesight was before. He is unable to drive for medical reasons which is a massive relief but he was very cross about it and wanted o appeal.

www.rdac.co.uk/professionals/
You can ask your GP to refer someone through this website. You can self refer for £80, or a GP can do it and it costs £40. I asked my dad's GP to do this - it looked much better coming from her, than from his nagging daughter!