Older parents giving up driving

[iCod]

My mum is 88 and accepts that she needs to give up driving and certainly isn't going to carry on for much longer but we've just been round to her place and she had reversed her automatic car but couldn't get it to go forward and we think she's actually just forgotten how to drive. Very aware of potential danger et cetera et cetera. We don't want to just take the keys off her but she is talking a good game rather than doing it. Could easily exist on taxis et cetera

She doesn't drive at night she doesn't drive distances, but she is a risk. Interested in your stories about how it all pans out.

Must stop saying et cetera as much. Et cetera.

You need to report her to DVLA if you think she’s not safe to drive.

you could also chat to her GP about her driving and get them to tell her to stop. They will have an obligation to report if they feel she’s not safe to drive, as will her optician.

but I’d report her myself if I was you and tell her so and damn the consequences. She could kill someone.

Yes gp advised her to "go out on a high". She hears it , yet...

i think I'll suggest to her that someone might report her and that would be embarrassing (at the least )

Why can't you take the keys?

Ok if it was my Mum I'd just say 'Mum, I hate to have to say this, but you HAVE to stop driving. I know that's hard to hear & hard to deal with, but accidentally killing someone would be far worse. Would you like your plan a trip for x day. I'll come sigh you. You can drive & we'll have a nice day, then I'll take your jets with me ' you can decide what you'd like to do with your car'

something like that.

the independence is hard to give up, even when you know you should stop driving (taxis are not the same) she's going to need to be forced into it 🫩

I’m not underestimating how crap it is by the way. I told my mum I’d report her if she drove again. And I talked to her GP.

I reported my dad. They made him do a retest - he only passed the fucking thing. So that was that. He now thinks he’s invincible

This was my father, although a few years younger. He was so stubborn but we should have been stricter and taken away the keys. He ended up crashing and in a ditch with mum. It could have been so, so much more worse. My absolute fear was that he was going to injure or kill someone else.

You need to be strict. I should have been. Ashamed I wasn't.

Disconnect the battery and report to DVLA. It’s what we did to FIL as he was stubborn and knew better than everyone else.

What, like driving over a cliff Thelma and Louise style?!?

She won’t just stop until something happens or you take action. Had the same issue with my grandmother who was driving “but only to those Post Office” until the age of 89.

Eventually I stopped sorting out her car tax online and doing anything that made driving life easy, and some stern conversations about not visiting her in prison in she killed someone whilst driving. Harsh but she’s a stubborn old gal.

Her grandson then also got a valuation for the car to and as her car tax renewal was eye watering and we grabbed the opportunity to sell the car before she had time to think about it or change her mind.

You go today and say - glad you agree, I know it’s hard, but it stops today as you are not a good enough or capable enough driver anymore. That the reality is it ends badly and could end in someone’s death if she carries on. You take the keys and ask her what she wants to happen to the vehicle.

No one drives well if they drive so little and at 88 and not able to make the car go forward it needs to end today.

Why can’t you have a frank discussion and take her keys??
It can be a difficult conversation but if you think of it black and white…..she injured/kills herself or others you would never forgive yourself as you had the knowledge that she can’t fully control a car!

i say this as a much younger person who’s husband got diagnosed with epilepsy at 33. Therefore stopping driving (when you are used to it) has an impact on family day to day life….working, school runs, food shopping etc.
He had x 2 seizures within 10 hours of each other. Therefore stopped driving immediately for his and others safety and informed the DVLA. This has happened again as he had a seizure after being free from them for 2.5 years……automatically stopped….informed DVLA.
It tips our lives upside down and all the driving is on me but it’s for safety!

Yes I've done this. I do a lot for her.

Thanks @MoserRothOrangeandAlmond

Thanks @SparklyBrickViperyes. All that expires soon. She's coming over later so I'll see if she agrees

We also had to do this with my grandad who started with Alzheimer’s. He was a fiercely independent man who couldn’t be told, he found driving a bit stressful and we had to hide the keys, speak with the GP and dvla and sold his car.

lol @Notmyrealityi meant without incident 😆

I think we're almost there and this wasn't necessary until this morning strange incident. We're trying to treat her with respect but it's getting to the point now where we might need to step in.

Thanks everyone, I totally agree that the safety is the general public outweigh my mum's maybe vanity? But you know it's easy to give advice on harder when your face with a real life person in front of you. 😘

We had this with my mum.
I put it to her that if she made a mistake "because her reactions are slower" she could hurt someone else and how bad would she feel. She agreed to give it up.
We found that her niece urgently needed to borrow the car so it was out of the way. Set up an account with taxis and bought a mobility scooter. She got around very well with the combination of taxis and scooter but years later still complained that she could drive perfectly well.

Thanks Sony. Same conversation here.

We’re going through this with my Mum, suspected dementia due to very poor memory. She is fairly vitriolic about various of her friends’ children who ‘have taken their car and therefore their freedom away’.

Currently her car is on my drive 200miles from her house - she had an emergency hospital stay and I ‘borrowed’ it to get home after getting the train there.

She keeps forgetting where it is and asking my sibling where it’s gone. We’re telling her the truth about where it is and our line is I’ll return it in the spring as she won’t drive in icy conditions or the dark. We’re hoping by then we’ll have a diagnosis and confirmation from someone medical that she’s not safe to drive.

It is so difficult to navigate though, especially the “I’m only going to the shop” argument? The shop at the other end of the village where you drive past the school, the nursery and the playing field and people/children/dogs are more likely to do unpredictable things in front of you 🫣😱

She's got oodles of money, does use taxis sporadically and there's a bus really nearby