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.

Taking the keys and/or reporting your mum shows you love her and care for her.

I've given my kids permission to tell me when I need to stop driving, and have promised I will accept what they say but have reserved the right to be crabby and cross about it.

Planning for not being able to drive is probably more important than decluttering and downsizing. We should all do it, our turn will come.

Oh thank you, everybody for absolutely getting it. That day trip out from a taxi firm sound great. Yes, they do offer an account and we've dealt with that but she'd still just be able to pay with her card to be honest.

@SleafordSods Thank you so much I knew there would be a topic for it, but I scrolled through all of them looking for older parents and obviously didn't hit the one. Will try there next time. But thank you everyone again.

My dad started to use a local taxi company for any journeys and had never missed his car. We do take him on any family visits and longer journeys and we got him a mobility scooter to go to local shop for newspaper. Really only uses when the weather is ok.

An 88 year old in a huge Audi wrote my car off last month. He was most definitely in the wrong as he did a right turn into me as I was going straight over a green traffic light. He had thick glasses on and what looked like a glass eye and a stick in the back of the car. We both walked away but I had lots of bruises and a hairline fracture in a rib which still hurts. But it could have been so much worse, if I'd been a metre further on he would have gone into my driver side door and I think I'd have ended up in hospital as both front airbags deployed. Or he could have hit a pedestrian at another time...

the amount of people who find it awkward to take the keys, just bloody do it!!!!!!!!!!

We reported FIL annoymously to DVLA using this form:

https://contact.dvla.gov.uk/driver/capture-transaction-type

You need to tick the Driver Medical option on the first page, and it's straightforward after that.

His licence came up for renewal while they were still investigating, at which point he decided to just not reapply for the licence.

Will she use a taxi service?

I think having to give up driving provoked the biggest decline in my mum of anything. She was totally devastated when she was told to stop driving at 92. We agreed that I would take her car back to my house to sell as she didn’t want to see a stranger take it away. And she was also apprehensive about someone coming to the house to buy it. I will never forget her face as I drove her car away and I felt heartbroken for her. I organised a taxi card for her and got hwr registered with dial a ride, but she felt her freedom had been taken away. She used dial a ride occasionally but never used the taxi card - she was from a generation who never usually used taxis and had been assaulted the only time she ever used one when she came to London in the 1950s, and she couldn’t bring herself to use one. I tried to help her with giving up her car as kindly and I possibly could but a little bit of her died the day I took her car away. I don’t envy you, OP, it’s a very difficult and sad situation.

Quite. It's just unbelievable all the pussy footing around. Take the keys before something awful happens.

Whilst I support any child who does this, it should not even be necessary. No one should be able to self-declare their health and keep their driving licence. Regular eye tests (even starting at 70 would be a move in the right direction, I would have it for all drivers) and some form of medical test after a given age.

It doesn't happen in part because having a driving licence is seen almost as a human right.

@Oldandgreyeryup

@somanychristmaslights Okay, I just want you to role-play in your head going into your elderly parents house and saying I am taking the car keys
imagine how upset they would be you acting like that without discussing it with them first.

And yes, somebody else being injured as a result would obviously be worse, but I'm hoping to get somewhere between the two options

@dailyconniptions I'm pussyfooting around, but it's my mother and I love her and I don't want to humiliate her, but I'm asking advice how to do it firmly and kindly

Thanks @Growlybear83 it's interesting that people who have gone through this can see the shades of grey.

I agree @LlynTegid but it's in her case I think it's memory and coordination. She definitely pass an eye test!!

As harsh as it sounds, we literally just told my mum. We told her that we knew it was hard to hear but would she ever be able to live with the reality of knocking over a child. She agreed and sent her license to the DVLA herself. We just made sure it came from a place of love and concern.

My father would have been 100 this year. In the years leading to his 80th birthday he made it clear to everyone that he planned to stop driving at 80 - and he did.

Yes, I said to her a little bit too tersely after the business this morning Mum you need to stop driving. She's coming round in an hour. I'll see what she's saying.

Could have written this. It’s like the little country town my parents live in. They’re not at this stage yet but I was in the car with my dad coming into a roundabout and a really, really old man just stopped dead in the middle of two lanes in the roundabout. It was like he’d forgotten what to do? We had to follow him and he was all over both sides of a small hilly country road. And as for the Sunday church people?? I’d walk before going near them on a road. Saw one elderly lady going through a pedestrian crossing; I don’t think she’d even noticed it.

Yes @iCodwhy can’t you take the keys off her?
What if she drives and mixes up the brake and accelerator?
I suggest you find a way to disable the car. Eg disconnect the battery.
Report her anonymously to the DVLA.
Get support from the website below
https://www.olderdrivers.org.uk/families/how-to-help/

We went through this a few years ago with a parent. If we had our time again, yes, we would simply take away the keys.

I’m not sure reporting to the DVLA does any good if there isn’t a specific medical condition that means they can’t drive.

I’ve done it, I reported someone and it asked about medical conditions and I just had to vaguely put about loss of awareness, reaction times, general complete inability to drive even half safely. I later found out that this individual had also been reported to the DVLA by someone else - they assume a neighbour. The DVLA wrote to them both times and I’m not sure exactly what happened but they still have their licence and weren’t required to take another test. I get it to some extent - the DVLA isn’t going to take someone’s license because someone else (or in this case two people) says “X is a bad driver” but honestly they were so unsafe it was appalling.

They now no longer drive because their daughter (who’d been stressing about it for years without doing anything) finally took the keys.