<p>My father is 90. He lives in his suburban house with my stepmother, age 92, pretty far down the dementia road, and a live-in aide, mostly for her. He cooks breakfast and supper every day, and unless I show up there (an hour from where I live with my daughter) twice a week to take him shopping, he gets in his car and drives. I am terrified that he will kill someone. He’s in pretty good shape for a 90-year-old, but he really shouldn’t be driving.</p>
<p>Any advice?</p>
<p>Can you get Peapod for him? You would place the orders based on what he says he needed.</p>
<p>Can you just take away his keys? If he shouldn’t be driving, please don’t wait until he injures or kills someone before you stop him from driving.</p>
<p>And could you also hire someone to take him to the grocery store? If he is not using the car much, having a driver to do a few errands with him a couple times a week might be cheaper than having a car and having to insure it, maintain it and gas it up.</p>
<p>Tell him you are concerned and make an appointment have him tested. We made my dad get tested (my mom is 100% fine driving but he can be stubborn.) He passed except for night driving and had no problem giving it up. </p>
<p>[Professional</a> Assessment | SeniorDriving.AAA.com](<a href=“http://seniordriving.aaa.com/evaluate-your-driving-ability/professional-assessment]Professional”>http://seniordriving.aaa.com/evaluate-your-driving-ability/professional-assessment)</p>
<p>My FIL is another one who should not be driving. My husband went to his house and told him the car sounded funny and drove it to our house so he can fix it “when he has time” Funny, my husband hasn’t had free time and dad lost track of how long the car has been here.</p>
<p>We had my mil’s primary aide added as a driver on her insurance policy. This also made going places much easier since the aide could drop MIL off under the covered entryway, and MIL no longer had to worry about trying to get the car out of tight spaces if someone parked too close to her.</p>
<p>My mother is 90 and lives alone in an area without public transportation. She has always been an excellent driver. She is still driving, but is very careful. She very, very rarely drives at night–in fact, almost never at this point–or during rush hour. This is voluntary on her part. She is very cognizant of being an elderly driver. I have confidence that she is safe on the road, and that she would give it up if she were not. I think it is incredibly hard for many people to give up driving, since for most it means a significant loss of independence.</p>
<p>Hiring a driver seems like a good solution.</p>
<p>We might think they’re still ok driving, but things can go wrong in a hurry. Within the past year locally we’ve had more than one older driver get on the expressway going the wrong way and hit cars head on. Needless to say it was tragic in all cases. If you really don’t think dad is safe on the road, then you have to get him OFF one way or another before he and a bunch of innocent people in the oncoming lane become unfortunate statistics.</p>
<p>Have Dad call a cab to take him to the grocery store.
Have the cabbie come back in an hour to drive him and his groceries home.</p>
<p>Get your father’s license plate number, file a complaint to the DMV, and request it be anonymous. I believe they require people to come in for testing if someone reports problematic driving although this may vary by state (my uncle had to do this when he found out his probably schizophrenic elderly mother was still driving).</p>
<p>Try taking his grocery order and using a grocery delivery service to deliver the groceries to him (or show him how convenient it is for him to put in the order himself). If that eliminates any reason for him to drive, he may not notice if the car key is missing, or the car doesn’t start…</p>
<p>How bad is his driving?</p>
<p>I used a grocery delivery service for a couple of months when I broke my leg, and it is not as convenient as going to the store yourself. You can’t look over the fruit and choose the varieties that are in the best condition. You have no control over the dates on fresh food, so you could end up with a week’s supply of dairy products, all of which are due to expire tomorrow. Sometimes items you really need are out of stock. And sometimes you need something badly, but you don’t have enough other items to make up the minimum for a delivery order.</p>
<p>I don’t think a grocery delivery service will fully solve your father’s problem. Also, being unable to go to the store himself would make him feel more isolated than he probably does already. Finding a driver seems like a better idea. Or perhaps, if he has a housekeeper or some other person who comes to help, that person’s job could be expanded to include driving him to the store.</p>
<p>I had “the talk” with my parents. After the heart-felt talk, I extended my hand and asked for their keys. … “NO” !!!</p>
<p>Called my brother. He assured me he would disconnect their battery.</p>
<p>We may be having a similar problem with my mother. She lives in a semi-rural area and is on a limited budget. No cabs and no money to hire someone to shop for her. Actually, I think she could use a senior bus service to get to the store but what’s worse is the isolation of not having a car. All of her friends are old and they don’t pop in or go out and do things. My sister and I both live two hours away. One of us has been going down every ten days or so but it’s not the best situation.</p>
<p>My parents fought us tooth-and-nail regarding getting them to move. Although they have never ‘thanked’ us, all of their objections disappeared.</p>
<p>It was really strange, actually - It’s like they don’t even remember being difficult. They don’t really remember their objections.</p>
<p>You can not assume elders are making rational arguments. We were able to ‘sell it’ by saying it was ‘for the winter months’ which- without any disagreement once they had moved, quietly became permanent. Their new place is a senior apartment (not even assisted living, but has some safeguards like live-in management, meals offered and pull emergency cords. They are 90)</p>
<p>The sooner they move, the sooner they make friends at the new place.</p>
<p>Older folks need to be around others, they really do - whether they know it or not.</p>
<p>My Mom now has more social interaction -just walking to the dining room- then she use to have in a whole week living in their old house. My parents don’t readily identify their peers in this senior apartment as ‘their friends’, think they reserve that term for their old-life-long-friends, but it looks like friendship to me.</p>
<p>^ sorry, this was about driving - although often the driving problem problem is solved by the moving.</p>
<p>This NYT blog post may be relevant, especially if he lives in NY and not NJ.
<a href=“Should Doctors Stop Patients From Driving? - The New York Times”>Should Doctors Stop Patients From Driving? - The New York Times;
It appears that the approach I mentioned up thread may only work in CA and a few other states.</p>
<p>OP - I am sorry about the situation. Our family experience with this matter was difficult. Dad’s Parkinson’s progressed to the point that he should not have been driving (slow reaction times and unpredictable medication “kick-ins”). My parents lived in a secluded rural home. Dad’s driving was his independence and he hated relying on my mom for everything. The first step: I got them to agree that, when together, mom would always drive and that he would not drive at night. This worked for a while. Eventually, I realized that I was going to have to be the bad guy because if he caused someone else harm, he nor any of us, would ever forgive ourselves. The morning of the very day I arrived to take the keys away, he totaled the car. Thankfully, he hit a physical barrier. No one was hurt. They never replaced the car and mom kept the keys in her purse. I thank God for the outcome. It could have been so much worse. My advice is to immediately ask for an assessment (from his doctor, AAA, your state DMV - whatever is the best course of action in you location). If an non-family authority figure delivers the no-driving sanction, it will be better. I would also encourage solutions that remove the requirement to drive while allowing the senior to be independent (food delivery, hiring a driver, relocating). In every situation like this that I am aware of, the real issue is the reluctance to give up independence and acknowledging the realities of aging. As sympathetic as I am to the older drivers, if they are not competent, they are putting us all at risk. How would your Dad feel if he caused the death of an innocent person? Good luck.</p>
<p>My mom is 83 and lives in Florida. Each time one of us children visit, we drive with her and get a feel for how she’s doing. So far, so good. But we have talked with her that there probably will come a point that she’ll have to stop driving . . . she’s not happy to think about that, but when the time comes, I think she’ll be ok. (She’s lucky, she lives in a condo community where they have transporation to stores, cultural events, etc. and she’s financially comfortable enough that she could hire a driver, if needed.)</p>
<p>But this is a cautionary tale . . . last year, at 82, she renewed her driver’s license for TEN years! Even she was appalled that they would give someone her age a license for that length of time!</p>