Doesn’t matter if teens cause more accidents, if your parent can pass the test but not have the full judgement and control needed to be safe. She’s now had a pretty serious incident. Post #9 is very concerning.
Teens cause the most accidents, yes, but followed very closely by elderly drivers.
Please don’t downplay the clear warning signs you’re getting.
@BrownParent The ddo ving eval that I referenced in post#7 and #11 is not a typical driving eval by a regular driving instructor . It is a series of clinical assessments and an on the road assessments given by a medical professional who is a certified driving specialist who has been trained to assess the skills needed to safety operate a vehicle like response time, constant and fluctuating attention, range of motion in the neck, arms and legs, distractibility, strength, following directions and problem solving. No offense, but you are not a certified driving instructor . Your mother will be putting her best foot forward while you are in the car with her. Have you driven with her in in inclement weather, at night, with the radio blaring, people talking excessively etc. ? All of these situations require different skills . How does she handle detours or finding her way when lost? Clearly not well. While I can appreciate the seriousness and difficulty of making a decision to stop a family member from driving, it has to be fully assessed. I understand that removing keys would be a hardship on you , as well as your mother, but it won’t be any easier if she is injured severely in her next accident, kills herself or someone else next time. And while you want to believe that there won’t be a next time, I can say with certainty , there will be a next time. I work with people everyday who present just like your mother. This is a very serious situation that needs further evaluation.
Here are just 3 of the many references of warning signs that an elderly driver should no longer be driving. Many offer recommendations for alternatives. For example , there are many non medical services out there to provide transportation to seniors , many churches have volunteers to assist in transport.
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/aging-well/age-and-driving-safety-tips.htm
https://www.caring.com/articles/when-to-stop-driving
http://www.aarp.org/home-garden/transportation/info-05-2010/Warning_Signs_Stopping.html
I think the key here is loss of independence. Not driving is something that certainly contributes to that.
So…agree with upstream suggestion of finding alternative ways to get from place to place. Have your mom try some of those. My mom used senior transportation…it was fine enough but she never liked it.
My inlaws live in a fabulous senior community that offers shuttle service to everywhere imaginable…plus on request to other places. MIL refuses to use it.
So…YMMV. But it’s worth at least exploring the options.
You have many good suggestions, and I would take this issue very seriously. It’s not just her life at risk, it’s other people out on the road.
An acquaintance of ours was killed riding his bike, legally, in the bike lane. The driver was older (but not as elderly as one might think) and I always wonder exactly what happened. I don’t think the driver was charged with anything. The victim left behind his family, his business, and he still had a kid in high school. 
Living in south Florida I see lots of elderly people on the road who should no longer be driving. In my amateur opinion if it’s not a physical issue (vision, etc.) then it’s their processing speed that slows down. The brain can’t do the many tasks that it has to do every few seconds to make piloting a 2000+ pound steel object safe for the driver and other people in public.
It’s hard to think of a parent not being able to drive. But it’s even harder for that parent to live with the knowledge that they ended or devastated another person’s life.
Oh my gosh - WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? My father was hit by a car in a PARKING LOT. An 86 year old woman driving a brand new Mercedes confused the brake and accelerator AND Drive and Reverse and hit my dad when she thought she was backing up. She then was so befuddled she could not figure out which was the brake and hit him again.
I filed a report with my DMV but I do not know if she is still driving because (unbelievably) the police cannot ticket in a private location (i.e. parking lot) unless there is a DUI. So she got off scot-free.
My parents, meanwhile, had to sell their house and move to a senior apartment because my dad sustained a head injury and spine issues. They went from enjoying their golden years independently, to being virtually house-bound. My dad can no longer drive, or finish the books he had started writing (he is a professional writer)
It has taken all my will power to not contact this lady’s family and ask why the heck they let her drive. Perhaps this was the first time she had had an incident, I don’t know, but if there has been one incident, THERE WILL BE MORE.
PLEASE take away the keys!!
The reason there are tests to assess judgment, planning, reaction time, divided/alternating attention, memory, spatial skills, problem-solving, etc is precisely because people are very bad at guessing/assessing the degree of impairment in the skills necessary to operate a motor vehicle. I fully support the need for a formal evaluation (neuropsych, occupational therapy), and though I am not a fan of completely automated testing programs, there is this, which is better than nothing http://www.driveable.com/index.php/products/dcat …even an AARP driving eval or safety tips (prefer the in vivo one to the online one) is better than nothing. The cost of an eval is much less than the cost of loss of lives.
My SIL had this assessment done with her mother…actually has been done twice in the last ten years. As she put it…it gives an impartial person’s assessment. And if/when the driver doesn’t do well, it’s not a family member who is saying “time to give up,the keys”. It’s a health professional who can give the data that supports the reasons.
Give the old driver a gift certificate to Lyft. My MIL likes it and likes being able to use it on her smartphone.
Issues with my parents and in-laws have made me think of planning to phase out certain things in my life by certain dates. House with stairs? Gone by age 70 at the latest. Driving? Gone by 75 or so.
I’ve driven with or behind enough older people to know that their reflexes are just not up to it. A really slow driver running a red light? You can’t stop when you’re only going 25 mph? Give up that car already.
One of the key things to look for is getting lost. You mention that this kind of started because your Mom got lost in the backwoods. My Dad was starting to get very lost every time he went out to drive. He could only make it to certain places by rote memory. Then we saw lots of dings and scratches start to appear on his car. They were hilariously covered up by duct tape.
Besides begging his doctor to report him to the DMV (which took the burden off us children for taking away his license), the car mysteriously got ‘stolen’ from his driveway.
This is always a hard one. I managed to persuade my then 92-year-old mother to give up her car a few years ago. She had always been a safe driver and, as she got older, understood her limitations. She would not drive in bad weather or when it started to get dark (much less at night). She eventually abandoned the freeways and would only drive around town. But then she started scraping the pillars in her apartment building’s parking garage and it was enough. She agreed (and is now is an assisted living facility) but still misses her freedom of movement. It’s hard but it has to be done.
I suggest encouraging your Mom to sign up for sr housing. Most have vans that drive the tenants to church. the store and other events around town. We took my Dad’s car away. There is public trans where he lives, but he cannot figure it out so we hired a relative to go over 6 days a week to take him out for an hour or two to run errands, go to a restaurants, etc. Luckily we can afford it, otherwise we would be in a bind. I have two brothers, but one is too far to get to Dads more than a couple times a month and my other brother travels for work. So it would have fallen on me and I already have a lot of commitments. Now I go over 2-3 times a week and we are in a good place. I suggest figuring something out now, before you Mother gets frustrated.
The transportation at senior housing places is not a cure-all. They tend to have set routes, but arranging for transportation to doctor’s appointments, hearing aid checkups, and the like can be very VERY difficult for an aged parent.
YMMV depending on the senior housing. My inlaws live in a very nice aging in place senior complex. The shuttle service is quite excellent. In addition to routes they have scheduled, any resident can request shuttle service within a certain distance from the place and it is easily arranged.
Not an inexpensive place…but they know their residents want to get around…and this was one thing the family specifically looked for when they were relocating.
@thumper1 : YMMV indeed. They can promise but the carry through is a different story. I would just caution people to take those representations with a grain of salt and to talk to residents about their experiences. I would consider moving mom but that “solution” would probably be worse than the problem at this point. Actually, I would advise people to take EVERY representation with a grain of salt. The sales reps are one step up from used car salesmen, and I may owe an apology to the latter. :-c
My inlaws live in the community…and they have seen the service in action. Theirs is a pretty pricey place so maybe this transportation is part of the cost.
And yes…they did talk to current residents .not just the sales people.
@thumper1 : I was not questioning your experience. Ours has been different, even though mom knew people who lived there and we asked lots of questions and it’s $$$$ a month. I repeat my advice, but I don’t know what more I could have done.
Both my grandmother and mother found the ride service at their indep living worked well. Two different residences, lots of destination options at both. (This was much better than the city ride service my mother previously relied on.) Sure, some places may not be as good as others, but you vet for that, just as for the food, attention, and other services. A good situation beats leaving our elders to their own devices…or isolation.
It’s possible OP’s mom just had one bad day. But I think we’re saying to be aware, not assume everything is fine.