from the NYTIMES:

[pooks]

We went through nightmares to stop my mil from driving. She had three wrecks (fortunately, never hit anybody else -- just immovable objects) by stepping on the accelerator instead of the brake. The last time, she drove through the back of her house and did thousands of dollars worth of damage to her house AND her car.

State Farm refused to pull her insurance.

The State of Texas can't do anything unless a doctor says a person is medically incapable of driving. She was under a hematologist's care who said she couldn't write the letter because her anemia was under control and thus wasn't contributory to her driving. Her internist wouldn't write the letter. Fortunately, her cardiologist took it upon himself to write it -- after my mother-in-law giggled and told him she was still driving, and he couldn't do anything to stop her.

That didn't end the nightmare, though.

In Texas it is next to impossible to stop the elderly from driving unless they are reasonable enough to recognize when it's no longer safe. My mother only drives short distances even though she's never had a wreck. She is uncomfortable on the freeways and always gets somebody else to take her if she's going far.

There HAS to be a way to stop bad drivers of any age.

I think teenagers are allowed to drive too young. I think that should change. HOWEVER, the big difference between teenagers and the elderly is the asumption that teenagers will improve. The elderly almost without exception will not, and their driving abilities will diminish. This is a fact of life and there needs to be a legal way to deal with it.

After my mil drove through the back of her house (making excuses as to why it wasn't her fault, of course) and my husband took her keys away, it turned out she'd hidden extra keys all around her house in anticipation of such a day. She kept driving. People kept telling us all the things we should say to her, but the problem was, we'd said all those things.

When my husband said, "What if there had been a child in front of your car? What if you killed somebody?" she responded, "So be it."

How do you deal with that?

[mimitabby]

wow, Pooks, what a story!
I have a mil that needs to stop driving too. She's got alzheimers; which is really scary. She's only driving a few blocks now, to church and back, literally, but recently she got into an accident with a parked car and then forgot about it.
She's still driving..try reasoning with someone whose brain is gone!

[pooks]

Somebody has to stop her. It's that easy. And that hard.

Some people have no problem dealing with it -- taking the keys away and letting the poop hit the fan. My husband had a terrible time doing it.

My MIL has alzheimer's too. At that time it was not diagnosed and was pretty early on. Her real issue was all about independence. She loved driving, she claimed she paid for her car, she paid for the insurance, therefore nobody had the right to stop her.

When I caught her driving without a license and took the keys out of her hands, she called the police and told them that I'd stolen the keys to her car and to arrest me. (Mind you, without me she'd be up a creek, and she knows it.) But this was all about a single-minded panic at losing what she considered the last thread of her independence, and her focus narrowed down so tiny that NOTHING mattered to her but that she still be able to drive. Even other people's safety. She didn't even bother to claim nobody would get hurt. She just said she didn't care if she did hit somebody, because she'd probably be dead and wouldn't have to know about it.

And there was absolutely NOTHING we could do to stop her (unless of course my husband had been willing to take her keys and put up with the aftermath). When she had to go to take her test again (after her cardiologist wrote the state and said she shouldn't be driving) she failed the test five times (oh, the stories the testers told me, oy!) but insisted that everybody was lying because they just thought she was too old, because she knew she was a good driver. She decided they were discriminating against her because of her age, and called the DMV repeatedly, until finally I got a call from the Captain who was in charge of the place begging me to stop her from calling -- she was calling him 15-20 times a day to protest that she was a good driver and his testers were lying.

I felt like saying, "If a big guy like you with a gun and state police unit to back you up can't stop her, what am I supposed to do?"

(sigh)

[mimitabby]

Somebody has to stop her. It's that easy. And that hard.
she failed the test five times (oh, the stories the testers told me, oy!) but insisted that everybody was lying because they just thought she was too old, because she knew she was a good driver. She decided they were discriminating against her because of her age, and called the DMV repeatedly, until finally I got a call from the Captain who was in charge of the place begging me to stop her from calling -- she was calling him 15-20 times a day to protest that she was a good driver and his testers were lying.

I felt like saying, "If a big guy like you with a gun and state police unit to back you up can't stop her, what am I supposed to do?"

(sigh)

wow, what a story.In our case, I guess the whole thing is in my brother in law's hands, as HE lives with her 3 hours away from us. But this little drama of yours (and of ours) is being replayed all the time, all over the country. all the more reason to not
trust ANY cars EVER.

[pooks]

In my experience and that of my friends, women can handle this much better than men can, though I don't know why. I know several women who have stopped their moms (and in one case, a dad) from driving, even if it meant the mom got angry/hurt/etc.

I know more than one man who was not able to handle that.

[oldbikah]

My father had altzheimers and was clearly not safe to drive, but my mother would not act on it. I called the local police and was told to write to the state motor vehicle dept here in Maine. States will vary in their responses, I am sure, but they had an astonishing fast response. Within one week, they had sent a letter to him to report for a driving test. At that point, my mother just hid the keys and told him his truck would not run and that was the end of it. My name was mud for some time, but I could not let him continue until he killed someone.

[Bad JuJu]

Yeah, I had to tell my dad to stop driving, after he'd been diagnosed with alzheimer's. Fortunately, nobody got hurt--he just got lost a couple of times and the police called me to come and bring him home. I knew his memory was impaired but didn't realize that his sense of direction had been affected, which probably means that other faculties had been affected too.

He fought me some, but not as much as I expected. Soon after that, we had a major hurricane and he had to go live with my brother, so it wasn't as big an issue as it could've been.

I like the idea of regular re-tests for drivers. Might've helped me recognize my dad's impairment sooner.