When to stop driving autos

[texbaylea]

I am 79 and still driving and try to be extra attentive above what I was before. I broke my hip, actually broke the "ball" off the head of the left femur. Started driving 5 mos after surgery. I still use canes because of my knees but will have the left one replaced after Christmas. Bird, how long was it before you were driving again?

My wife was hit head-on by a drunk in 1990 and nearly killed. She gradually stopped driving because she tended to flinch when someone in her peripheral vision moved suddenly.

We have a large shop building that I don't use as much anymore so our son is making plans to build an apartment in there. The plumbing rough-in is already there as this was a long time plan. Our son is self employed and says he only needs a computer and an internet connection so moving here is not a burden.

I think that I will find a used limosine and make him wear a chauffer's cap :laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing::laughing:.

Vernon

 

[Bird]

Vernon, I drove about 5 miles (actually 4.8), and back, to have lunch with friends 13 days after the surgery. I had already quit using the walker, but did carry along a cane. Incidentally, I had my last outpatient therapy session a week ago yesterday; Oct. 22.

 

[Greenmountain Farmer]

Hey, this is as good a place an any to chew on this topic, and being as this list is populated by inquiring vehicle related minds, better than many other forums.

As I was relating previously, for a person to decide they should not be driving and actually hang up the keys is almost never going to happen on it's own. It's usually going to require either family or legal intervention. Family or friends intervention can be gentler. Legal usually comes after the overripe driver gets into trouble on the road. Sometimes with tragic consequences.

Brings to mind the old drivers ed joke: One older person conversing with another says "I hope I die peacefully in my sleep, as my Uncle Jed did.
Not screaming in terror as passengers in his car did." Oy! Funny unless it's you.

So, generally, family and friends of a failing driver are going to be the first to become cognizant of the issue. When this occurs, it almost as hard for loved ones to admit to themselves that Uncle Jed ought to be off the road.
With that admission come their responsibility to general population and particularly other drivers, to try to make that happen.

How this can work depends on many circumstance, and the state in which the driver resides. To actively work at getting someone's license pulled has many pitfalls. I can guarantee doing so will not put you at the top of that person favorite people. In the state of WA you can contact the DOL and tell them that you think Uncle Jed is no longer competent to drive. If they get such a report they will likely investigate and may require the Jed retake the drivers test, both written and behind the wheel. The "problem" with the situation here, and I can see the reason for it, the DOL is legally obligated to inform Jed who turned him in. So, to turn in a relative in this way takes some courage in that it will likely put the whistle blower on Jed's and perhaps other peoples ka-ka list. Responsibility can be a heavy burden.

A kinder way is to just work at convincing Jed to quit while he's ahead.
I pulled my fathers keys when he was 87. He was not happy, complained about it to anyone who would listen for a couple of years. But basically went with the program. However, at that point I became his chauffeur as needed.
AARP has a very good publication on ways to approach to this issue, available in print or as a PDF file on their website.

An easier out is the have the family doctor make the call to the DOL, as doctors are obligated by law to do so if they find a patient unfit to drive.
Some doctors are also reluctant to make this call for the same reasons family members are, plus business reasons. However, iff pressed by family members, they will likely comply and make the call.

Another route, particularly if you know a LEO is to have them follow Jed and they make the call based on what they observe of his driving. Many times
a failing driver will get stopped for a traffic infraction, or will have a fender bender and come to the attention of the police who should then send Jed's name to the DOL for a license review. Hopefully the situation that brings Jed to the attention of the police does not involve injury or death to others.

In my work as a driving instructor I get calls from older folks who have come up against the system for whatever reason, and have had to retake the drive test. In WA they get three tries at it. If they don't pass in three tries their license is permanently revoked. I don't usually get called until they have already flunked the test a time or two. It is more usual for them to continue to fail the test than to pass, despite several hours of behind the wheel work addressing the specific problem that caused them to fail the test in the first place. It seems to generally boil down to mental impairment as the main issue.

Not pretty, but we all have an expiration date. Getting oneself or others off the road before they cause others to expire is the nut of the issue. If your old and really have your wits about you, self regulate before it's too late.
If you KNOW someone else should be off the road, you've go an obligation and a nasty job ahead.

Now, when should one give up driving a tractor?

Regards,
Dennis

:thumbsup:VeryGood post, we got luckey, one day my dad said that there were enough drivers in the family that he was no longer going to drive,he had no problems on the road just felt he was ready to stop driving!!
TOM in Vermont

 

[rd_macgregor]

And I always thought this was a JOKE!

The Senior Driver

As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.
Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, "Herman, I
just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on 280.
Please be careful!"

"****," said Herman, "It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!"


BOB

 

[HiTechTed]

One time during a visit with my wife's then 85 year old uncle, he decided to take us out for dinner. During that trip he ran 7 stop signs...he didn't even look, just blasted right through them. During the same trip, when he was deciding which way to turn or where to go, he would just stop the car, right in traffic. He never looked in his rear view mirror, never bothered to see if anybody was behind him. That was the scariest ride ever...I dreaded getting back in the car after dinner to go back to his house.

Some time before that, he was backing out of his parking space, thought he had his foot on the brake and instead kept shoving the gas pedal down. He backed the car right through the wall of the apartment across the street, right into some guy's bedroom. A time before that, he backed the car up over a decorative boulder at his doctor's office and ruptured the gas tank.

His own father told him (many, many years earlier) that he was the worst driver he had ever seen in his life. Ironically, his father was killed in an auto accident...

What ended his reign of terror was a police officer, who stopped him (for reasons he never completely explained to us) and told him that he had no business driving a car. That, combined with our intervention, convinced him that it was time to stop driving. I believe he would have either killed himself or somebody else had it not happened when it did.

 

[ultrarunner]

Not a day goes by without someone blasting through stop signs near an apartment building I take care of.

I know it's about to happen because most cars slow down when approaching a stop sign and these teens and 20 somethings speed up.

The corner Barber Shop has had cars plow into his building many times and a child walking his bike in the crosswalk was hit a few years ago.

Law Enforcement has a real problem with unlicensed, no insurance drivers with beater cars without tags running wild.

Seniors really are the least of their trouble...

My truck was tapped by one a few years ago and the police and DMV refused to do anything... they said they could impound the car if the contract tow company choose to pick it up... they don't like to pick-up rolling wrecks and they could suspend the vehicle driver license if they had one.

 

[dcyrilc]

Read this story:

Police: Charges pending in wrong-way I-95 crash | 6abc.com

What I find amazing in this story is that the driver who filmed it had lots of time to video with his phone, but doesn't seem to have had the sense to call 911 and report the issue. He could have easily led police quickly to the scene.

 

[chad22]

My dad is 63 and I truly dread the day he can't drive anymore. He is already sorta losing his mind.

Awhile back he was stubborn enough to want to drive himself to the hospital while hacking up lots of blood. I was in the passenger seat trying to persuade him to let me drive him. I finally got him to pull over and was able to drive.

Though it was getting so bad. I just turned around and mom called an ambulance. The paramedic was actually thinking of calling a helicopter.

It was that bad.

I had an uncle who was 72 that was driving and jumping curbs and running stop signs and almost got his wife and daughter killed. They finally got the doctors involved to take his license away. And then he was put into a nursing home where he later died of a brain tumor 3 years later.

I promise to hand my keys over once I get to the point I can no longer drive safely. I hope I keep to my promise. :thumbsup:

Chad

 

[Reverend Blair]

We had to pretty much rip the keys out of the hands of both my mother's father and my father. Both had Alzheimer's, neither could understand why we didn't want them driving, since both had been excellent drivers for most of their lives and knew it. It's hard.

After my father was no longer allowed to drive anything but an MTD lawn tractor, he'd spend most days mowing the yard. Very nicely trimmed grass, since most of it got a mowing 2 or 3 times a week. One day he decided to go to town and took his little red tractor. My stepmother found him about 3/4's of a mile down the road.

My grandfather took off from town one day and walked out to the farm (about a mile), took the truck with the water tank on it, got water, and drove back to the farm. All the while my mother was frantically searching for him, called the cops and the whole bit. This is in a very small town where everybody know each other, but nobody had seen him. He came home himself in time for dinner (in the truck) and declared proudly that he'd hauled water, but that they'd raised the rates so he couldn't get a full tank. Where he got the money for any water is still a mystery.

The thing is that he'd heard my mother talking about company coming, so he knew the house on the farm would need water (there's no well on the property). Of course one of my brothers had already hauled water, that's why the water tank was already in the truck, so what he'd done was dump about 50 gallons of water into the basement.