My next-door neighbor (92, mobility issues, kids hours away, 2-story house with full bath upstairs, no help, etc.) got her car stuck in reverse and plowed into the house across the street. She wasn’t hurt, but her car is pretty well totaled. And she’d just gotten her driver’s license renewed earlier in the week.
She did a significant amount of damage to the house across the street. Her car sits in her driveway. I’m actually surprised she hasn’t bought another car. She should not be living alone. Her kids can’t make her do a thing. I guess they are waiting for The Event to force a change. This apparently wasn’t it.
I had to bring in a social worker to get my dad to stop driving. It was a hard conversation…not soon after he was hospitalized and the conversation led to assisted living. Luckily my mother was already in memory care so I spun it that he could see her every day and not just once a week when I could take him to visit.
Now we just put a loved one from DH’s side of the family on hospice care. This chapter of life is emotionally draining.
Sounds like it’s time for me to bring up my parents’ story again. Seven years ago an 86 year old woman driving a new Mercedes confused Drive and Reverse and slammed into my parents parked car. My mom was in the driver’s seat waiting while my dad put a bag in the trunk. The force slammed the car into dad who fell and had a brain injury. He was lucky he survived.
In one second, their lives changed forever. We had to sell their home, move them to a senior community, then to assisted living, then to memory care, as the burden of handling dad’s TBI grew progressively harder and harder for my mom.
This happened in a parking lot. The police (and I talked to many, including my cousin who is a cop) could not do anything because she was not drunk and it was on private property.
I reported her to the state but i have no idea if she ever stopped driving.
My dad’s license was revoked due to his TBI and my mom stopped driving a few years later once she felt the least bit shaky because she did not want to hurt another family.
If you don’t have the spine to take away your loved ones keys, enlist their doctor to do it.
What a story! One of my kids was hit by a car and had a severe TBI requiring surgery and ICU, but my mother continued to drive.
In our experience, doctors don’t take away licenses. Not the PCP nor the neurologist. They might write a letter to the elderly patient recommending, but they don’t seem able to take any action beyond that.
I am surprised the police could not take away the license of the person who hit your parents’ car. Was the woman not charged with anything, driving to endanger, something?
As mentioned before, I challenged my mother’s pride and told her she should take a test to prove to everyone that she could drive. A rehab driving assessment program failed her and took her license on the spot.
As for elderly neighbors living in dangerous conditions, there is always the option of calling state Elder Services , which will bring a social worker out.
I guess if it’s your own private parking area. People always suggested calling the police when I was trying to get my mother to stop driving, and it puzzled me.
I could not get a PCP or neurologist to take away late 90s FIL’s license. When he was forced to move to AL, by us bad kids, we just did not deliver his car. He called the cops and reported my DH stole it
I felt the same way - if my dad had died, couldn’t she be charged with manslaughter or something? But one of my dad’s best friends was a police investigator who I talked to, and the police officer who worked the accident all agreed that it was an “accident.”
To make matters worse, she was only minimally insured. We had to go thru our insurance to try to get some compensation for medical bills, OT, PT, etc etc. Hence the adage that it is better to be hit by a rich person than a poor person. (I think she had some assets but our lawyer said it for various reasons he advised going thru insurance instead of trying to sue her etc etc)
My dad has not been driving and may not ever resume, but my 88 yr old mom is driving him nearly everymorning to their volunteer work. They live in a small (pop 6,000) town and have for 50+ years. It’s a 10 minute drive.
If she doesn’t drive, they have no contact with the outside world. Theywon’t consider Meals on Wheels so theyneed groceries. He doesn’t qualify for visiting healthcare and their pcp is 15 minutes away. No taxis, no Uber. Their church is populated with other elderly people. I’d say, well, then, they need to live in assisted living but there is none anywhere near them.
I have told her, and siblings have reinforced, that she is fine living independantly but driving is risking her safety, his, and everybody else’s. She knows I am right, but as Dad becomes more difficult to manage (and he’s always been stubborn) she’s understandably not wanting to tackle explaining to him that she will only go out on a reduced schedule. I just don’t know what I can do as a person 200 miles away.
I am sympathetic to that situation. It really is hard for seniors to give up their independence. My dad’s accident crystallized for me in a way that most people won’t understand, the importance of getting shaky drivers off the road. It would be great if, as a society, we required people to re-test once they hit a certain age.
In my county we do have a bus program that is available for seniors to go to the grocery store, doctor, drugstore, etc. And my church does a carpooling thing to get people there on Sundays.
@greenbutton if I were you (because I was you!) I’d be thinking ahead as to what is going to happen if/when one of them needs more care. At that point, you’ll be forced to decide if you want to hire help to come in, or move them at that time.
And I am mystified by doctors who don’t do their duty to report elders. Why can’t they be the bad guy instead of the elder’s children?
My mom’s doctor was happy to be the bad guy, BUT, we had also been prepping her for years that when the doctor said it wasn’t safe, that she would need to stop driving. Thankfully we had buy in from her that when the time came, she just handed me her keys. I’ve had friends that had to resort to much more drastic measures like disabling the car by taking out the battery or just selling it (and yes, there were calls to the police but I’ve never heard of a situation where charges ever went anywhere).
My dad HATED using the senior bus program. He said it was for “old people”. Thankfully he started using it for his VA appointments that were “far” and he started getting used to it. He died in his sleep before he needed to start using it all the time.
In my experience with my parents, it was very hard for them to make any kind of sudden changes. The more preparation we had, the better. Even with caregivers. Starting out with just a couple of hours, 1-2 x/week was necessary to start, even though they needed way more.
If you can get ahead of the crisis and putting out fires, you’ll be ahead of the game. I felt like all we were doing at the end was putting out fires, but in retrospect, we still had made some significant progress in terms of having resources and help set up.
Funny about “old people!” When my FIL moved to an IL/IL/SNF place, all the middle school prestige was based on competence. IL>AL & SNFs were below consideration. When I moved him from IL to AL, the ladies in the elevator asked whose stuff I was moving and once i told them, there was a bit of a “Sniff” “chatter chatter, he uses his walker too much to be IL etc” conversation. Anyone seen the Pixar Short “For the Birds?”
The little birds on the wire emulate the attitude and tone of many people in IL/AL, it’s like holding on for dear life to every little shred of independence is what gives them hope & purpose, plus they see the others as old people, but don’t see themselves.
My mother told me that she saw it with her parents and that when my mother was in her 80s, she could see the lady in the mirror was old, but in her head, she was the same person she’d always been. Kinda like when I go on the trampoline with the grandkids, my body wants to do flips, it has (old) muscle memory of doing flips, but my brain shouts, “No, you fool”
Siblings and I have different views about approaching the whole driving thing. They are, generally, much more about damage control and reacting than they are about proactive planning (which they seem to always think is me being an “alarmist”).
To hire someone to drive them would be very very difficult. Not impossible, but the first step would be getting them to agree that she shouldn’t drive, and they resist that, for many reasons but also the “now we are a burden” part. And as his chronic illness and panic blooms, my father is nearly impossible to reason with. The practical challenge of finding and retaining a driver are huge, where they are. But I am well beyond the “they should have a say in things” and into “they really aren’t going to have useful input beyond resistance”
Their pcp visits are not attended by any of us. I believe they should be, siblings see no reason why. The visits are to check on Dad, so Mom driving is not on the radar. I am deciding how much goodwill to burn up by calling their doctor prior to the next visit and explaining the problem. As mentioned previously, I am Mom’s “anger magnet”.
If it were up to me, I would just stop trying to persuade them nicely and simply take the keys. It would force all of them to stop stalling on plans and get their #$&@ together.
@greenbutton see if you can turn to the local Office of the Aging, a social worker, or a geriatric consultant to learn what options are out there. We worked with a consultant and it was not that expensive and saved us a ton of time, money, and aggravation.
If you are within a couple of hours of Rhinebeck NY there’s a program based in the local hospital that evaluates driving.
I am sympathetic/empathetic as I am also my mother’s anger magnet, we live in a rural area, and my sibling was uninterested in dealing with the driving issue. So we have a lot in common!
Yes, crimes (felonies) on private property are still felonies. Cops just don’t get into it for parking accidents. If it was drunk driving, they would have made an arrest.
Also, you could sue her for a tort of assault or property damage.
Usually insurance takes care of it, but if you feel it wasn’t handled correctly, sue (and your insurer may handle it for you).
Some people have umbrella insurance policies and so they have insurance that will pay out for clear cut stuff. My dad made sure they had strong policy as mom was not a good driver anyway - so good to have the coverage. Which did have a significant six figure pay out with mom’s last accident when she was strongly encouraged to forfeit her license (threatened to face felony charges if she didn’t). DH and I got umbrella coverage - esp. with young drivers, but we keep it – want the extra protection (and SWAN).
