Q: You asked for stories about taking away the car keys of family members. Here’s mine.
Andrea Puck, Santa Clara
A: Off we go. Dozens of people responded to this issue.
Q: My dad was a great driver. He taught me to drive and was a patient instructor.
When Dad was in his late 60s and had Parkinson’s Disease and early dementia, Mom did most of the driving. When she got sick with cancer, Dad started driving again!
After he got lost in Los Gatos for a couple hours, and his reflexes were shot from his illness, my sisters and I decided it was past time for him to stop driving. I asked his neurologist for help. The doctor weaseled out, saying, “This is best handled in the family.”
I broke the news to Dad at a family party. He got very angry. He said he would disown me and call the police. My beloved husband told Dad to make the call.
It was tense for about a week, but then Dad was resigned to the change. I wasn’t disinherited or reported to the police, but what was most important was that nobody was injured by my dad’s driving. My sisters and I took on chauffeuring for our parents.
Somebody with a spine needs to be willing to be the bad guy and literally take the car keys away.
Andrea Puck, Santa Clara
A: These are difficult experiences, but helping someone stop driving when it is time is so important.
Q: A friend of mine’s mother was deep into dementia so my friend disabled something under the hood so her car wouldn’t start. For my dad, it was a lot more complicated. I had a cousin take the car while my dad was in the hospital. It took two days for him to realize that it was gone. I told him he could have his car back if his doctor said it was OK for him to still drive. I thought he would be really mad at me, but he thought the doctor took his car and was mad at his doctor.
Sandy Pollack
A: And…
Q: My mom, who lived to be 100, said she’d stop driving at 80, but 80 came and went. I could tell she wasn’t doing a great job parking since the lights at the corners of her car were all cracked or damaged.
But what to do?
She wasn’t legally blind, but had advancing macular degeneration. Her doc broke the news that she couldn’t drive safely anymore.
It was tough, but she sucked it up.
Claire Lomax, Oakland
A: This doctor did all of you a favor.
Look for Gary Richards at facebook.com/mr.roadshow or contact him at mrroadshow@bayareanewsgroup.com.
Join the Conversation
We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. We reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.