My dad was always a good driver when we were kids, but I started to notice that he was getting more impatient when I was in my mid-20’s. It was the sort of thing that was a little nerve-wracking, but as they were usually short local trips it wasn’t too bad. He would tailgate and weave in and out, but it was just on the edge of being something worth commenting on. He was in control of his car, but who knows when the person in front of you will brake suddenly? Not smart.
Nearly 20 years later, we believe he is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s now, and his judgement is slipping. One evening after a family party several of us saw him pull out right in front of another car. If it wasn’t for the quick action of the other driver, there would have been an accident and he and mom could have been hurt, not to mention the other driver.
Anyhow, during a recent trip up north he got impatient because the car in front of us was pulling a boat and he pulled into the oncoming lane to get around it. We just barely avoided getting into an oncoming collision and he pulled in front of the car/boat combo just in time to avoid a crash. I remember screaming towards the end.
He was very upset because mom was saying OhmyGod OHMYGOD OH NO and I was screaming, and that we had distracted him so that if we had crashed, it would have been our faults. After thinking about it I agree that you should never distract a driver, but I have never felt such primal terror. I truly thought that I was going to die.
Sometimes I get flashbacks and it’s affecting how I feel about being on the road. My car died a few months ago and I’ve been taking the bus to work. it’s inconvenient, but I’m fine with it for now. My husband and I have been looking at cars and I’m dragging my feet. I know I’ll get one eventually but I’m not exactly in a hurry.
Sometime soon mom will have to talk to him about this, or we kids will. I’m so not looking forward to that.
Huh, I expected the story to be the same as mine - when I was learning to drive, I decided to not ever drive with my dad training me again (that sounds much calmer and less screamy than it actually was).
That really sucks - if he doesn’t have any medical issues that will prompt his doctor to pull his license, he just has to be a responsible driver and not drive any longer if he’s a danger, but that doesn’t seem to happen anywhere near as often as it should (amongst younger drivers, too). I think you should have a talk with him - nobody wants him to hurt himself or your mom, and you sure don’t want him hurting someone else.
The sad fact is that a lot of these situations don’t get resolved until something happens. You can probably guess the kind of thing that happens. There has to be a better way. Hide his keys. NOW.
If he is starting to show signs of dementia, that needs to be mentioned to his main doctor ASAP.
Years ago, at the time of Clinton’s health reform (the one which made people have to pick a main doctor, rather than have three different doctors treating everything without asking “are you seeing any other doctors?” :smack:) I rented a room in a woman’s house. A couple days after I moved in, I had to go to the supermarket and, since she had to go as well, she offered to drive me.
She drove about 15mph on the left lane; she held onto the wheel for dear life, her chin trembling with fear; any time she had to turn left, she would turn around almost completely. I made a note to talk to her about it when she wasn’t shaking.
Turns out she had cataracts (worse in the left eye, but she had them in both) and had had them for years, but she kept getting her license renewed by using certificates from her oncologist, who didn’t know about her eyesight problems. And she was terrified of other people’s driving: if she let me drive and she noticed any changes in speed other than “start moving” and “park”, she wouldn’t let me do it again for about a month. I learned to drive that Corolla like it was a cotton ball, so much so that when I took the test for a local license (as a student, I could drive with my Spanish license), the examiner flunked me for stopping too softly (he also asked me to do a three-point turn and I didn’t know what that was, but by that time he’d already told me I’d failed).
Later she had surgery on the left eye; she walked into her house and OhMyGod, she could see with all the lamps switched off! She could see dust on a side table! Yeah, Mama, you really should’a had that surgery some five years ago… :smack:
A few years back, I had my truck totalled while parked in a grocery store parking lot (I wasn’t in it at the time, fortunately). The man that hit me also hit three other vehicles in the accident, totalling five cars, including his own. He was 82.
After speaking with his son, I found out that he had had a similar accident a couple of weeks before in another parking lot. The state didn’t pull his liscense, but his insurance company cancelled him, so that was the end of his driving career.
I hope that it doesn’t take that, or worse, for your dad.
My father always had a very quick temper, so when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and his driving skills started to deteriorate, my mother tried to talk him out of driving, and he just got very angry and defensive. So she contacted his doctor, who told her to bring my father in the next day. So they went to the doctor, and the doctor gave my father a bottle of pills (placebo), and told him to take one a day, and not to drive for one month. My father reluctantly cooperated. They did the same thing a month later, etc., until my father stopped wanting to drive.
He became a horrible back-seat driver, though, but at least nobody got killed.
The mother of a friend of mine was still driving even though she had dementia. She got lost one day and ended up getting her car stuck in a remote location. Somehow the car caught on fire - possibly the catalytic converter set fire to some brush - and she didn’t get out. She died in the fire.
You should do something to stop your father from driving before something terrible happens.
My father would also become very angry and defensive when my mom and I tried to talk him out of driving and we were stuck for ideas (his doctor was no help either during this time). It took an accident (where fortunately no one was hurt), a court order and (FINALLY) a doctor’s letter and 4 failed driving tests to force him to stop. They actually even took his license plates.
We tried disabling Granddad’s car (unplugged the spark plugs) but Gramps was a mechanic back in the day, so he fixed it. Then we hid his keys but he found his backup pair. Finally we had his car towed and then sold it.
A friend of mine has an alcoholic, elderly dad who shouldn’t be driving. I forget if he has a license or not, but that wouldn’t stop him. She took his car at one point. He was found driving his riding lawn mower to the liquor store about a half-mile down this country road with a ~45 mph speed limit, one lane each way, and pretty much no shoulder. Considering he’d been happily “drinking himself to death” on lots of cheap beer for well over 50 years at that point, I think that last I heard, she decided that having beer deliveries brought over to his house was a better solution.
Get him retested. My father was driving at age 90 and hit a bike riding guy in a parking lot. The guy was fine, thank god, but he went to court, got fined and they wanted him to be retested.
He knew he wouldn’t pass, so just sold his car.
I agree he needs to stop driving, but I don’t know that retesting is going to do it at this point. It sounds like most of the time he isn’t impaired, he just periodically has episodes of really bad judgment. What are the odds that’s going to happen during a driving test, especially if it doesn’t include an on-road portion?
You can go ahead and have him retested if you think it might work, but I wouldn’t let it become the litmus test of his driving abilities in your discussions with him. You know, don’t let him be able to say, well I passed the driving test so I’m fine and won’t tolerate any more of this stopping driving nonsense.
Good luck, and please, get on this as soon as possible no matter how much it’ll upset him.
The last day my MIL drove was one of the most white-knuckle days of my life. We went to pick the kids up from school and go to the grocery. She almost drove into a huge ditch at the turn for the school, and when she realized she was in the wrong lane to go to the grocery, pulled right in front of another driver and almost caused an accident. She gave up driving voluntarily after that.
I’m not actually sure it actually does that. If the OP is the one driving, what dangerous thing can dad do?
Okay, okay. I know what was meant. But I still can never get used to people referring to riding in a car as a passenger as driving.
My grandpa had to wind up having his keys, and then later his car taken away in order to keep him from driving. It’s not that there was anything wrong with him mentally at that time, just that he couldn’t accept that his vision was deteriorating.
I have sympathy with the OP. Whilst other contributors have mentioned she needs to do something for other peoples safety, it is not always that easy.
My mother shouldn’t be driving. She always was a poor driver and now well into her 80’s she is worse - far worse. She refuses to listen to anyone and suggesting giving up driving is not something she would appreciate or act on.
Fortunately she lives in a relatively small country town so the potential for damage is limited.
