My dad, Aunts and Uncles won't take my 86 year old, heart-attack-victim, can't-move-without-supplemental-oxygen grandma's keys. She STILL drives. Unreal. I told my dad if she ever caused a wreck, I'd see to it the family of the vic sued them, and I'd testify for them. He didn't take that well. I've also called the DMV in her state. They didn't care either. There's no way she could pass a driving test, so just how long do they let old people go without renewing?? I think every driver should have to be tested every year. It's not a right, it's a priviledge.

I have one word for that daughter: Conservatorship. I do feel for her because it's a tough position to be in. But the fact that she tried to shirk her responsibility off onto others-his doctor and the police department-really irks me. Thankfully he didn't kill himself or anyone else.

I remember once I was working as a cabbie, and I picked up three college age kids at an apartment. One of them had a huge gash on his leg, and I asked if he needed to get to a hospital. He said it had been looked at, and I was to take them to a hotel.

It seems that their apartment was wrecked because an elderly woman drove right through the wall into their apartment. They're fortunate that he sustained the only injury and that it wasn't more serious. They said that the woman actually tried to back out of the apartment, but one of them had the sense to reach into her window, turn off the car and throw the keys away.

Momof4, good on you. I thought it was a bit harsh at first, but then I realized, someone could easily be killed by dangerous, unfit drivers, to say nothing of injury or loss of personal property. So, with this in mind, there is no "too harsh."

Amy, if I order two of your books, can I send you one with a SASE and have you sign it for me?

This woman apparently was something of a terror behind the wheel and could be seen leaning forward as she drives, peering over the dashboard trying to make out what's in front of her. The reason they were going to a hotel is because the landlords of the apartment complex were putting them up there while their apartment was being repaired.

Personally I think they could do worse than to require to re-take their drivers' license test every so often. Not even just by age - if you get too many points on your license, if you move to a new state, maybe even just a random thing like jury duty - you have a 1 in, I dunno, 5,000 chance of being asked to re-take when you renew your license.

Yeah, someone would figure out a way to sue about it, but this is America, we sue about over-salted french fries.

I like Gallagher's old bit where you're issues a rubber dart gun, with darts bearing a flag that read "stupid". You see someone doing something dumb, shoot him with a dart. A copy sees a guy driving with a dozen on his car, pulls him over and gives hi a ticket for being an idiot.

We faced this problem with my father. My mother refused to take his keys because he threw a huge, flaming fit every time, and his flavor of dementia means he obsesses, so he would throw these fits several times a day, every day. When my mother died, I tried to sell the car, but it's worth more dead than alive, so I've disconnected the battery, and we're going to let it rot in the driveway just to keep him calm.

At least I don't have this problem. My Dad had just about quit driving of his own accord when he had his stroke. He was always hiring street people to drive him around. (They would then turn around and break into his house and steal from him later, but at least he was not driving.)

Then came his stroke, and while he was hospitalized, my wife's car died. I asked Dad if she could drive his car while he was indisposed. That's been a couple of years now.

Bill

It's happened in my family.

And once in Santa Monica, I saw an old woman clip a guy's mirror and drive away. I followed her (12mph chase for two blocks) and warned her that I had her plate number and would call the cops if she didn't leave a note. She promised she would. But fifteen minutes later there was no note, so I left my card on the guy's windshield. He was grateful, but said the cops were hesitant to take action on her, though I was ready (nay, eager) to testify.

Truth is, this happens a *lot*. People don't to give up their mobility, and convincing them to do so is emotionally and politically fraught. It will almost certainly happen to someone reading this comment.

Also, a lot of us are going to get cancer. Tough planet.

Unfit elderly drivers were a huge problem when I lived in South Florida. The ones with non-existent eyesight, who had to stop at every single intersection so they could read the signs, were bad enough. But the ones with dementia were the really dangerous ones.

I recall one incident where an elderly woman drove through the lobby of a bank, fortunately not seriously injuring anyone. First, she tried to claim that her son had been driving the car. That excuse didn't go over well because (1) numerous witnesses saw her alone in the car, and (2) she didn't have a son. So then she claimed it was the bank's fault because they had secretly, overnight, moved the drive-through to the other side of the building just to mess with her. On checking for priors, the police found an outstanding warrant for failure to appear. That charge? A few months earlier, at the airport, she had driven through a chain-link fence and onto an active runway!

For those of you who want to disable a car without being overt about it. There is an anti-theft system that you can get that controls the power from the battery. It leaves enough charge come through to keep radio & other settings set, but not enough to start the car.

They are about $50-100. But it is a way to handle it gently.

A few years ago a white-haired man bumped his car into the back of my car as I sat at a red light, and when I pulled over, he drove off. The police officer who responded to my call said that they could figure out who it was from the license plate and have the DMV require him to take a driving test. If true, that seems like a good way to handle this kind of situation.

I expect most everyone will have a similar situation eventually. We've had to do it with our grandmother and our grandfather. The girl who spent Halloween with us was late leaving because, as she explained it, her Dad had to go "steal" her grandfather's car. Apparently he'd done this before. Neither party mentions it; the grandfather just buys another car! I think they have a little extra money. But you can see the lengths to which people will go to avoid these difficult conversations.

Just spent this Sunday morning and afternoon driving my lovely grandmother around on errands.

We worked with her doctor (prior to going down to the DMV and asking them to revoke it) to have him explain to her that driving at her age with various conditions was unwise for several reasons which were explained to her in no uncertain terms.

With this information she was able to make the choice for herself to give up her license (thank God, because none of us wanted to tell her she couldn't - but we would have). I think this way gave her a lot of dignity (this lady is fiercely independent). If she hadn't, we would have had to go directly to the DMV and remove it by force. I am happy that her doctor was willing to take the time to explain this to her in direct but gentle terms.

She said that the other day one of her friends flunked their written drivers test and she begged the DMV representative for a re-do because she wasnt feeling well. They gave it to her. My grandmother asked "Were you not feeling well?" She said "No, I just didnt understand the questions!" My grandmother told her in no uncertain terms that what she did was wrong.

There are many accidents in her senior community, which the police refuse to patrol (not in their jurisdiction). Many of these seniors are driving on revoked licenses because of this - and many senior pedestrians are hit and killed.

Well my mother is 84 and still driving. The day may come when she will not anymore. I imagine in a year or two. She is very careful and actually drives pretty well. Her license was renewed last year by mail. I think next time she will have to test but now she will not drive at night, out of town, or when the weather is iffy. Her only physical problems seem to be that she is hard of hearing and it is getting worse and I can't get her to get a hearing aid. I think I will probably have to go part time with my job here soon to make sure I have the time to run her around where she needs to go. Our small city has no viable public transportation. Isabel

I think giving up the ability to drive is especially hard for men of "The Greatest Generation" (those who spawned us Baby Boomers). Mom didn't really drive until we kids had to get to kindergarten; we recently convinced her to sell the car after she hadn't driven for a year. Dad, on the other hand, after his stroke at a way-too-young age, would start briskly backing out of a space, then ask, "Is anyone coming?" Took us a year or so to get him off the road. My father-in-law gave it up only after totaling the car by running it into one of the poles [thankfully] protecting a gas pump, after he hit the gas instead of the brake.

Our small city has no viable public transportation.

Not many cities in the U.S. have viable public transportation that is 1) extensive and 2) safe for the elderly. There are people who just alienate everyone in their lives and thus end up with no one to help them out near the end, but there are others who end up that way through no overt action of their own. If they give up driving, they give up autonomy, the ability to go to the doctor on their own, to see friends on any sort of regular basis...for quite a few people, it's essentially the first major step toward death.

Do I think that people who are not fit to drive should be out on the roads? No. Whether they're 18 or 80. But the reason that so many keep driving is not just that they're selfish bastards who don't care about others. It's that they feel that their lives will change dramatically, and in a way that puts their mortality front and center every single day.

I'm not sure what the solution is. If you have a charming elderly friend, ask if you can drive him or her places occasionally. And follow in Amy's footsteps and work on making friends in multiple generations, whether you have offspring and extended family or not. (If you have children and/or nieces and nephews, work on developing relationships with them across the years -- if you can be friends with younger family members once they hit adulthood, they will often remember.) Keep your mind active. Exercise on a regular basis -- it can be mild exercise, but even if it won't make you thin, it'll help keep your muscles and reflexes in good working order.

I keep thinking there must be a business opportunity here for someone. Seniors have an enormous chunk of wealth in America; I know that not all of them are wealthy (by far!), but surely enough are that a concept could be developed that would provide them with a choice between independence via driving and total dependence in the case of a lack of driving.

Any senior in any place in the US has only to pick up the phone to get rides anywhere they want to go, free if they're poor, cheap otherwise. Through whatever version of health and human services is in your area. I know this, because my stepdad drives for them.

Not too many years ago, the advice from AAA and AARP was that older people should drive bigger cars because they were "safer." Of course, the two organizations have since rethought this piece of advice, asking themselves, "Safer for whom?" But still, we see older people driving cars too big for them.

Because of zoning and every other kind of government intervention, we live in a society where cars have become necessities for most people. Oh, you could live in a city and have many amenities withing walking distance, but of course the rents in cities, and the crime, make this difficult. Again, I'd blame the government for both.

Older people need to take responsibility and begin planning for the trouble they will have, driving. They need to be purchasing smaller cars, and sign up for driver safety classes.

My father, who just turned 78, had an accident last year. It wasn't spectacular like some of the ones mentioned on this thread. He was behind a truck that was "going too slow" -- because, you know, truckers are famous for driving too slow. So, he decided to pass the guy. Of course, he couldn't see past the truck and ended up rear-ending someone who was stopped at a red light.

I think a lot of the problems older drivers have is because they -- like a lot of people -- have driven like a**holes their whole lives, but have more or less gotten away with it because their reflexes were within the range of normal.

Old people need to learn what their limits are and how to cope with them. Maybe at age 60, people should have to take a driver's ed class geared towards the older driver. Other than that, I'm all for them having to prove that they can drive should they have some kind of incident.

The trouble is that politicians live in fear of offending the grey lobby, so it would be a brave legislator that pushes for tougher measures to get elderly drivers off the roads.

It is also interesting to consider how much moral opprobrium is attached to drink driving, and yet elderly drivers with deteriorating reaction times and alertness are surely putting other road users in just as much danger. One can argue that a drunk driver can choose not to drink, while an elderly driver can't help their condition. But at some point, it still boils down to choosing to get behind the wheel even when you clearly are not fit to drive and putting your own convenience ahead of someone else's life.

There was a big movment here not too long ago after a couple of high profile accidents involving older drivers.There was a good article in a local paper by a lawyer. There is all kinds of legal difficulties to passing such laws...most of them having to do with age discrimination. Some states have a point system where anyone who gets a certain number of points has to take a test to renew their license. That seems like about the best option here.

I worry about my grandmother. She is the last of her group of friends that can still drive. As long as light is good she does OK. She voluntarily has stopped driving at night (or even dusk). At this point, my parents end up driving out and taking her (or them) around quite often.

> I'm not sure what the solution is.

Say it again, Sister Marion. This is why I put that little barb about cancer at the end of the last comment. There are unpleasant things that happen as people get older, and the loss of mobility is one of them. Let's nobody be surprised, OK? Hitchens once put it more concisely than anyone: "This ends badly."

And I'll be patient with anyone of any age who wants to complain about public transportation... I live in L.A., fer Chrissake, and this place is ridiculous. But understand that the loss of public transit which we might enjoy in senior years has been swapped for an economy supporting independent auto ownership in youth... We're essentially trading inconvenience later for greater liberty today.

Three times this year I've taken impulsive drives up through the San Gabriel mountains north of town, just for the Hell of it, and always stopped at this greasy spoon for a cup of coffee. It was a really quaint place... Maybe kind of theatrically quaint, but still wonderful, made of old cheap wood with lots of Western knick-knacks inside, and hosted by a bearded cook/owner who enjoyed pretending to be gruff. "Whaddya want? Cawfee? Fine, but get your own damn creamer from over there at the end of the counter, and don't take too many...!" It was one of those secret delights that every city has. There was no place like this, and I'm pretty sure part of the old "Twin Peaks" TV show was inspired by it.

In retrospect, I'm glad I had the wheels, and I'm glad I made the time.

One last view.

Hey Amy!

I am a recent reader, newbie poster. Just wanted to say that I pre-ordered your book, and look forward to consuming it! Love the evening gown wardrobe, by the way.

Just two more.