Our father is 94 was told several years ago to stop driving. Our mother and other family members refuse to intervene even though he can no longer make phones calls, fix a sandwich, etc. We children have taken the vehicle but he managed to reclaim it, doctors reported him to bureau of motor vehicles but all to no avail. What to do?
I skimmed through, lots of good advice but some not so good advice on disabling a car.
The car will have to be moved and sold at some point. I don’t advise pulling spark plug and distributor cables. Newer cars don’t have distributors and it’s very easy to get the plug wires mixed up when you try to put them back. Don’t let the air out of the tires either, PIA to get them pumped back up. Removing the battery can be quite a job also. Not necessary.
Easiest way to disable a car:
Find the fuse/relay box under the hood or drivers side under dash. Small black box.
Get the cover off. Usually just snaps off. I need my glasses and a flashlight for this.
You will see different colors of fuses and larger cube like gizmos, these are relays. They just plug in.
Look on the underside of the fuse box lid. There will be an index. Find the one that says STARTER, START SYSTEM, or some such description.
Pull this out. Put it in your pocket or hide in a safe place where grandad won’t find it.
When he tries to start the car it’s dead. No click, no nothing.
you tell him you’ll get it towed. After bedtime, plug in relay, drive car away.
In my dads case I also called the repair shop my dad used and the dealer and clued them in as to what was going on in case dad had the wherewithal to try to get the car fixed or towed.
What I'm saying is that if you can replace your dad's driving for your mom, this may make solving this problem a little easier if you get one of the enablers appeased. Good luck!
Asking who is POA might not work either, as some people don't have this set up (there are those who refuse to assign a POA, thinking they will be losing all control as soon as they sign it, even though it doesn't kick in until they are not capable!)
Selling can't be done unless 1) someone has POA and 2) that someone has documentation showing he is impaired and can't make decisions. You cannot sell something you don't own.
They're call driving privileges - driving is not a right. My friend's sister was killed by an old woman who should not have been driving. She hit her and then backed over her because she was confused. Her victim may have survived the initial hit - she was going less than 30 mph - but she was killed when crushed by the car. Frankly, I think the woman should have gone to jail but the legal system took pity on the "poor old woman"...."hasn't she suffered enough"..."punishing her isn't going to bring your sister back". My friend has never been the same since her sister died. Her family was shattered.
Just think how you’ll feel when he hurts/kills himself or someone else. Take the car and they keys away. They will forget about it sooner or later. The rest of your enabling family should be shamed... to put lives in danger.
Good luck
Surprisingly so for his age.
If he was clear minded enough to reclaim his car he's doing better than most
Don't make any rash decisions. Give it a little time & consideration.
There are always solutions to every struggle.
Your father sounds like quite a character. Enjoy him while he's still here
The car must go and arrangements be made to use/provide transport for their needs. People in the condition/age bracket are NOT up with the "advents" of time. They are used to what they have been doing for years and will try to continue that. If you say 'then teach them how to use the computer', then I say you know nothing about dementia.
My family no longer talks to me saying I violated her rights. She was put on hospice 6 months later and had a good death at home. I am an RN IV which I put on the DMV document to testify she was, in fact, a danger on the road. I was also blamed for her death as she wasn't put on hospice until I arrived and I was the one who initiated the hospice referral and took care of all the details for the home death.
I have no family now but I do have peace knowing I took a very dangerous person off the road before they killed innocent people. Driving is a privilege that is earned and maintained through proving you still qualify for that privilege. I am also at peace knowing I gave my mom the proper, respectful death at home that wouldn't have happened had I not been there.
A bit of a back story of how this all came about. I had moved from HI to WA state after determining my mother needed my help. When I arrived at her home I was horrified to find her car had a few large dents. She had an excuse for every dent. When I rode in the car with her driving, she could not stay on the right side of the rode and her judgment for distance was gone...I could not believe we survived the ride.
She lived out in the country in a small town so no one held her accountable. I also discovered she was on multiple meds; adderall, valium, pain meds, ambien & more...her medical Dx was much worse with chronic high blood pressure, pace maker, complete heart block etc...you get the picture and she slipped into long moments with what I will call in layman terms madness. I would find her with random fits of hysteria, she thought everyone was stealing from her and moving the furniture to confuse her, she was hearing and seeing what wasn't there, and yes, she was still driving on public roads with the blessing of the rest of the family...yea.
I do not regret what I did and it got real nasty. I tortured myself with am I doing the right thing, am I wrong: then visions of mangled dead people would enter my mind with my mother standing over them and I would cry...if it had not been a direct family member, I would have never hesitated. I tried to incorporate the help of her doc because I knew he had to know and he brushed me off. I then told the doc I was doing a medication review on her med profile that he was prescribing my mother. He suddenly moved if you can believe that...he actually closed down his practice and disappeared. Take care of your loved ones people.
Don't be afraid to do the right thing...
I do understand why we see things like this though and it truly saddens me to see seniors without any family or help. If they need groceries or medicine they have do what they have to do, laws or not will not stop a determined senior.
We as a community really need to take the time to see that our elderly neighbors and family are taken care of, the way it used to be.
I was lucky with my Mom, she handed over the keys willingly, knowing she had a full time chauffeur (me) on call. Yet, to be sure we did buy the car from her, so it was not available in case she decided to go for a spin.
You were VERY luck your mom gave up her keys! Good idea to buy the car from her. 'Our' people are unpredictable and may forget that they 'don't drive anymore'.