Quote:
Originally Posted by fw102807
My dad was in his late 80s and had dementia but refused to give up his car. Without guardianship my sister and I could not legally take away his car. I contacted the registry and provided documentation of his dementia and they revoked his license so he never knew it was us. He started to deteriorate quickly after that and I hated having to do it.
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My father voluntarily gave up driving. He was born in 1898 and had been a traveling salesman back to the days of the Model T and the old Lincoln Highway. He never had an accident, to my knowledge never had been issued a ticket, and was one heck of a good driver, teaching me many of his bag of good driving tricks. He never developed dementia but had started to suffer from Parkinson's disease which is why I suppose he decided to give up driving. We never discussed why. He just knew it was time.
This left the driving to my mother who learned to drive only at about age 45. She suffered some minor strokes in her early eighties. Now getting her to stop at that point took some doing. I literally came to tears, begging her to give up her keys after I rode with her on a test drive. What finally convinced her, and I do not know how I ever got the thought, was I asked her "How would you feel if you hit a child who ran out into the street in front of you?" That convinced her. My brother and I moved our parents to a very pleasant assisted living facility where they loved it. My mother only lasted a couple more years but my father lived to age 94.
Life is a series of phases.