my 93 yr old mother insists on driving !

At the risk of incurring someone's wrath and, as a relative newbie on Gransnet, can I say what a pity it is that quite a few posts lately seem to descend into arguing about attitudes, comments, meanings etc..., rather than confining themselves to advising the OPer. Sort of puts me off posting - except in this case, obviously.

I work in a hospital eye clinic. Does your mother have regular check ups / treatment for her macular degeneration. If so could you go with her to the next appointment? That way you could see whether her consultant thinks it's safe for her to drive.

You could speak to the local macular society group to see if they have any suggestions on driving

You are being reasonable. Don't ride with her.

Has your Mother still got a valid licence topsyturvy? If it has not been renewed after she was 70 then inform the DVLA. Apart from concerns about your mother's safety you need to consider the other road users. I think in this instance you have to risk her wrath, don't let her drive with you as a passenger and considering the slip road incident probably time she gave up altogether.

thankyou Franjess. I think she has the dry degeneration, But she is 93, frail in body but not in mind and has very limited mobility in her neck and shoulder, so shouldnt her doctor have advised her?
She goes to a clinic in Tiverton for eye injections, and no one has, as far as I know, suggested she stop driving.
She is totally non suggestible to adivce and sees it as interfering criticism. She is admirably independant but VERY tricky. My 2 siblings are very good to her and visit frequently but dare not say anything. I live 300 miles away and have offered to come to visit when she has her next appointment,and drive her there, but she refuses each time and I know she is suspicious of my motives.

I am beginnning to think that we have a moral responsibility to other road users to do something, but what? She would go bananas if she found out we had done something behind her back. What can we do? And admittedly she hasnt actually had an accident other than bumps to the car, which I am guilty of too!
Thankyou for your concern.

When my aunt started mounting her car on the pavement when driving round corners the family decided she was unfit to drive and took the car keys. At 89 she was still mobile and fairly active but had poor sense of judgement and spacial awareness. I think the time has come for your mum to be told it is no longer safe for her to drive. Tough conversation ahead.

One of the deepest unsolved mysteries in my family history is how my mother ever managed to pass her driving test.

Nobody would get in the car with her and she finally listened to our threats pleas and gave up when she was in her fifties. It was hard on me because she then expected me to take her everywhere she needed to go but anything was better than the worry of knowing she was out there causing fear and chaos.

There's an old joke that the elderly person who boasts they've never had an accident is one of those drivers who never looks in the rear view mirror. If they did they'd see all the mayhem they've caused in their wake!

Seriously though. You really should stop your mother driving. With MD she's a disaster waiting to happen.

Topsyturvy: I've read your thread and the many helpful responses so don't have much to add except to suggest that you try to involve your siblings and your mother's GP in convincing her to give up driving.

I note your comments about 'bumps' on her car; what if a future 'bump' involves a baby in a buggy, cyclist, walker etc? It doesn't bear thinking about.

I took the decision to give up driving when my car needed replacing not long after my 70th birthday. Although I miss it a great deal, I don't miss the high costs involved in running a car on a limited income.

I wish you all the best with this difficult problem.

Well if it was a parent of mine who was 93 and they had vision problems I would speak to her doctor.and as others have said check insuance
If that doesn't help then I would report to DVLA.
Sounds harsh I know but not as harsh a being responsible for the possible injury or even death of another person
You DM would only have to live with knowledge for a few years.
At 65 yrs you have several years of thinking I should have tried to have stopped her from driving.
Sorry in advance for causing any upset.

Do you think your mother has not told DVLA about her MD, topsyturvy? It could be that she has but the MD has not got to a stage yet where it would be supposed to be affecting her driving vision. Would it be possible for you to check this?

My mother has MD and glaucoma and is now registered blind but she was legally able to drive for a while after MD was diagnosed.

thankyou for your helpful comments. the problem is that my brother knows she is unfit and my sister wont rock the boat. But then neither of them have driven with her for years, and I have and that was enough. It was her inflexible determination that no one would drive her car except her, as if I was quite mad to think there was any reason at all that I should drive that set me thinking. So for the moment I have cancelled the visit and will go when I have my. own transport. is it interfering with an independant old woman, or is it spineless of me to do nothing?
How long do vry old drivers keep going, especially with macular degeneration, and how are they certified to drive by their doctors.?

I would never forgive myself if by our collective lack of courage to confront this, that someone got maimed or worse.

Or is this ageist?

Could you contact the dvla for advice?
It all seems a bit lax; my friends father in law has only just stopped driving, and he is extremely shaky with Parkinson's.

You are not being ageist, tt, just careful in the circumstances. I expect DVLA will want an optician's assessment after a diagnosis of MD and driving licences of people over 70 have to be renewed every three years anyway.

Checking with DVLA, as misadventure suggests, sounds like a good idea.

l worked with a lady whose 93 year old mother in law still insisted on driving. She told us the tale of how her MIL had phoned her and said she'd driven down to the town (she lived in a tiny village)and felt something wasn't right, but she couldn't exactly say what.
lt transpired that the drivers seat was fully reclined. To my way of thinking, if you can't realise that, you shouldn't be driving. (And l speak as someone who worked for the police for 28 years.) I think we were all just grateful she'd got there and back in one piece without harming herself or anyone else.

Sorry but I think there is very little option here, tough love is needed and you should call time on your mother driving.

I completely agree with Christinefrance, I don't think you have any alternative but to stop her driving if she is as bad as you say. I accept it won't be easy but if anything should happen - particularly if someone is seriously injured - then you would never forgive yourself.

A few years ago, driving round a roundabout, I was hit by car driven by an elderly man whose response time could be counted in minutes. It was not a large roundabout and had excellent visibility and I was doing about 20 miles an hour and he less than 10, yet he drove over 100 yards with a clear view of me, failed to break, and drove into the side of my car.

Not only that when he filled in his insurance claim, he clearly had no idea where I had come from and described the accident completely incorrectly.

No matter how low his speed, he could not have responded quickly if a child had run into the road, and a child run over by a car going slowly ends up just as dead as one run over at speed.

Years ago my mother went to stay with her cousin, who was a diabetic. He met her at the station and they drove to his house. Halfway there she realised that he was now practically blind and was driving from memory!

,topsyturvey of course it's not ageist. You have reasonable concerns based on your experience of your mother's driving.

Why not tell her she is dangerous on the roads and must stop driving? Then, when she refuses, put the onus on her to prove that she is safe, by consulting optician, doctor and DVLA.

If she is fine to drive, it wouldn't matter what your motives were for wanting to accompany her to an optician's appointment, as she would come out of it with flying colours anyway.

How do you know her doctor or optician have said nothing to her? Would she tell you if they had?

Think hard about a possible injury, or death, she could cause then take action.

Wether you go or not to visit you surely cannot keep quiet after having driven with her and realising she is a danger to all others on the road Could you really live with yourself if she caused an accident and killed someone or caused a pile up let's face it as much as you love your mum she's 93 and had her life but she could kill a young family or a child I believe it is now your duty to tell DVLA
I personally don't think ANY old person should be driving I think there should be a cut off age the same as there is a starting age and that would take pressure off children reporting perhaps have a retest at 75 and stop driving at 80

The DVLA site is very helpful and there is an A-Z list of conditions with advice if you are allowed to drive or not. Things have changed after the Glasgow bin lorry accident and we had to consult it recently for my daughter who had a single seizure 4 years ago was allowed to drive after a year by the DVLA as no abnormalities but she is not allowed to drive patients or staff around for 5 years (that is the change).
I also found out that doctors can advise people not to drive but cannot yet inform the DVLA except for a few named conditions. I think they are going to change that too. If it is written in medical notes that you have been advised not to drive then your insurance will be invalid.
There have been fatal accidents recently in my area involving very elderly drivers and I echo others points about how you would feel if children, young mothers or anyone was seriously injured or killed. It is a difficult decision to make.

Topsyturvy

If your mother is having treatment for her AMD then sh is having her eyesight tested everytime she goes to th clinic and her sight meets the driving requirements.

You say she is still sharp and 'frailty' and mild disability is NOT a disqualifaction to drive, many young severely disabled people drive, so yes you are being 'ageist'.

It does sound as if she isnt a very good driver (motorway incident) but many people are not, including young people. If she had an accident you do not know it would be her fault, and even if it was, she might have made the same error when tthirty years younger.

What would be a good idea is to persuade her to stop motorway driving, and driving at night (when the accident rate goes up anyway). Certainly refuse to accompany her on the motorway if she insists on driving.

Probably most of her driving is low speed low risk on local roads in the daytime. It could damage her quality of life seriously to prevent her doing this.

How do you know her doctor or optician have said nothing to her? Would she tell you if they had?

A doctor or optometrist has to inform the DVLA if someone fails to meet the driving standard.

It's a problem too out of towns where there is little or no public transport, or if there is the roads are so bad that it can be painful being tossed around on an elderly bus (the newer ones with springs are usually saved for urban areas).

But it sounds as if the problem with the OPs mother is more that she thinks she has overall right of way on the road and woebetide anyone who gets in her way! I would refuse to drive with her. She sounds like a girl racer to me.

Has she got a birthday coming up? Maybe an Experience day on an Advanced Driver course?