Vent: my sister's comment about mom's driving hit me harder than I expected

Last week my sister said 'Mom's not safe on the road anymore.' I got defensive at first because Mom has been driving for 50 years without a single accident. But then my sister reminded me of three close calls in the last six months. One time Mom ran a red light at the intersection near Target. Another time she backed into a mailbox in her own driveway. The third was when she got confused on the highway and ended up 20 miles south of her destination. Hearing those examples out loud made me realize we can't just ignore it because it's uncomfortable. Now we're looking into senior driving assessments and maybe Uber vouchers. Has anyone else had to have the 'giving up the keys' talk with a parent and how did you handle the pushback?

3 comments

3 Comments

wade_kelly775d agoProlific Poster

Hold on a second. You're talking about taking away her freedom over three small mistakes. My grandma drove for 60 years and bumped a curb once, my uncle freaked out and tried to take her keys. Turns out her blood pressure meds were just a little off, a quick doctor visit fixed everything. A red light and a mailbox don't mean she's suddenly a danger, especially when she's never had a crash. She got confused on the highway? That happens to people half her age when construction changes the route. You're jumping straight to assessments and vouchers before even checking if it's just bad days or an actual pattern.

lewis.brian4d ago

@wade_kelly77 I actually just read a study from AARP that said around 70% of older drivers stop on their own before anyone has to force them. It made me think, maybe we should give people more credit to figure it out themselves. Your grandma story reminds me of someone I know whose dad was forgetting exits but it turned out he just needed new glasses. A red light and a mailbox aren't crash report material, that's a pretty low bar to start panicking over.

corah754d ago

You said "three small mistakes" and that really stuck with me. Because that's exactly what they are, small stuff that anyone could do on a bad day. I had to stop driving for a month last year after a new medication made me dizzy, and I'm not even 50 yet. Sometimes it's just a health thing or a vision thing, not a permanent loss of skill. We're so quick to jump to the worst case instead of looking at the whole picture.