You raise an interesting concern, @rosemarya

We had to confront the issue of my wife's ability to continue to drive early in her illness. Our biggest difficulty was that she insisted she was able to continue to drive safely even though impaired. She was certain her constraints were of no impact. At the same time, our daughter was insistent we, as a family, were at significant financial risk every time she took the wheel because we knew of her shortcomings and were letting her continue to drive. I certainly was cognizant of her limitation and voiced my concerns, but she wouldn't listen.

It wasn't until we insisted my wife take the electronic driving test at Mayo that it finally changed. She failed. Her doctor said to her 'MK, I know you want to keep driving, but your response times and acuity are just not good enough anymore. I know you'd hate yourself if you injured or killed someone, or if someone with your abilities, who insisted on still driving, hurt or killed Scott or one of your grandsons.'

Personally, with my vision, while I passed the vision test for my license just this year, I refuse to drive in the dark at all. I view it as not about me, but about keeping others safe. I apply this test to many things in my life as I am lucky enough to continue to age.

@rosemarya Thanks for bringing up this topic of driving as we age. It is certainly one that we don't want to face and yet it is necessary to consider.

I drive very little at night and very little on wet roads. I plan appointments so that I only have one per day. If I feel very tired, I will not drive at all. It is better to miss out on something than to risk driving when I feel fatigued.

I would enjoy hearing what others have to say about driving as you age.

Hi Rosemarya,
To be honest, I don’t give it much thought. I go with the flow.
For many, many years I stopped driving in the rain, and bad wind storms, I never thought about age, my thoughts were about driving conditions. As for driving at night, you can always call a cab, or Uber, Lyft, etc.
Today a person can call AMAZON and get anything delivered, even our grocery stores have home delivery.
Same with drug stores.
The hardest thing for me is trying to keep a too large home and property up.
If you have vision and reflex problems, best to limit all driving. The key is to monitor ourselves.
I have a saying “DO WHAT YOU CAN, AND DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THE REST”.
It’s an interesting subject, I wonder what others think?
Stay well,
Funcountess

@rosemarya- Thank you for bringing this up Rosemary. It brings to mind something that scared the hell out of me when my mom was had Parkinson's many moons ago. After my dad died it was a few years until my sister and I were able to get her to move to her summer house, near us. Both my sister and I noticed a marked decline in her memory and other things that we couldn't quite put our fingers on. Finally, one day I was driving over to visit her from my home, near her. I came to a 4 way stop. She was right across the street, coming from a market, and never looked or stopped, drove through the stop sign on her side of the street. Had I gone through she would have hit my car. My sister and I had a battle with her about not driving and finally, at her next appointment with her neurologist, we brought it up. She listened to him. Her big fear was that she would have to give up her license. She never mentioned this to us. She promised that she wouldn't drive, and she didn't.

Neither Dave nor I like to drive at night so we don't if we don't have to. But it's difficult when we realized that it wasn't the best thing and accept it for what it might mean. Aging is tough!

Thanks Rosemary - This is a VERY difficult topic in our auto-dependent society. In non-Covid times we spend a lot of time on the road traveling and want to continue as long as safely possible. We take the AAA/AARP Safe Driver course every 2 years, and have upgraded out cars to have more driver safety features.

I know my own driving skills may not be what they once were, so I concentrate on the road and surrounding consciously as I drive, avoid rush hour and bad weather driving, and ignore my cell phone even though it had bluetooth. When I feel the time has come, I will go through a driver eval like Scott mentioned. I have already told my girls that they can insist when they think I need it. I had to do this with my Mom after 2 strokes, and I don't think she ever quite forgave me - but she lived next to a freeway entrance, and if she had gone there, I'm sure she or someone else would have died.

I have observed that my husband's skills and eyesight are deteriorating, and our girls have remarked on it. My approach with him is tough love. First, I insist that he leaves his cell phone alone when he drives - hands free is the law here, but he still used to mess with it. Second, I have him scheduled with an excellent opthamologist for a thorough eval in a few weeks - he has insisted on going to "doc in a box" optometrists even though he has diabetes and cataracts. Third, until that's done, I do the night driving & daytime too if he's having a bad vision day. He mostly just drives our small familiar city unless we are together. Fourth, he had wanted a different, specific vehicle for 2 years, and when we went to buy it, I realized it lacked the newer safety "bells and whistles." I insisted that he refocus on a newer, more upgraded model and explained my reasons (my car already has the features) - he was so angry that I thought I would have to walk home from the dealer. 2 weeks later, the salesperson located the perfect car - a 2 year old red Subaru Outback, with all kinds of features. He loves it, and has spent 3 months learning all the features. Now the car "nags" him and I don't have to. Finally, we signed up for our insurance company safe driver program (feels invasive to me, but every little bit helps.) One of my big complaints was that he had quit "driving ahead" and was repeatedly slamming on the brakes in traffic and at red lights - the program gives him a bad rating if he does it, so he is paying attention. It has also gotten him to stop speeding...

I do not relish the day either or both of us must stop driving, but we have many door-to-door transportation options where we live, so we will make do if we have to.
Sue