Dad is approaching 90 years old and is fully aware with no memory issues, takes care of all his own bills, etc, and insists on independence. I thought he was driving well, but his driving at night was awful recently. Last year I rode with him on errands and an appointment so I could see how he was doing, and his driving and parking was spot on. But I accepted a short ride before dawn one morning recently, and it was scary. He does not drive at night at all otherwise. Now I'm scared about his daytime driving but I'm not with him generally so I don't know. I'm scared he might hurt someone or himself. We're in California. Does DMV deal with this at all, and can I report him and be anonymous? Should I speak to our local police about this? I don't want him to find out it was me. He insists he's doing well and doesn't need help. My therapist tells me this is not my responsibility, but I feel like since I knew about the dark-time incident, it kind of IS?
Since he otherwise doesn’t drive in the middl of the night, his night driving is irrelevant to his driving safety at this time
What’s relevant is he drives fine during the daytime so why would you anonymously report his driving as a concern? There’s a lot of people who drive fine during the day when it’s light out but can’t drive at night and he sounds like he’s one of them so if you want to know see how he drives during the DAY and if he’s fine then no basis to report anything- once my dad was in his 70s and 80s and was still active he drove during the day ( he had good night vision too but never drove at night bc he was an early to bed person who started his day early and got all his errands and things he wanted to do done by mid afternoon at the latest usually by 2 or 3 pm at the very latest, my mother was safe to drive during but once she was in her sixties on she didn’t have good night vision and by the age usually didn’t have anywhere to go at night obviously but the couple times she did in her late sixties have something she wanted to attend after it was dark she either declined or asked someone else - by the age of early 70’s didn’t involve going out at night as is pretty much the case for most folks once they’re in that season of life .
what’s relevant and important is his daytime driving and it sounds like that’s something he easily does, if you want to make sure you can ask him to drive somewhere close by w you during the day and if it’s fine then you know he’s fine to drive
Since he is mentally competent, he is responsible for his own actions, not you,
The Dr, said it is easier to tell a person they have a terminal disease than to tell them they can not drive.
Good luck
He was very angry when I took away his keys...understandably. He also was addicted to oxycodone for back pain and sciatica. So, I started taking him and picking him up from the nursing home twice a day - at meal times for my mom. At that time, I was a nurse working every weekend and homeschooling our son during the week. I took him to every doc appointment which, until that time, was his socialization outlet. It was hard but necessary. I am thankful to Jesus that he had not been in an accident causing injury to someone else before this.
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