I have told him he can’t drive anymore. He accused me of keeping him jailed, even though I have said I would drive him in my car anywhere he wants to go. I already drive him to doctor’s visits. I won’t be in a car if he is driving. He barely shuffles around the house, so I know his reaction time behind the wheel would be slow. At the moment the battery is dead.
Well now, problem solved.
If not already done, consult with his doctor about his condition that's making him dangerous to continue driving Report his name privately to DMV as an unsafe driver. If all options have been exhausted, contact your attorney where yiu both set up POA now.
If so, you may use the POA to get rid of the car.
If not, you may not sell his car (yet).
I am willing to bet your father could not even request ride share instead of driving.
Thanks for sharing your situation. I believe you have a few issues.
The first issue has to do with the loss of independence. That is hard for any of us to deal with. For your husband, I imagine that he probably doesn’t want to rely on you and this change from independence to dependence is hard to swallow.
Secondly, if your husband is not driving in a safe way, then he is seriously endangering himself and others. This reason alone is why he should not be driving anymore.
Lastly, you may have a legal issue. Some questions that come to mind are: Is the car titled in his name only? Is it titled in both of your names? In addition, I’m not sure what kind of POA you have but as his wife, I’m do not know if a POA is even relevant.
With all legal matters, it’s best to consult with an attorney, especially an elder care attorney, as they deal with these kinds of issues all the time.
This was a caused me a great deal of frustration with my father and his "driving dragon" phases. I went thru this with several physicians, even getting the cognitive test to prevent father from being able to revoke the DPOA was not a cake walk.
Remember until someone is determined to be incapacitated they can revoke a POA during their lifetime.
What did work was what the police told me when I visited the precinct for advise. They immediately asked if there were guns in the house!
1) contacting the DMV who has a specific anonymous form (they do not share who reported the driver but need to weed out revenge claims) to ask to have someone's ability to drive checked. It took some time but the letter came from the DMV asking to come into the agency, the appointment was missed and the license was revoked.
This is did not tame his "driving dragon" but I did sell the car with my DPOA - I was not listed on title. Each POA or DPOA is regulated differently depending on the state.
Remove the car from the house, say it is out for repairs, repairs too expensive to fix, insurance doubled and sell it. Try not to give to much energy to appeasing him or getting him to accept this by offering to be his personal Uber - it is not going to help much.
This is part of them being angry that they are loosing their independence, physical & mental capacity and having the target focus being on the driving license is just part of the process.
We had to remove the car advertisements pages from the newspapers since my father started calling dealerships and requesting cars be brought to the house. Or he was going to go to another state to get a license.
The following 4 years it would come up - the misery....the injustice....how could they make this mistake....., less and less but it was one thing on his hard drive that the dementia did not erase.
Good luck and stay strong. Hope you get a good price.
He has Parkinson's and needed my help to get to and into a vehicle. So, he was mad at me, but quit asking.
The fact that your husband's car battery is dead makes it even more complicated for him to want to drive. Stay strong.
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Laurie
If you don't fully understand your POA and hour with an elder law attorney will help you in understanding the rights and obligations therein.
So for now, best to keep the battery dead, along with any other disabling to it that can be done, and of course hiding the keys.
And of course ask his doctor to write a letter not only to your husband but also the DMV stating that he can no longer drive.
You do NOT want your husband killing some innocent child/person because of him driving with a broken brain.
It is no different than someone driving drunk or high on drugs, and you would never be able to live with yourself if he were to do that and you allowed him to drive.
So do whatever you have to at this point to keep everyone safe on the road ways.