Taking Dad's keys. What do I do when us siblings disagree?

Don't you just love the Monday morning quarterbacks. Tell them you will give the keys back as soon as they sign a paper accepting all liability for any accidents he gets into. Put the ball in their court.
Taking the keys does not affect their health, but they will feign imminent death to manipulate the situation. Your father is attempting to wrest control of ALL of you by convincing the siblings that the doctor is an idiot. OH yes, mom insisted the doctor said she could drive. Siblings believed her. I told them OK, let her drive YOU around. They didn't like that idea. Tell them come here, live with him for a week and then make your decision. Only then.

Oh boy, I think I would be tempted to invite your brother and SIL to go ahead and take over. Maybe they can do better, or maybe they will learn just what it takes to actually care for someone instead of being an armchair quarterback.

Told our lawyer that we were worried and she said ' better safe than sorry.' It's like all those pesky little issues that happened when I was a kid are rearing their ugly head. They want to be his 'favorite' by possibly letting him either kill himself or someone else.
They tell me what HE would like. I have been told to butt out before also. You know how a kid will get in a parent's face and try to get their attention away from the other kids? There you have it!

I know I did the right thing, and it really irks me that I'm always the one who has to be the bad guy and do the things that no one else will do - and then get the cold shoulder because I actually had the gumption to do something. I rode with him - used to be a really great driver - now he is almost on their bumper when he stops..
(BP only 94 over..).

I am the POA so there was a question of whether I could be held liable, but I think it also just boiled down to whether I would feel safe meeting him on the highway, and I would not.
Can't believe that people can be in such denial and not care about the safety of others.

I loved the geriatrician Coy's psychiatrist recommended for him. Dr. April also served my mother, and I'm thinking of switching to her myself in a few years. She understands that the issues of aging are different than the goals and issues of serving younger patients.

What she said was "I am required to report your diagnosis to the DMV." I have no idea whether it was a state law or her own conscience or a fear of liability that "required" her, and I wasn't about to ask, because it was clearly the correct step to take.

Her taking that step minimized the chance that Coy would blame me. Because the notice came from the DMV (and because he liked her a lot) he did not blame the doctor. This is just so much better than telling a patient that they "shouldn't" drive that I don't understand why all doctors don't do it. Did it make it easy for him? Certainly not. But it did reduce some of the negative emotional repercussions.

I'm talking about a dementia diagnosis. Persons who have dementia should not drive. Sad but definitely true.

I have a dear niece who is subject to seizures and they have not been able to be controlled so that she has them less than once a year. She cannot drive. At all. Ever. She is a young woman and this is a huge burden. But it is what it is. If you are subject to seizures that can't be medically eliminated you can't drive. If you have dementia you can't drive. It wasn't up to my sister to decide that her daughter couldn't drive and to enforce it. It wasn't up to me to decide that my husband couldn't drive. When the reason is a medical one, it should be up to medical professionals to initiate pulling the driver's license, in my (strong) opinion.

As you have seen, being the primary caregiver isn't a popularity contest. The siblings need to back off or completely step up to the plate. End of story.

Nasmir, my dad's doctor told him he couldn't drive any more because the AD had affected his ability to drive safely. Whether the doctor's motivation was the safety of all on the roads, or his liability was really irrelevant because the end result (Dad not driving) was so critically important. Dad wanted to drive, family members thought it was awful that he was told not to drive. But you know what? None of them knew (in Dad's case, he wasn't aware of) that Dad was a fearful, anxious man every time he drove because there was so much he no longer could process and things were happening so fast.

By the time a doctor makes a diagnosis that has to be reported to a DMV, the driver has been a hazard on the road for untold number of weeks, months, or (gulp) years. That said, there are special drive tests and procedures family members can use at the DMV to report a potentially dangerous driver.

When my MIL's illness became severe enough that she was falling down, my husband told her she had to stop driving. Even though her diagnosis was not required to be reported to the DMV, the liability was just too great.

Insurance companies will look at health records in the event of a serious accident. An insurance company will find a reason to deny coverage and save themselves money. Imagine your dad being in a serious accident, having his insurance company deny coverage, and enduring a prolonged legal battle to recoup damages directly from your dad. The stress of a trial and paying for a defense attorney could push your dad over the edge and into an early grave. Not worth it!

Children who let their parents drive when they shouldn't are playing with fire. You did the right thing by taking the keys away.

My sister, brother and I disabled our Dad's car without his permission and without him knowing it. We decided trying to talk him in to not driving wasn't going to work; that taking his keys away relegated him to a "childlike" poisition. We knew that he didn't have the resources to fix the car. We then arranged for transportation that he could use at any time and we paid for it. It worked out really well -- although he stayed mad at the neighborhood kids till his death 3 years later.

Nasmir, my dad passed some years ago. but it was really more than whether he wanted to be able to go when he wanted. The thing with AD is that by the time he was having panic attacks while driving and having to be coached by my mom on directions (in the city he'd always lived in), he no longer would have been able to walk or take a bus somewhere. AD robs one of the higher reasoning abilities early, and the logistics of independent travel would have been confusing and frustrating. He'd have gotten lost walking and wouldn't have been able to handle the logistics of bus travel. I'm sure he didn't want to be a bother..he was a really considerate man. But sadly, that is not a good enough reason for someone to continue to drive when cognitively impaired. What prompted us to contact his doctor was when one of us rode with him, he went into a full blown panic attack. He was so upset and scared, and we knew this was probably not an isolated incident. Is it really lousy to have to give up that important bit of freedom? Of course, but AD is a thief, there's nothing we can do about the illness except accept the changes and adapt as needed.

Yes, Nasmir. We have a responsibility to try to make mom or dad feel happy and independent, but we also have a responsibility to any pedestrians or other drivers he might kill or injure.

Two or three times a year, the Boston Globe prints a story about a grandparent who drives right into a crowd of schoolchildren and kills or injures some. When a person needs to stop driving, it is really wrong to let them drive.