Over the years I've often heard people say that family members of older folk should just take their keys away. I've related the end of my mom's driving. The question I'll begin with was should she have stopped before that wreck? The answer is YES! I've related her relatively minor parking lot wreck and her hood bore the damage from a tangle with a roadside trashcan. In that case she told me she was distracted looking at something else and hit the trashcan.
So why was she still driving? Honestly I don't think my dad could have stopped her. Sure he might have gone along with us if we had insisted she stop. If her car remained in their garage, I think she would have been driving within weeks of that decision. Which means I would have had to take her car and sell it. Or all the keys would have had to be taken away from her.
Once she did stop by force, a lot of weight came down on both my parents. She liked to go out and look at things in stores, loved knickknacks so she bought those. She had social activities, and she still bought the food and other household necessities. Similarly if my dad wanted to go spend several hours browsing in one of his many used book acquisition locations, he could. He also got time alone at the house that was quiet. He could think and write.
Mom's social shopping stopped. I found when I was moving them to the Garden, that she had two bras and at best three or four pairs of underwear, and maybe one nightgown. I suspect that she had had no new outerwear since she stopped driving. When I asked Dad about this, he could only tell me she had never asked for more clothes.
Dad now needed to go with her for groceries, I can only imagine that was stressful to both of them. He also never had time to shop for used books; she would come with him and sit in the car. Based on conversations with him, she thought he took too long. And my mom could no longer sit quietly instead she was a nonstop conversation. So no more quiet times for him.
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