I’m going to focus on a touchy topic.  It’s something I’ve recently had to deal with in my own life, and almost everyone will eventually have to confront these circumstances in one way or another.  What I’m talking about is:  When are you too old to drive?

This subject became reality for me when, at a doctor’s appointment with my eighty-seven year old mother, the doctor asked me if Mom was driving okay.  The truth was, I hadn’t actually been a passenger while Mom was driving for a very long time.  I had no idea.

By law, the doctor was required to request a Re-examination of Driver due to a condition for which my mother had been diagnosed.  What that meant was that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) wanted my mother to take the written examination and if she passed, they’d have her take the driving portion of the test.

Mom was not happy, and she certainly had a good argument.  “In all the years I’ve been driving, I’ve never been in an accident, and I’ve never had a ticket.  Why are they bothering me?”

As a daughter, I agreed with her.  As a police officer, not so much.  Every day, I witness unsafe driving.  Most of the bad driving I see is when I’m in my personal vehicle.  When a black and white police car is in the vicinity, people have a tendency to be on their best driving behavior.  It’s not so much that I worried about my Mom’s driving; I was more worried about the drivers around her.

I knew that while on the road, Mom wasn’t intentionally speeding or making unsafe lane changes.  But I also knew that her reaction time was considerably slower than most other drivers on the road.   Because it had been so long since my mother had driven me anywhere, I asked her to drive while we ran a couple of errands. 

There were a few things that caused me concern.  She liked to do a ‘California stop’ at posted stop signs.  A California stop is when the driver slows considerably at the stop sign, but fails to come to a complete stop.  (And for the record, your wheels must come to a complete stop at a stop sign.)  When driving on residential streets, Mom liked to hug the right curb - to the point it made me nervous she might weave a little and take off a parked car’s side mirror.  When I mentioned these things to her, she didn’t think they were that big of a deal.

Mom was determined to take the re-examination tests and prove the doctor, the DMV, and me wrong.  So she took her written test and passed.  Then came the time for the driving test.  The examiner was very nice, and things looked like they started well when Mom was able to demonstrate she knew how to operate her turn signals, windshield wipers, and horn.  Then the man got in the passenger seat, and they were off! 

When they returned, Mom appeared to be happy with her performance, and the examiner didn’t look traumatized.  The daughter in me was cheering for my Mom.  The cop in me was thinking to myself: How long will the state let Mom drive?

The question was answered when I learned my Mom had failed her driving test.    Once we got home, we reviewed the examiner’s notes.  The ‘fatal’ mistake had been pulling away from a curb without looking for on-coming traffic.  The notes said an on-coming car had to brake in order to avoid a collision.

“That didn’t happen,” my mother said.  “I didn’t see any car when I pulled away from that curb.”  I gently told her, that was the point.

My sister and I had already decided between the two of us, we’d be able to take Mom anywhere she needed to go.  Convincing Mom this was a good idea was a whole other matter.

 Now, months later, I think Mom accepts being chauffeured around.  But every now and then, she’ll say to me, “You know, I can still drive.  I’m a good driver.  I’ve never been in an accident, and I’ve never had a ticket.”

And you know what?  When I see the crazy driver’s on the road and their antics, I can’t disagree.  But my sister and I still sold Mom’s car.

Until next time…

KMA367

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 4:00 am and is filed under Driving, Elderly, General, LAPD, Parent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.