Mature Drivers

If an older driver's declining skills are beyond help, the best solution is helping family and friends convince the drivers to hang up their keys for safety's sake. While some older drivers relinquish their driving privileges on their own, most need to be persuaded to stop driving by a relative or doctor.

To get a driver off the road, police officers, doctors, social workers, and family members can file a hazardous driver report (in some states, anonymously) with the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV is then, in effect, the "bad guy." When they revoke a license, most people will comply, if bitterly, according to Nancy Wexler, MA, MFCC, a founding member of the National Association of Professional Geriatric Care Managers, which helps families arrange for long-term care and other services.

Doctors, for their part, would prefer to limit their involvement to patient counseling. Despite a proposal of its Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs stating that the reporting of impaired drivers is an "ethical obligation" of a physician, representatives to the American Medical Association twice rejected that position at the urging of many medical societies, including the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

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