WHEN TO STOP DRIVING

“Dad, STOP! You nearly hit that car!” screamed adult children in the back seat as my father ignored the hooting of every other car in London.

He’d had a stroke a few months before, recovered (somewhat) and gone straight back to driving. On this particular journey my mother remained mute in the passenger seat, whilst we anxiously protested in the rear. It still took my father months to relinquish his right to the steering wheel, never really wanting to acknowledge that the limitations of his stroke were permanent.

More recently, I had a delicate conversation with a female relative. She’d taken me through winding country lanes to her local shops at the same speed she always did: fast. I saw the cones in the road before she did, and as she clipped the first one I gave an involuntary yelp. The car veered onwards. When we got home I offered the polite but insistent suggestion that she needed to stop driving. She was surprised and embarrassed. She knew that journey like the back of her hand. She’d had an eye test recently. She hadn’t realised I was scared. She’d check things out with her son. A few weeks later she stopped driving altogether. Whew!

Is it a big deal? YES

People talk glibly about the ‘loss of independence’ in getting older, but this is huge. If I think about last week’s journeys from the small town in which I live (and no, there are no trains or cycle lanes), the car was crucial to my contact with others and agency over my own affairs. I went to an industrial estate for stuff I could never have carried home by myself or taken on a bus; I met a contractor at a community project in a town 30 minutes away. I had coffee with a friend and then gave her a lift to her next destination. I did a large shop - loo rolls etc - from an out of town supermarket. Yes, I could have looked up the infrequent buses or the community transport scheme for my rural area and planned to spend a whole day on something that took me just an hour and a half. Yes, I could have ordered a taxi there and a taxi back from the supermarket and hoped they’d have been able to drop me off in the main road near my home, or even helped me carry large items up stairs. No, I didn’t need to take my friend to where she otherwise would have had to walk in the rain.

Something else

At a deeper level, giving up driving for me is the reverse side of passing my driving test as a young person - that spectacular rite of passage into adulthood. Handing in the keys to my car will be the end of Adulthood and the beginning of Geriatric-ness like no other marker. Currently I’m someone to be relied upon to get my own life in order and even help others out. To become someone who has to rely on others will be an ordeal and a loss. You’re going to say there’s nothing wrong with being dependent on others? Well you try it. Perhaps it’s different if you’re in a reliable couple where one person still drives but, if you’re not, you are dependent on the goodwill of strangers and the forbearance of friends and relatives.

I was witness to the shabby way that taxi drivers dealt with my mother in her declining years, barely acknowledging her efforts to communicate with them, responding curtly as she apologised for fumbling with change. Have you noticed how impatient younger people are when you’re the last person getting off a bus? And I hate to complain, but over-busy offspring are going to be impatient too - am I going to put myself through the humiliation of being fitted in like a needy toddler? Probably by necessity, but frankly I’d rather stay at home and watch the telly, and I don’t even like TV.

Just Do It…

I have one or two older friends who have already given up their car. They tend to live in cities with fantastic public transport systems close at hand. One lives near a major train station that would link them to anywhere in the world. I have other friends who are giving up gradually - not driving at night; no longer going over 60 mph; only driving familiar routes.

I pride myself on having had only minor bumps and scratches in over 50 years, but I can feel my reactions getting slower. I used to be excellent at reverse parking - not any more. Will I know what’s dangerous for me, and dangerous to others? Will I care enough or put my head in the sand? Will I be just like my father and need to be shouted at to stop?

In the end, however major the loss, it is other people’s lives at stake here. I am told by GPs that it is often a doctor who is asked by exasperated relatives to enforce the ban. It’s not just older people’s eyesight that’s the problem. It's our growing lack of coordination, painful joints and muscles, lack of spatial awareness, slowness in reaction times, deafness. We older people adapt and adapt…. until it’s too late.

I don’t want it, this new stage of life - the planning, the asking others, the giving up on things that are just too difficult to do without a car. And that’s even before thinking about the occasional joy of transporting grandchildren around when they visit. I dread all those losses as much as the next person. A lovely friend with whom I was sharing these thoughts said ‘Never mind Chris, let’s hope driverless cars come in before then.’ Bring them on, for older people's sake.... or maybe I’ll get lucky and have a windfall so I can afford my own chauffeur. Ha!

My car, my life, the life of others…. no small thing to relinquish, whatever age you are.