I have read many an article, stories and messages about people and driving when they become compromised or we deem them as unsafe and it is difficult and it is met with disbelief, anger and denial. I have even spent time over the brief Christmas period we had off the farm talking to all age groups about it. No I don’t have the answer and no there is no book in it, it will be difficult for the messenger to give the information and even more difficult for the receiver.
One of the funniest responses I have had is people not wanting to lose their spontaneity and I look at most people in disbelief at this statement. I myself am included here, I can not remember the last time I got up and thought “gee I’ll go for a drive today”, I think the days of getting in the car for a ‘Sunday drive’ have left us. Even going for lunch is normally planned so there is time to organise a taxi, uber, cab or someone else to pick you up or drive you, but especially in the country most people plan trips and even shopping expeditions, so I can combat that argument with a rational answer.
The independence one I can understand, but being without a car does not take that away, as we are a society that relies upon each other all the time, we marry, thus are not truly independent, we have friends or work colleagues that we socialise with and we are forever supported by family and friends so short of living on ones own most people are not independent of those we rely upon. We love the activity we do when we drive, but this does not have to stop if we stop driving, although in the country it can be more difficult with lack of any public transport, cabs or options.
These are not criticisms of people but are observations and I place myself in the category, but relying upon others may be something you do not want to do, being dropped somewhere and then having to wait for that person to come back and get you or they sit and wait for you or they do not leave you to having time by yourself is also very restricting and frustrating.
We did have the conversation and it was met with, “I don’t believe that story” when we started by talking with the partner of the person involved. There was a request for evidence and even after having more than one conversation with them, it still took a while to get them to understand the gravity of the situation. In fact it was met with “well what can I do? “. My words were, they would have to talk with the driver concerned and tell them that it was time to consider not driving. The long-term partner refused and stated it would affect them the most as they did not drive well so was reliant upon the other person to do all of the errands.
Where does one go with that? the next time I met up with them I was spoken to in the kitchen by the driver and told it was a deliberate act of bad parking and a joke not to tell anyone in the family about it. I actually turned, looked into their eyes and said “I have driven with you and a couple of years ago I stated you should never drive unsupervised so this argument would not work on me and they need to consider not driving for the safety of others not themselves. It is a sign you are not driving correctly if you rely on hitting the gutter to park a vehicle and you drove up a driveway and stopped when the tree got in the way” This was met with a shrug of shoulders , which meant they were not going to listen, so now what?
I have read much literature on driving and one of the better ones is the Hartford “we need to talk about..”booklet I have put the link here but for those like me that need some written information here are some of their suggestions