Where Can You and Your Senior Come to a Compromise Regarding Driving?

When you and your senior can’t agree about whether it’s time for her to reconsider driving or not, a compromise might be the next best thing. This could help your senior become a little more cooperative about discussing the issue of driving.

Driving During the Day vs. at Night

Your senior may be fine driving during the day, but driving at night might be a different story. Some aging adults have significant trouble with night vision, making nighttime driving extremely dangerous. One compromise might be that your senior can drive during the day whenever she likes, but that she gets some extra help when she goes somewhere at night.

Avoiding Specific Roads

If your elderly family member has trouble driving on highways or other extremely busy roads, she might agree to use other, less populated routes when she’s going somewhere. For the times that she needs to use a highway, perhaps she’d agree to let someone else drive.

Paying Attention to Weather

Weather, be it ice or rain, can be a big problem, too. Many people have no issue driving on sunny days with no precipitation of any kind. Rain, snow, and ice, on the other hand, can create significant problems. Your senior may have trouble maneuvering the vehicle safely or the problem could be that the precipitation makes it difficult for her to see well.

Planning Her Routes

You might feel more comfortable if you know the exact route your elderly family member is planning to use. This can help you and her to spot potential travel issues before they happen and you know that you can locate her easily if she has a problem. Using a GPS device regularly might be another compromise that you embrace.

Choosing Alternative Transportation

You also need to give your senior the ability and the freedom to opt into alternative transportation whenever she wants to without questioning it. Having access to home care providers who drive for her can help her to feel safe and secure, even if it’s just that she’s having an off day. Make sure that you narrow down all the options your senior could use and make sure she knows how to access all of those options when she wants them.

Sit down with your elderly family member and talk openly about her driving. Be careful not to accuse her of terrible driving. Instead, let her know that you’re concerned for her safety and you want to help her to do the right thing. From there, you can hopefully start to gain some ground.

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