"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...

On the other hand, one of my wife's aunts is 95 and drives everyday -
sharp as a tack, only goes where she has to and keeps herself safe by
limiting her mileage - she needs to go somewhere at a distance, she
asks for help.

I don't know what the answer is.


Another story on this subject:

My mother has a rare form of MS that is very slow in it's progression, but
over the last 15 years has slowly confined her to a wheelchair. She can get
out of it and move very carefully and slowly to get in a car or bed or
whatever but has very little strength or control of her legs. Like your
wife's aunt, she is mentally sharp as a tack.

Anyway, when my father died 6 years ago, she insisted that she was going to
drive her car (which had been my dad's job) and wanted me to go with her so
she could practice. We did one practice in a parking lot and that was it.
I had to forcefully tell her, through her tears, that her driving days were
over.

A week later she announced that she found a company that would install hand
controls in the car.
Oh -boy ... I thought... here we go again. I called the company and was
very impressed with their process. The representative explained that they
dealt with aging drivers with disabilities all the time and with the aging
driver's families. For a reasonable fee, they send a certified instructor
to her house in a hand control equipped car. He would take my mother out in
it and evaluate her skills and ability to learn and adapt to hand controls.
He said most did not qualify, which surprised me. He also pointed out that
in fairness to the candidate for hand controls, family members are not
always objective in determining if the older person is skilled or physically
qualified.

So, we made a deal with my mother. We would arrange for the test drive and
whatever the instructor's findings were would be binding and final.

She flunked.

So, we found a mini-van equipped with an electric scooter and hoist setup.
When she wants to go out, someone else drives and drops her off at whatever
store she wants to go to. She has several able-bodied friends that drive
it, plus my sister takes her out on a regular basis so she's not lacking in
the ability to get get out of the house.

RCE