Posted: 8/24/2026 8:46:04 AM EDT
| My elderly mother was recently involved in a accident. She received a ticket for failure to stop and leaving the scene of an accident in rural GA. A GA State trooper issued the ticket. What are the potential penalties for these traffic infractions? Details are sparse from her as she suffers from dementia. |
| Plus side is the judge can be the bad guy for pulling her license, instead of you doing it. |
Night ain’t scary when you don’t fear death. And you can’t suffocate when you don’t need breath. I’m chilling so hard the fire can’t fade me. Cause I’m all good with the one who made me.
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If the judge finds out about her dementia, you can let the judge be the bad guy and pull her license. Then just to be sure she no longer drives, I would sell the vehicle and get her an account with a ride share organization. You could approach the change to a ride share info as a luxury to have her own driver so she no longer has to be bothered to drive herself around. When my mom stopped driving she found a couple of places that specifically drive seniors and people with disabilities around. My Mom used those services for her doctors appointments, and occasionally other places.. But my mom passed away years ago and I can't remember the name of the services or how she found them. I would suggest contacting a local social services agency and ask them for some help. |
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Originally Posted By Will220: Better pull her keys to the vehicle too. Senior centers in many cities/towns have connections with ride-share services for seniors, so I would check that out. Be sure to tell the judge privately about her medical condition, so that he takes that into account and can be the "bad guy" pulling her DL. |
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| Depends on what you want to have happen. If she should be driving, like many above assume, you can work with the prosecutor ahead of time to work out the right solution. If the dementia is surface and she is safe to drive, you can hire a lawyer to help. FIL was perfectly fine to drive in his small area even though he had the beginnings of dementia (couldn’t remember names, what he had for breakfast,etc.). Skills and driving judgment were still good for a number of years. When his skills and awareness went downhill, the keys were pulled. |
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We disabled my MIL's car when she got to this point. The car went to the shop to be fixed. Then parts were backordered for months... She never got it back. Do what you have to. She would have driven without a license if she had access to a car. |
Heller II - Challenging DC's bans on semi-automatic rifles, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, and its onerous and expensive handgun registration process. http://www.HellerFoundation.org/
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Originally Posted By Bubbles: We disabled my MIL's car when she got to this point. The car went to the shop to be fixed. Then parts were backordered for months... She never got it back. Do what you have to. She would have driven without a license if she had access to a car. She won't remember why there is no car and you can tell her something that she will accept, until she forgets about having had a car, at least in the recent past. And remember, her mind will have a bunch of blanks and her imagination , movie she saw, book she read, or old memory will fill in the blanks and she will lose touch with reality. It isn't her fault. She will know she forgets things and you can remind her that she forgets things, but going past that amount of information is probably no use because she will not understand a deeper explanation, she will accept she forgets things when you remind her and that will put her at ease , and the most important part of all this is to keep her from getting scared, because without a simple explanation, she will be scared all the time. So keep it short and simple and something she will accept to make her remaining days as less stressful and scary as possible. You can visit a lot and spend lots of time with her but eventually as soon as you walk out the door she will forget you were there and get sad and lonely because nobody ever visits her, so you have to remind her constantly that she is loved and people visit all the time and when she disputes that because she doesn't remember any visits you can tell her " you know how you forget things, well it is not a big deal, but you forgot we visited you this morning" Stuff like that. Also let her tell you stories from the things she will remember like growing up, her parents, stuff from long ago. And when she asks the same question every 60 seconds because she doesn't know she asked it already, just change the subject to something about years ago and let her talk about years ago that she does remember. i wish there had been a training session on how to talk to a loved one with dementia, we had to figure this all out on the fly. It really sucks bad, you just have to push through it and do your best to make her feel loved and remind her she forgets things and then change the subject so she can talk about yesteryear. Eventually she will stop talking much and then the time will be close. I wish I would have done some things differently, but I didn't know. I wish i could have seen her everyday, but i lived 6 hours away. taking away the car will be the least of your problems. I have to stop typing now. |
Mach
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Nobody is coming to save us.
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| OP - if your mom doesn't have her Will, advanced directive, and medical/financial POA's in place that needs to be done before she loses so much cognitive function that she can't get sign them. |
Heller II - Challenging DC's bans on semi-automatic rifles, large-capacity ammunition feeding devices, and its onerous and expensive handgun registration process. http://www.HellerFoundation.org/
| As stated earlier, back in Tennessee, there was a “department of Safety” form we filled out in these circumstances. The geriatric driver would get a letter from the state to come in and retake the test. That usually took the heat off family members that knew there was a problem but didn’t want to take the keys. |
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Originally Posted By TREETOP: Plus side is the judge can be the bad guy for pulling her license, instead of you doing it. @TREETOP My wife and SIL took my MIL to take a driving test, knowing she wouldn't pass it. It allowed the testing company to by the 'bad guy'. They sat her down and kindly stated "It's time you retired from driving." |