The driving conversation usually starts after a dent in the car door or a near miss someone mentions in passing. Before you say the words stop driving, you need answers to two other questions: what her doctor actually knows about her driving, and who will get her where she needs to go next week.

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What to check before you raise it

Ask whether driving has come up at any of her recent visits in the chart, and if it has not, ask her doctor whether a formal driving assessment makes sense and where one is offered. Ask what the doctor would need to see to feel confident either way, and whether a change in her health would prompt a fresh look. Ask whether any medicine she takes can affect alertness or reaction time, and let the doctor decide what that means for her. Your state's licensing office sets the rules for when a license must be reported, reviewed or surrendered. Look up that process directly on the official site rather than relying on a neighbor's version of it.

Also ask her doctor what changes, if any, would make the doctor want to see her sooner. You are not asking for a verdict over the phone. You are asking what the next step looks like and who takes it.

Who drives instead

Make a list of every trip she makes in a normal week: groceries, church, the pharmacy counter, appointments, friends, the bank. Beside each trip, write who could cover it, how much notice that person needs, and what happens when that person is sick or away. A plan with a single driver is not a plan.

Then check the alternatives before the keys move. Ask whether the transit system or a community ride program serves her address, what it costs to ride and what it takes to book a trip, including how far ahead and whether she can use it on her own. Ask whether a ride to a specific appointment can be scheduled in advance so that it does not depend on someone remembering that morning. Test one trip before you need it.

How to raise it

Pick a moment when nothing has just gone wrong. Start with the trips rather than the test. Ask her to walk you through how she would get to the grocery store next Tuesday, then the doctor, then her friend across town. Let her answer. Then say what you have noticed, plainly and without a list of accusations, and say what you need to figure out together. You will get further by making the trips a shared problem than by making her driving the problem.

If she pushes back, do not argue the facts in the moment. Say you will bring the question to her doctor, and do it.

What to do tonight

Write her week's trips on paper, with the name of each person or service that could cover it. Call the number for her local transit or ride service and ask what it takes to book a ride for her address. Then send her doctor's office one written question: whether driving has been discussed and what the next step would be.

What to leave with the doctor

Bring a short list of what you have actually seen, such as dents, near misses she mentioned, trips she has stopped making, or getting lost on a route she used to know, with a rough sense of when each began. Name any medicine she takes. Ask whether a driving assessment is worth doing, what the doctor will need from you, and how the licensing process works where she lives. The decision about whether she drives belongs with her doctor and the licensing office, and your list is what helps them see the whole picture. For how we check public sources on guides like this one, see How We Write.