DVLA e mail service to report drivers

[Miners daughter]

Hello everyone still in a kind of state of shock re my dad's diagnosis on Friday of Alzheimer's. Have discovered on the dvla website that you can e mail them re concerns about someone's driving, and they won't divulge to the driver or anyone else who reported them. So today took a deep breath and sent the email and had the e mail notification back - now just have to wait on pins for the xxxx to hit! Has anyone else ever used this service and how are they getting on with trying to stop this "death grip" that people have in not wanting to give up. I swear that this is the worst bit I'm having to deal with at the moment, and it's gonna be a long road! Will have to perfect that innocent "I know nothing about it" look when all he'll breaks loose.

 

[Kevinl]

Never used it, never will. I hope it all works out for the best.
K

 

[Jinx]

Fortunately (or unfortunately) my husband was diagnosed with vascular dementia whilst in hospital and we were told by the doctor that he shouldn't drive. He still can't accept it and tells everyone he meets how hard done by he is, even though he's hardly driven for the past 3 years since inexplicably writing off his car! It is a hard thing to accept I guess. Good luck!


Sent from my iPhone using Talking Point

 

[Katrine]

Oh yes, that death grip, I remember it well! "I've been an excellent driver for 40 years!" Suggesting that perhaps that was long enough didn't go down well.

I reported MIL by phone and had to pretend ignorance when she got the letter with medical form. She refused to go to the GP. Her license expired and we took away the car keys. She still had the car for another year because she couldn't bear not to see it on the drive. Eventually we persuaded her to sell it but she would keep forgetting and ring us to ask where her car was. We found it easier to say "it's gone to the garage" rather than say it has gone forever. It was the finality that upset her most, accepting that she wouldn't get better and be able to drive again.

 

[marionq]

I wrote down a list of all the costs of owning a car MOT, road tax, insurance, repairs, petrol etc. I then included the money we would get for the car itself. Set all this against having a free travel card, the cost of occasional taxis, the delivery charge for groceries. Mention how comforting not to struggle with traffic and "bad" drivers. My husband accepted all of this and we sold the car almost two years ago.

He does talk about renewing his licence, and looks enviously at our daughters car which sits outside but is easily sidetracked when I talk about the "huge" cost of driving. I know some people feel it is a loss of power but you will just have to be inventive as well as firm. I feel hugely relieved.

 

[claire43]

Well done for having the courage to do whats right.

Although my dad has been in hospital & now a CH since last December he still thinks he is going to be able to drive once he returns home.

We haven't had the nerve to tell him the truth. He asks about his car on a daily basis & we have lied & told him its outside the house. We were able to convince him he wasnt allowed to drive because of a cataract but he had a cat op 6 wks ago & the hospital discharged him y'day saying he has 20/20 vision in that eye so now we're finally facing up to the fact we have to tell him in the kindest way possible. Problem is I just dont know what to say that won't upset him too much.

 

[jugglingmum]

Well done Miners daughter, that was very brave. I'm sure you'll have no trouble in perfecting your innocent look when the time comes. Hugs for when you have to face him out and stand up for keeping others and him safe.

I didn't realise my mum was ill and couldn't understand why she could pass an eyesight test and yet appear to not see properly when driving (or crossing the road). If I'd known I would have done something about it as driving a car when not capable (through illness, drunk, drugs, or using a mobile) is death waiting to happen. I am racked with guilt I let my young children travel in her car.

I remember her telling me about a few bumps she had had, but she now reckons these were others bashing her car in car parks. Lots of little bashes and dings all over it, which will have cost others on their insurance when she hasn't owned up I suspect.

She still thinks she can drive, in fact when she was facing a ban for no car insurance and we said you may have to take a retest she was convinced she would pass easily. Since she got lost on the way to mine on 23rd Dec her car keys are hidden and I am the only one who knows where they are. She now lives in sheltered extra care near me and wants her car (uninsured, no road tax, no MOT - she thinks it has all of these despite being prosecuted in Oct and also stopped in Dec). Now I have LPA I am going to sell it and when she comes here tell her it is in the garage being fixed.

 

[Karenm001]

It's a really difficult thing to do but you had to do it, as somebody has to take charge of the situation. You would have felt really bad if your dad had hurt somebody or himself as a result of his driving.
I do know how you feel, following Dad's diagnosis with mixed dementia, and despite the doctor telling him to stop driving, I had to take dad's car keys away as he refused to stop. The arguments were awful - Dad thought he was still more than capable of driving and mum was upset about not being able to go out any more, as she never learnt to drive. But all the evidence was there: different coloured scratches on the car from where he'd knocked cars in car parks, he'd driven into the wall outside out house, then he got stuck in the back of the car when he was trying to work out why the internal light wouldn't go out (he forgot it was because the car door was open). As a compromise, I said I would leave his car key with him if he promised not to drive. He didn't know that I made a note of the mileage. When I visited one week later he had driven 12 miles - that's when I took the keys. I hated treating dad like a kid, but at the end of the day, everybody was safer for dad being off the road.
Good luck! Karen x

 

[2197alexandra]

If my dad hadn't writ his car off when he did I would of too reported him to DVLA as he was not safe to drive on the road anymore. Hard decision but the right one for me.

 

[nmintueo]

Drivers Medical
I have concerns over a person's fitness to drive and I wish to tell the DVLA
https://emaildvla.direct.gov.uk/emaildvla/cegemail/dvla/en/drivers_med_03.html

DVLA Email Us
https://emaildvla.direct.gov.uk/emaildvla/cegemail/dvla/en/index.html


If a doctor thinks a patient is medically unfit to drive, they should report it to the DVLA if the patient refuses to. So talking to the doctor is another possible approach -

reporting concerns about patients to the DVLA or the DVA
http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?42939#post568858

 

[Smoli#84]

Denial.

My sisters & I are very concerned by Dads driving and really feel he is no longer safe on the road, however he 'thinks' he is perfectly capable. He managed to end up on the northbound carriageway of the motorway at Christmas while travelling south from Birmingham to Brighton! If we were to report our concerns to DVLA any medical form to be completed would contain false info - where does that leave us?

 

[Katrine]

Did the police attend? If so, there will be a report. I guess probably not or they would have taken action. When you say the form would contain false information, do you mean that he wouldn't fill it in correctly?

Even if he has a dementia diagnosis this doesn't mean he would automatically be considered unfit to drive. However, if he doesn't declare his conditions and prescribed medication he would be on thin ice legally. The duty is on the driver not the relatives.

Report your concern immediately to the DVLA. Tell them about the motorway incident. They can require him to attend a driving assessment centre.

You could also speak to your local police for advice. He broke the law when he got confused on the motorway and they will presumably be as keen as you to get him off the roads if there's a chance he could do it again.

I suggest that family members refuse to let him drive them and that you prevent him from having to drive long distances by doing the driving yourselves when holidays or family events require this. You can't pussyfoot when lives are at stake, however much it upsets him.

 

[Not so Rosy]

My Dad was a bit of a nightmare in the last few years of his driving days. I had no idea at that time he had Dementia, in fact it was about 6 years later that he was diagnosed.

He had a minor prang in a supermarket car park, then he wrote off a car at the golf club then he was at a local repair garage and managed to hit a Porche and a brand new motorbike. He always seemed to have plausible excuses.

Mysteriously I made sure his car never came back home. Dad still carries his car keys in his pocket even now, in case he needs to go somewhere urgently from the care home, even though he knows he doesn't own a car anymore.

 

[Raggedrobin]

I can imagine how hard it is to tackle this subject, but I do urge people to make a start on it and tell the dvla. I am staying in an area with a high percentage of elderly people and the standards of driving here are truly shocking, very different to where I normally live, so many of these elderly people are clearly unfit to drive, the dangers they cause to others are really serious.

i had a friend who was worried by his father's driving his wife to hospital appointments, his driving was so bad. I said had he heard about the volunteers who drive people to hospital appointments. he sighed heavily and said 'Dad IS a hospital volunteer driver...'

 

[Countryboy]

I know this won’t go down to well with majority on T.P , but I don’t know One personally that would Inform on Family or Close Friends for any reason it’s something that wouldn’t be accepted if they did it would cause rifts in the family and close friend that would go on for years , loyalty is paramount sorry but there are the facts difference in family values

Tony

 

[Spamar]

Once diagnosed with dementia you have to tell DVLA. They will then decide, though on what basis I don't know, whether to let you keep on driving ( though you can appeal). OH has his license withdrawn immediately, which was a blow to both of us. However, within three months it was obvious that they were right.

 

[Tatiana]

On FiL absolute insistence, nay, obsession - we posted off his licence renewal form just over a week ago. Despite being told by the hospital before he was discharged in March he shouldn't be driving, he had fixated on re-applying. Strictly speaking his licence is still valid, but he hasn't realised this. (He hasn't informed DVLA of his medical history and he has changed address since last year, so he's partially correct in needing to re-apply.)

He wrote off a car last year. He has also done things like rung husband to say that none of the petrol pumps in Shrewsbury were working, who should he complain to? His tank was full to the brim of petrol - so of course the pumps wouldn't click 'on' for him.

He couldn't even manage to complete the form himself, he could barely sign in the white box at the bottom. Husband completed the form, ticking all the notifiable medical conditions and we also include a covering letter, signed by husband as he has LPA for health and welfare.

We have his car here, he has no insurance so it's on ours. When we picked him up from the carehome in his own car 2 weeks ago to take him for a chest x-ray, he didn't recognise the car. Just said, 'it'd be nice to have something like this as a run-around...'

Just waiting to hear back from DVLA.

 

[nmintueo]

He managed to end up on the northbound carriageway of the motorway at Christmas while travelling south from Birmingham to Brighton! If we were to report our concerns to DVLA any medical form to be completed would contain false info - where does that leave us?

Do you mean he drove against the traffic - driving south on the northbound carriageway - or just that he took a wrong turn (going north on the northbound carriageway)?

If he drove against the traffic: did he get caught? If so, I wonder how he managed to keep his license. How did you find out about it?

If we were to report our concerns to DVLA any medical form to be completed would contain false info - where does that leave us?

You mean, any medical form that he completed would contain false information, because he's in denial?

You can make a truthful third-party report. Or, if there is a medical diagnosis, the patient has a legal duty to report it; and if the patient fails to and the doctor considers that the patient shouldn't drive, the doctor has a duty to report.

 

[Smoli#84]

Do you mean he drove against the traffic - driving south on the northbound carriageway - or just that he took a wrong turn (going north on the northbound carriageway)?

If he drove against the traffic: did he get caught? If so, I wonder how he managed to keep his license. How did you find out about it?



You mean, any medical form that he completed would contain false information, because he's in denial?

You can make a truthful third-party report. Or, if there is a medical diagnosis, the patient has a legal duty to report it; and if the patient fails to and the doctor considers that the patient shouldn't drive, the doctor has a duty to report.

No he wasn't driving against the traffic - he was on the north bound carriageway driving north.
As for the medical forms - he has no dementia diagnosis, and would claim to be in good health.

 

[trigger]

I’m a bit confused there are several type of Illness which requires that person to notify DVLA after they receive that diagnoses Must by Law inform DVLA of that Diagnoses ( Dementia is only one of many) no problem , however I read this post to be talking about reporting a person to DVLA who we think is an incompetent Driver to DVLA because that list could endless