Dear
@MartinWL,
Your dilemmas about the car really resonated with me as my sister and I had a similar situation with our Dad in December/January. Dad's dementia seemed to come on really quickly in June 2019 in that he suddenly lost his short term memory. However, in other aspects he seemed normal. In particular he is lucid and can make seemingly rational arguments. Only if you knew him would you know anything was wrong.
He was seen at the memory clinic in September but not formally diagnosed until December. He was told at the clinic that he should only drive locally but told the nurse he might as well kill himself. As he lives alone, I live 150 miles away, and my sister, though local, was working full-time and had just been diagnosed with cancer, we decided to pick our battles and concentrate on trying to get POA and carers organised rather than remove his car. He did continue to drive but was picking up dents and dings and eventually lost his car (long story) but maddeningly found it again a week later. On that occasion I reported him to the police but they just went round to try and help him remember where he'd left it. I also reported him to the DVLA. They wrote to him asking him to report any medical conditions. As he was having difficulty with forms this took a while but eventually he was asked to get a signature from his GP to declare whether he was fit to drive. The GP called me and said he was unfit in his opinion and would inform the DVLA. The DVLA couldn't discuss him with me directly as POA hadn't yet come through so I didn't know if they'd written to him. When nothing seemed to appear I asked them to write to him to definitively state that he had no licence a few weeks later.
When he was diagnosed his licence only had a week to run so the consultant said there was no need to declare it to the DVLA. Either way, he instantly forgot about the diagnosis, he just knew he was furious about something. My sister removed his keys a few days later. This led to a week of horrible abuse from him, heartbreakingly in the days leading up to her cancer surgery when he would call her and her husband and shout awful things at them. He then called a locksmith and got the car locks changed. He would threaten the police and my sister works for the Department of Justice so she was really worried about this. She pointed out she had POA by this point but he would say he would get it revoked. Intellectualy we knew that he'd be unlikely to manage this, but he was showing such initiative in getting the locks changed we didn't really know what to expect. He actually wasn't driving much at the time because he kept leaving the lights on and draining the battery so it spent most of the time at the garage. They were also in cahoots with us and would take extra long getting it back to him. Things calmed down over christmas then the following week my sister put a wheel clamp on the car one night until she could get access to the house to take his keys but he sawed it off. He's 85 and can barely walk but managed to find the strength to do that. He never mentioned this to us. She finally got hold of the keys a couple of days later with the help of his carers and then took the car in the night. In the meantime she'd talked to the local police and they had assured her that as she had POA she was in the right, legally and morally.
We spent a couple of days waiting for the explosion but nothing so my sister went round. She found him calm, brandishing a letter from the DVLA explaining that due to his medical condition he wouldn't be getting a new licence and he couldn't drive. He was making a GP appointment for them to explain it to him but was calm and rational. He even admitted that he had known he wasn't supposed to drive but reasoned that he was an old man and it didn't matter. He was apologetic and offered the car to my nephew. We were flabbergasted. I probably haven't expressed it here but it was the most stressful few months of our lives, especially my sisters. I think the calm may have coincided with my Dad's donepizil medication kicking in which has been miraculous in calming his agitation but it definitely helped having the authorities put it down in black and white for him.
Since then he occasionally asks why he doesn't have a car and still thinks it was because of a temporary memory loss so the GP could get it reversed but obviously this isn't going to happen.
Like your Dad, ours was patently unfit, but not at a stage where we could fool him. He thought of driving as his lifeline as he has difficulty walking and lives in a village. He would threaten to kill himself if he couldn't drive. We realised later he was making very risky trips from Gloucestershire to South Wales to try and find old friends. I agree that the law is a bit of a mess on this, leaving the onus on the PWD to declare themselves to the DVLA and the family to remove the car, in our case leading to horrendous emotional distress on all sides, and potentially damaging my sister's health. BTW, her treatment and operation went brilliantly and she's come out the other side. I must admit at the time when I told people he was still driving and they were shocked and said it was dangerous, it would reduce me to tears as if I couldn't work that out for myself but we just didn't seem to be able to find a way round. All I can suggest is that you try and speak to the GP, DVLA and local police and seek their reassurance and advice. That's what helped us in the end.
Good luck