The Keys Are the Easy Part

You had the conversation. He agreed. Then he found the spare set. Usually the car has to go, or at least go where he cannot see it.

Do we really have to take the car as well?

In most cases, yes. Keys can be replaced, borrowed, or found, and a car sitting outside asks the question again every single day.

Families almost always start with the keys, because it feels proportionate. It rarely holds.

There is a spare set in a drawer. There is one at the dealership. There is one in a coat pocket nobody remembered. And even where the keys genuinely are gone, the car itself is the problem: it is visible, it is his, and its presence is a standing argument that he should be driving it.

Memory loss also does something specific here. Each morning is a fresh start on a decision that was settled yesterday. You are not enforcing one agreement — you are re-litigating it indefinitely against someone who does not remember losing.

What actually works, in order

From least to most disruptive. Most families end up further down this list than they expected.

• Move it to another address. A relative's driveway, a garage across town. Out of sight does most of the work, and it is reversible if things change.
• Disable it properly. A mechanic can install a hidden kill switch, or remove the battery or a fuse. Do it in a way that looks like the car is broken, not sabotaged — the goal is a car that does not work, not evidence that somebody tampered with it.
• "It's in the shop." Useful as a bridge for days or weeks, not as a permanent arrangement. It requires everyone to tell the same story, and it stops working once he asks which shop.
• Sell it. Cleanest, and often the one that finally settles it. See the title question below.
• Let the license go. A revoked or expired license does not physically stop anyone, but it changes the conversation from "you can't" to "they won't let you," which is easier for both of you and puts the refusal outside the family.
• Report to the DMV for a re-examination if he will not stop and nothing else has worked.

Whatever you choose, get everyone aligned first. One relative saying "well, I don't see why not" undoes months of work in an afternoon.

The car is in his name. Can I sell it?

Only with his signature while he has capacity, or under a power of attorney that actually covers it. Read the document first.

This is the practical wall families hit.

• If he still has capacity, he signs the title. This is much easier than it later becomes, and it is a reason to have the conversation earlier rather than at the point of crisis.
• If you hold a durable power of attorney, check whether it grants authority over personal property and vehicle transactions. Many do. Some do not, or are limited. Some states also want a specific motor-vehicle power of attorney form for a title transfer, and the DMV may not accept a general document.
• If there is no POA and no capacity, the car cannot be sold without court authority. That means guardianship or conservatorship, which is slow — so in the meantime the answer is to move the car or disable it rather than to transfer it.
• If the title is joint, the requirements vary by state and by how the title is worded.

Call the DMV and ask what they require for a transfer under a power of attorney, before you list the car. Requirements vary and the answer is free.

Should we cancel the insurance?

Ask the insurer rather than deciding alone. And ask about the liability question while you have them on the phone.

Two competing instincts here, and both have merit. Cancelling removes any suggestion he is an authorized driver. Keeping coverage means that if he does get behind the wheel, there is insurance in place when it matters most.

There is real legal exposure in knowingly leaving a car available to somebody you have been told is unsafe. It has a legal name — negligent entrustment — and the general principle is that a person who provides a vehicle to someone they knew, or should have known, was unfit can be held responsible alongside the driver. Insurance may cover up to policy limits; claims can exceed them.

That is not written to frighten anyone into acting badly. It is written because families weighing "is it really so bad to let him drive to the shop" are usually weighing only his dignity against his safety, and there is a third party in the equation — whoever is in the other car.

Two calls: the insurance agent, and if there has been a doctor's warning already documented, an attorney. Both are short conversations.

Can we report him to the DMV?

In most states, yes, and often confidentially. In four states the physician is required to report a dementia diagnosis without being asked.

California, Delaware, Oregon and Pennsylvania require physicians to report dementia to the licensing authority. Fourteen other states ask drivers to self-report. Everywhere else varies, and many states accept reports from family members, physicians or law enforcement.

How it usually works: a report triggers a review, which may lead to a written test, a vision test, a medical form for his doctor to complete, or a road test. The outcome can be a full license, a restricted one — daylight only, no highways, within a radius — or revocation.

Two things to know before you file:

Ask whether reports are confidential in your state. Many are, and that matters when you have to keep living with the person afterward.

A restricted license is a real outcome, and often a better first step than revocation. It preserves something, and it moves the decision to an authority outside the family.

Solve the transportation before you take the car

This is the step that decides whether the arrangement lasts, and it is the one most often skipped.

A car is not primarily a vehicle. It is the ability to leave the house without asking. Removing it without putting something in its place converts a safety decision into a loss of freedom he had no part in, and that is the version people fight hardest against.

Before the car goes:

• Write down every trip he actually makes in a week. Not the trips you imagine — the real ones. The coffee place, the hardware store, the cemetery, his brother's.
• Assign them. Who drives him, on which day, standing arrangement rather than "call me any time," which nobody does.
• Set up an account with a ride service in your name, or find out what the local senior transportation options are — Area Agency on Aging, veterans' transport, faith community volunteers, dial-a-ride. Many places have more than families realize.
• Keep the destinations, not just the errands. If the point of the drive was getting out of the house, replacing it with grocery delivery misses what it was for.
• Say it in terms of what continues, not what ends. "I'll take you Thursday" lands differently from "you can't drive."

He keeps asking about the car

Expect it, agree one answer across the family, and do not relitigate it each time.

He may ask daily. He may accuse you of stealing it. He may be genuinely bereaved about it, repeatedly and freshly, in the same way any loss lands again when it cannot be retained.

What helps:

• One agreed answer, used by everyone. Simple and unchanging. "It's at Mike's" or "the insurance ran out" — whatever the family settles on.
• Do not defend the decision with reasons and evidence. It will not persuade and it restarts the argument.
• Acknowledge the loss rather than the logistics. "I know. You've been driving since you were sixteen." That is often what he actually wants said.
• Redirect to the next thing that is happening, with you, involving leaving the house.
• Take the blame if it helps. Being angry at you is more tolerable for him than being told he is not capable.

And do not underestimate what has gone. For many people, especially men of a certain generation, driving is not a convenience — it is competence, usefulness, and the last independent act of the day. Losing it is frequently reported as harder than the diagnosis.