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Actually, I think California has that law, too. An 86 year old relative there just had to take the DL exam. She failed it, of course, but they have a special class for elderly drivers where they bone up on their skills. She took the class and passed the test.

The problem is that she still doesn't see very well and is losing her depth perception, her car is now covered with scratches and goudges on the right side from cutting things too close, and she really shouldn't be driving. On the positive side, the last time I saw her, she said that she herself had finally decided that her driving days were over. Some people have enough courage and concern for others to admit this.

I have terrible depth perception, as does a friend of mine. When I first found out, I was a bit shocked that I am able to drive so well. Doctor told me that when you grow up with it, your brain learns to process other visual clues to make up fo rit. However, I am terrible in sports.

I know many people can't convince their elderly relatives to give up driving--of course the older person doesn't want to give up the ability to get around independently. My brother-in-law, a deputy sheriff, says that many people ask him to take away the relative's keys. It's sometimes easier, I think, to hear it from an authority figure rather than from your own child, who by this action is making himself the adult and you the child.

With my mother, it took a discussion with a doctor. I'd managed to get the keys away from her "temporarily", but she kept asking for them back. So there she sat in the doctor's office, in a wheelchair and clutching her oxygen tank, demanding to know when she'd be well enough to drive again. Standing behind the doctor where Mom couldn't hear me, I murmured, "Blind in one eye, no depth perception, bad reflexes..." Without missing a beat the doctor said, "Well, Helen, you know you are blind in one eye, which means you don't have any depth perception, and your reflexes aren't quite what they used to be...."

Bless that man! All the way home Mom exclaimed, "Well, I just can't believe I won't be able to drive again!" But she had immediately accepted from a young doctor the same information I, her middle-aged daughter, had been telling her for weeks.