Transportation for elderly parents who can't drive — getting them where they need to go

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, legal, or financial advice. Please consult appropriate professionals for guidance specific to your situation.

The conversation about your parent's driving is one of the ones that never feels like the right time. It's never convenient to have it. Your parent isn't crashing into things yet, just driving a little slow or missing some exits. They're still technically fine. And telling someone to stop driving feels like telling them they're no longer a full adult. It's the kind of conversation that hangs in the air, unspoken, until one day you get a call from a police officer or until something happens that makes you realize you've waited too long.

But before you even get to the point of having that conversation, it's worth knowing that life after driving is possible. It's not easy, and it's not the same as driving yourself everywhere, but it's possible. Your parent can still get to doctor's appointments and the grocery store and church and their friend's house for coffee. It just requires thinking differently about transportation. And honestly, it requires thinking about transportation at all, because most adult children never sit down and plan for this until there's a crisis.

The research is clear: aging drivers are at higher risk for crashes. This isn't about being insulting to your parent; it's about biology and physics. Reflexes slow down. Vision gets worse. Medications interact with driving ability. Arthritis makes it harder to turn your neck to check blind spots. Cognitive changes mean your parent might miss exits or forget how to get to places they've driven for fifty years. Some of these changes are gradual and some are sudden. Some are reversible and some are not.

But there's another side of driving that we don't talk about as much: driving is freedom. It's independence. It's the ability to decide where you want to go and when, without asking anyone for a ride. Losing that is a real loss, and the grief of that loss is legitimate. Your parent isn't just losing a mode of transportation. They're losing an identity that's been part of their life for sixty years or more.

Why Driving Becomes Impossible

Sometimes it's obvious. Your parent has a stroke and suddenly their left side doesn't work, and they can't operate the pedals. Sometimes it's cognitive: your parent with early dementia is getting lost on familiar roads or missing traffic signals. Sometimes it's vision: macular degeneration makes it hard to see the road clearly, or cataracts make it impossible to drive at night. Sometimes it's just the accumulation of small changes that add up to unsafe.

Some parents have episodes: they black out at the wheel, or they have a seizure, or they have a fall at home and break their leg and suddenly can't operate the pedals. Some have medication changes that make them dizzy or drowsy. Some have conditions like Parkinson's or advanced arthritis where the physical actions of driving become increasingly difficult. And some just have that thing that happens to a lot of people in their eighties or nineties: the reflexes are slow enough, the reaction time is long enough, the attention is scattered enough, that putting them in a car at highway speeds is genuinely dangerous.

One of the hardest things about this is that your parent might not feel unsafe. They might feel fine. They might have been driving for sixty years without an accident and they might trust their own judgment about their ability. The subjective feeling of being okay to drive doesn't match the objective reality of being safe to drive. This mismatch is where a lot of family conflict happens. Your parent insists they're fine, your sister says they're being reckless, you're trying to figure out who's right, and meanwhile your parent is white-knuckling it on the freeway while people are honking at them.

The guilt piece is real too. If you tell your parent to stop driving and something bad happens to them because they don't have transportation to a doctor's appointment, you'll blame yourself. If you don't tell them to stop driving and they hurt themselves or someone else, you'll blame yourself for that too. There's no winning move in this situation. There's just the least-bad move, and that's usually "have the conversation earlier rather than later."

Transportation Options

If your parent can no longer drive safely, they have options that aren't "sit at home." They're all imperfect. They all require some combination of your effort, your money, your parent's willingness to accept help, and sometimes your parent's ability to work through systems that weren't designed to be easy.

Senior ride services exist in many areas. Some are volunteer-driven, some are taxi-like services, some are services that come with senior centers or community programs. The good ones have drivers who know their passengers, drive slowly, and understand that an elderly person getting in and out of a car might take a minute. The quality varies wildly depending on your area and your parent's mobility level. In some places, these services are strong and reliable. In other places, they don't exist or they're overwhelmed. Call your Area Agency on Aging to find out what's in your area.

Paratransit services usually exist in places with public transportation systems. These are specialized services for people who can't use regular buses or trains. Your parent would need to be certified as paratransit-eligible, and then they can book rides usually for the cost of a regular bus fare. Again, the quality and reliability vary. Some services are wonderful. Some are chronically late and overbooked. Some require your parent to book rides more than a day in advance. It's not the same as being able to just go where you want whenever you want.

Some families make family driving part of the rotation. Your parent needs to get to the doctor next Tuesday, and that's your job. Your sister is going to take them to grocery shopping. Your brother will drive them to their appointment at the eye doctor. This works if your family has the capacity and willingness. It doesn't work if you're all too stretched, or if you live far away, or if there are siblings who won't participate and you end up doing all of it.

Some families hire drivers. This can be a full-time caregiver whose job includes driving, or it can be hiring someone specifically for transportation purposes. In rural areas or places without public transportation, this might be the only realistic option. In expensive areas, this might be impossible on your parent's income or your own. Some families split the cost with siblings.

Volunteer driver programs exist in some communities, often run by nonprofits or religious organizations. These are wonderful if they exist in your area and if your parent has the kind of schedule that matches the volunteer availability. But many of these programs are running on empty: not enough volunteers to meet demand, long waits to get on the program, limited destinations.

Rideshare services like Uber and Lyft exist in most places, but they're expensive for regular use and they don't solve the problem of your parent having to summon the car, deal with technology, interact with a stranger. Some older adults do this fine. Others find it overwhelming.

Maintaining Engagement

The real challenge isn't just the mechanics of getting your parent to their appointments. It's keeping your parent engaged with the world. If the primary barrier to going anywhere is asking you for a ride, your parent will start to isolate. They'll skip lunch with friends because it feels like too much trouble. They'll avoid the senior center because they don't want to bother you. They'll retreat to home, which is comfortable and safe and incredibly lonely.

Some of the risk here is depression, which is serious. But some is just the slow contraction of your parent's world. Friends drift away because they can't see each other. New activities don't happen because transportation is complicated. Your parent stays home and watches television and gradually loses the connections that made their life feel worth living.

This is where planning actually matters. If your parent's friends also can't drive, can they carpool using your parent's vehicle while you do the driving? Can your parent go to a senior center where there's a shuttle service and where they'll see other people? Can they have groceries and medications delivered instead of needing to go to the store? Can your parent use technology for some things, like virtual doctor's appointments or video calls with grandchildren? Can they attend religious services that offer transportation, or go to community events that are close to home?

The goal is to keep your parent engaged. The specific mechanism of how they get places is less important than making sure they can still get places. This requires creativity, sometimes requires spending money, and sometimes requires your parent being willing to accept help. You can't control your parent's willingness, but you can set up the conditions that make it easier for them to say yes to staying connected.

How To Help Your Elders provides educational content for family caregivers. This is not a substitute for professional medical, legal, or financial advice. Every family situation is different ; what works for one may not work for another.