Dad is 90, congestive heart failure, walks very slowly with 2 canes, can not stand alone. But he appears to be in his right mind. He still drives and goes to the local bar for 2 martinis almost every day. Then he comes home in a nasty mood and passes out or picks a fight. I have tried to get his Dr to stop his driving. I have talked to the police about stopping him as he leaves the bar. No one wants to do anything."We don't want to take his last bit of independence away from him" If he causes an accident and has been drinking, can they come back on me because I didn't stop him?
Of course there is no guarantee that one wouldn't drive on a suspended license or drive without car insurance.... young people do that every day.
Lizzie, as for your parents deeding the house to you with a clause that they remain in the house until they die.... many promise their parents that they will take care of them and/or never put them into a nursing home... but in most cases those promises were made when Mom and/or Dad were quite mobile, coming and going as they pleased, could take care of themselves... we never think far into the future of one's parent being quite ill, and we never think about taking away their car keys. But life changes as our parents get older needing more help then we can give, and a rational parent would understand and make changes for the better.
Is that really what you're most worried about?
Is there a local cab firm that would quote for the drive to his favourite bar and back home? If he drives drunk, he's driving uninsured. If he injures another person, he will be sued for punitive damages and will end up bankrupt. A cab would be much, much cheaper.
For those of you who have not faced this issue yet... I suggest you have the discussion now before the parent is incapable of safe driving. Set a time to give up the keys. Maybe you can avoid this being a crisis.
They cannot come after you, you have done what you can legally to stop him. It sucks that you cannot get help, i can not imagine how gut wrenching this situation must be for you. He is not just endangering his life, but the life of others.. and that is pretty selfish of him.
With a million dollar umbrella, you're more likely to get defended by your insurance company lawyers. If you don't have one? Get one. Just FYI.
As for the drunk driving, treat Dad like an adult would treat a teenage son/daughter who came home driving drunk... ground him by taking away his keys for a week. Dad won't like that, but maybe then he would learn responsible driving.
You mentioned your Dad uses two canes, walks slow, and can't stand alone has very little to do with driving.... sitting is different, as long as one can still lift their leg without a lot of pain in their knee to put on the brake, they can still drive.
No, you can't be held responsible if your dad gets in trouble.
Your dad is a walking time bomb. If he has congestive heart failure, he's taking powerful diuretics to dump water from his system. Combine that action with alcohol, and my guess would be that even after ONE martini, he's legally drunk. Combined with some of the other medications he's taking, he could be legally drunk half-way through the first one. After two? He's blind drunk.
And although all you're worried about in your post here is yourself and your liability, how about the young mom taking her 2-year-old home from daycare? Crossing the center line and hitting her head on? There's the REAL problem.
What can you do? You can write a letter to the owner of the bar along with a photograph of your dad telling him that he is over-serving him every time he comes in. You can take his keys. You can hide his car. You can break the car key off in the ignition. You can disconnect appropriate wires under the hood to prevent it from starting. Insist that he take a cab to-and-from his watering hole. You can write a letter to his doctor telling him what you've told us and tell him to pull his license with the Secretary of State. You can write to the Secretary of State yourself. You can write to the local police department reporting him. You can call the cops and report erratic driving as he pulls away from the bar (whether it's erratic or not). You can install an alcohol interlock system on his car.
Lots of things you can do to prevent his driving. But you can't "do nothing".
Angel