Confiscating Car Keys From Elderly Parents

July 17 -- Mike Lama drives his mother on her errands every Thursday. He figures it's the least he can do after taking the 90-year-old's car keys away.

Lama's mother Grace has a history of fainting spells and he was constantly worried she would black out while driving. "Her own physical response has been my concern. Her ability to quickly react has been an issue for me for quite a while," Lama said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

While he said he did not want to take away his mother's ability to drive, he, like many adult children with elderly parents, felt it was his duty. Yet when Lama and the rest of the family decided it was time to stop Grace from driving, she didn't agree.

"No way!" she complained. "I felt like I was a good driver. I've always been independent. I've always had a car of some kind."

Grace even snuck the car out once to drive herself to the store after her family asked her not to drive anymore. "I felt guilty about it — and I never did it again," she recalled.

Lama is sympathetic: "Having to give that up, I think, is [an] extremely difficult thing for the rest of us to understand."

Her family eventually sold Grace's car and now she relies on her son, friends, relatives or a shuttle service for senior citizens to get around.

"So, it's final," Grace said. I'm adjusting."

Road Tests Get Protests

In most states it is up to an elderly driver's family to decide whether or aged drivers should continue to get behind the wheel.

Illinois and New Hampshire are the only states that require older drivers to pass road tests before their licenses can be renewed. In both states, drivers more than 75 years old must pass an on-the-road test before they can get behind the wheel on their own again.

In some states, efforts to introduce tough driving tests for elderly drivers have failed outright. In California, for example, the 86-year-old man who on Wednesday crashed into a Santa Monica Farmer's market with deadly results would have been required to pass an on-road test when he renewed his license two years ago if a recent reform effort had not been defeated.