Auto safety

ME44

My wife is in the moderate stages. We were returning from a short trip on the interstate highway at about 70 mph when she opened the passenger door. She was seatbelted and the air pressure from the passing wind kept the door from flying open. But she was fiddling with the door as I was finding a safe place to pull over. My car does not have child locks for the front seats. Has anyone found a solution short of having her ride in the back seat where there are child locks? She can be a little belligerent and I can't imagine that being confined to the back seat would be well received.

Metta

I started calling our car a “limo” and used the back seat for DH with child locks. Absolutely necessary as he kept trying to open the door when the car was moving.

Luckily, we have a small dog with a car seat that I placed in the front passenger side so it was unavailable

Sorry this happened to you too.

Scooterr

You can take the passenger door handle off from the inside. This will leave you a handle on the outside, which means the only way to open the door is from the outside. It works I had to do it with my DW.

harshedbuzz

@ME44

That's more excitement than any one person needs. Yikes.

In addition to seating the PWD in the rear seat— preferably on the passenger side which is easier for the driver to check on and harder for the PWD to interfere with the driver— taking advantage of worsening visual processing can be employed here, too.

Some caregivers have covered shiny door handles with paint or tape to match the interior door panel. A friend who didn't want to do that made covered her door panel with a piece of black canvas mounted with stick on Velcro; she also gave her mom a small fidget lap blanket to fiddle with as a distraction on drives.

Another trick she used was giving her mom the task of looking after the cat in the backseat to keep it safe. Said cat was a robotic Joy For All tabby.

HB

Iris L.

PWD sitting in the front seat can become discombobulated by all the traffic moving so fast and seek to escape. Back seat is better.

Iris

Chris20cm

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/73727/auto-safety

I had a similar situation with DW but we were in a slow traffic situation and she said she was getting out and started to open the door. We were going probably 15-20 mph and I told her very sternly DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!!!! That was about 4 years ago and she has not tried it since then. Not saying that would work with everyone but maybe worth a try.

Anna2022

This happened to us two summers ago while I was driving on the highway and DH was in the front passenger seat. He got mad at me and took off his seat belt and opened the door. It scared me so much I swerved off the highway and jammed on the brakes. I'm ashamed to say, and I really don't think its a solution, but panic took over and I yelled at him very loudly and said if he ever did that again, I would never take him anywhere in the car again. I doubt he remembers anything about it now but he hasn't pulled that stunt since. I am following this thread for solutions other than yelling.