Like many seniors, Renee Nicholson dreads the day she'll have to give up her car. Renee teaches a course for mature drivers to help them assess their driving ability.
"It is important that we realize our day is going to come when we have to give up the keys," she explained.
"I've been driving a long time and I wondered if I was getting sloppy," said 75-year-old Constance Main, one of the course participants.
Main says the course has raised an issue she hadn't thought of -- how her medication might be affecting her driving. She plans to ask her doctor about it.
"I would have thought he might have mentioned it," she said. "Next time I'm there I'm going to run it by him."
Driving is very complex and decisions have to be made quickly. Some medications can dangerously slow down that process.
"I've been driving for the last 65 years and you begin to think you know everything by then and of course, you don't," noted another course participant, Joseph Oberhoffner.
Oberhoffner describes himself as "a little over" 75 years of age. He says he's noticed night driving has been a problem.
"There are stretches where there are no streetlights and not very much traffic, and on-coming traffic with the glare certainly is a problem," he says.
An 18-year-old's eyes readjust eight times faster than a senior's. Anyone over the age of 60 also needs ten times more light than a young driver to see at night.
These are all factors that have many seniors restricting their driving to daylight hours at less busy times of the day.
Planning for the eventual day when you'll stop driving means choosing to live where you have easy access to transit, cabs, shopping and other amenities.
Program director David Dunne says making those key decisions puts the power in your hands -- not someone else's.
"It's a big difference if somebody says to you, 'I'm going to take your license away,' versus, 'I'm going to decide that I'm going to reduce my dependence on driving, I'm going to plan for that, and then eventually I'm going to give up driving,'" he said.
And as Renee points out, there is a silver lining to eventually giving up the car.
"They say it costs $8,500 a year to drive a car and maintain it," she says. "Well, you can take a lot of taxis for that amount of money right?"
The BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation Program is absolutely free - you don't even have to be a BCAA member.
You can find a workshop near you by visting here and then selecting "workshops".
There is also a "safe driving review" on the website that can help you assess your own driving.
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Chris Olsen.
