Brand new car, then epilepsy
 

I need the help of the collective minds of you guys and gals. My brother in law bought brand new mini park lane last weekend and loves it too bits. Now here is the rub, on wednesday he had his first ever epileptic fit, and now having read the appropriate sites etc we realise that he will not be able to drive for the next year at least.

So now he is faced with the prospect of keeping his car for the year and hope that he gets his licence back, or get rid of it now.

I have looked into the getting rid of it option and so far have been told by the garage that as he paid for the car out right he doesn't qualify for the 2 week cooling off period so can't give the car back under that ruling. They have offered to put it on there fore court as a sale or return however, it will need another service even though the car only had 80 miles on it at 500 quid a pop:eek2:
Plus the loss in driving it off the forecourt will be about 500-1000 quid, hence leaving him out of pocket. The final one is to sell privately but i honestly think that most people with a car of that age would just buy straight from the dealer.

If anyone else has ideas on how to sort this out at minimul loss of funds please let me know

thanks in advance

rob

That's a bummer for bro-in-law. Hope he gets it sorted as best he can.

The garage may well be right but I would want to check this out with say Trading Standards or CAB just to be sure. No good finding out in 15 days that he could have returned it in 14 days......... dl

Is there not a waiting list? in which case the price won't have dropped much, i only lost £2.8k in 2 years and 25,000 miles on mine

Hmm, a bit hasty, seizures could be caused by lots of things, not all requiring him to give up his licence. I'd get a second opinion. I'm sure due to the problems it causes, stigma etc and the medication, that they need to do quite a few scans, tests etc before they can really say. It took a friend about a year before they said it was deff epilepsy. I'm sure it's also two years seizure free before you can get your licence back.

I've recently been through a very similar thing. Got my licence back after 4 weeks of not driving, as my seizure was caused by heat and dehydration.

Has your brother been to hospital?
Did he have an EEG? Any results from the Neurologist.
Something like 1 in 4 people will have 1 or 2 seizures during their life, epilepsy is in all of us, its just a case of finding the trigger.

Feel free to PM me or get your bro to PM me, more than happy to talk a bit more.

HTH,

Dan.

If you've had a seizure through epilepsy (no known cause basically), alcohol, or diabetes it is one year. Two years is a very common misconception.

Dan.

I agree with RIP, you need to find out what caused the fit, it may not be epilepsy. A few weeks won't make much difference :)

I think the garage's behaviour is a shameful rip-off since they are out to make money out of his unfortunate medical problem.

A friend of mine got her licence back for the same problem since she is on medication which controls the problem. Good luckto him.

Les

Often a diagnosis of epilepsy is made entirely from the history with completely normal investigations. People find that hard to swallow when you have to tell them not to drive and you have no abnormal test results to back it up. Patients put far more (misplaced) faith in tests than doctors do generally. Not saying not to do them, but it isn't that cut and dried in many cases.

Yes Leslie infortunately my misplaced faith in human kindness maybe thought that they would take the car back with the 80 miles on it with say minus £500for depreciation. Especially since this is the second mini he has bought from them.

Thanks for the other replies, however with his previous history of catastrophic head injuries (hit and run 3 months in hospital forward skull reconstruction dimished learning capabitility etc etc). I am afraid i refuse to speculate on how it occured or the reasons behind it and just need to find out the stuff about the car at this time being, and try and help my extended family

I am an epileptic, and hold a driving licence, OK I do have them in my sleep and thankfully I have not had a fit for over 12 years, If it is his first fit I find it very hard that a doctor is making him give up driving, because he MAY never have another one in his life hopefully, I also suffered head injuries in a motor cycle accident when I was 16 and my first fit happened 3 months after that, but we discovered some time later that I had too fractured my skull in 3 places, but I also had meningitis at the age of 18 months, And I beleive the two maybe connected in some way, I was in hospital with a brain tumour in 2000 and I asked the brain surgeon if my meningitis and epilepsy were connected and he told me they most probably were, he said epilepsy is like a time bomb that can go off at any time and mine went off when I was 16, feel free to PM me if you need anymore help or advice, Good Luck to your Brother in Law.
Cheers
Colin

seems like a lot of seizures are happening at the moment due to the heat.

I work in a wine shop and had a delivery about 3 weeks ago... almost unloaded everything off the waggon and I get shouted by one of the lads to help... the driver had collapsed between the waggon and the entrance to the front of my shop... after experiencing an epiletic fit a few years ago... I knew what was happening to him!
managed to get him laid on the shop floor out of harms way, and called the ambulance.
after checking with their head office and the guys records... there was no mention of him suffering with epilepsy.

...... a mini is small compared to a huge HGV carrying 10 tons.... if the driver had suffered this seizure whilst driving... gawd know what could have happened to the unsuspecting public!

i'd get your b-i-l to keep the car for a short while and get all the neccessary tests done and confirmed before he gets rid ( if he has to);)

my mate from years ago and her mother both suffered.. and they were told if they were seizure free for 18 months then they were ok.

My younger brother suffers from epilepsy. He has done so since he was four years old. In common with yourself Colin at a very young age under six months, he suffered a head injury and at the same time succumbed to an infection. The legacy that was left was mental disability and epilepsy although this didn't manifest itself until the age of four. To this day I remember the first time he had a fit some twenty six years ago. At the time I was quite young myself and was terrified whenever he had a fit, his fits were/are quite severe with rigoring and convulsions. Over the years we have adapted to this affliction which can cause fits at anytime. The reason a fit occurs is when a signal from the brain is interrupted. The brain then overloads and sends out many many signals which manifest themselves in the form of a fit.

Maz

I can honestly say I would rather have the injuries I suffered in A RTA, which were very serious than have a fit, the feeling of having a fit makes you feel drained and very tired for days, and a very sicky feeling too:(
Cheers
Colin

flashing light can also set off a seizure... ( ie.. computer games/ strobe lights/sun flashing thru the gaps of houses/trees)

it's a condition that no one really understands why/how it happens.:wonder:
and there are so many forms... petit mal/grand mal... such a dufficult condition to understand:rolleyes:

The current DVLA rules are a mandatory 1 year licence suspension unless a reason can be found for the seizure pretty conclusively - ie, head injury, fever, etc. Outside that, as with most, causes cannot be so easily determined, and therefore a ban is put in place.

Once seizure free for a year, a 3 year licence is re-issued. After this, a full licence can be got back if docs etc all agree and you remain seizure free.

MRI's and EEG's often show nothing unusual. A diagnosis of epilepsy is based on history as someone said. It is not a conclusive diagnosis in some cases. Epilepsy is the name given to the CONDITION of seizures, not a cause.

The DVLA gave me my license back after 3 years, then I was checked on a yearly basis when I had been fit free for 10 years the DVLA then reinstated my license full term, but a new one was issued every 3 years, until I had been fit free for 10 years.
Cheers
Colin

The rules regarding a full licence being reiussed again seem to vary depending on circumstances and medical opinion of the consultant and DVLA.

Also, they've relaxed the rules slightly in the last decade. It used to be a initial 2 year ban, but they reduced this to 1 year in the 1990's.