I secretly made my dads car “break down” for nearly 5 months because he refused to stop driving

I’m 44, my dad is 76. Before anyone jumps straight to me treating an old man like a child, my dad has always been VERY independent and I actually admire that about him. He still lives alone in the same house I grew up in, does his own shopping, goes fishing with two mates every other sunday, still insists on cutting his own bloody hedge even though I bought him an electric one because the petrol one is apparently “better made”. Hes not helpless at all. The problem was his driving had become genuinely frightening and absolutely nobody could get him to admit it. It started with smaller things. He’d park with one wheel on the pavement, scrape the passenger mirror and swear someone hit HIM, miss turns he’s been taking for 30 years. Then last year I was in the car with him and he pulled straight out of a junction because he genuinely hadnt seen a van coming from the right. The van slammed its brakes and missed us by maybe a couple metres. Dad just went “bloody idiot was flying” and carried on driving. I remember sitting there thinking, no, that was you. A few weeks later my sister rang me because he’d reversed into one of those metal posts outside a supermarket. Nothing serious, cracked the bumper, but apparently he didnt even realise he had hit it until somebody knocked on his window. We tried doing this properly first. Me, my sister, his brother, all of us spoke to him separately because if we went together he would immediately think we’d held some family tribunal behind his back. He wouldnt hear it. Every single conversation turned into “I’ve been driving since before you were born” and “you lot think because I’m old I cant do anything anymore.” Which wasnt what anyone was saying. I told him I didnt care if he drove to the shops at 11 in the morning on quiet roads, it was him going through town in rush hour and driving at night that worried me. He basically told me to mind my own business. Then he clipped a parked car. Again, not some huge crash, he caught the side of it while squeezing past on a narrow road and knocked the mirror off. The owner happened to be standing nearby and stopped him because Dad was going to keep driving. Dad said he thought he’d hit a branch. That was the moment I stopped thinking this was just me being overprotective. About 6 months ago he rang me because his car wouldnt start. I went over, got it going and drove it around the block, everything seemed fine. Couple weeks later it happened again. This is where I did something I probably had no right doing. I realised every time his car gave him trouble, he just rang me and stayed home until I sorted it. He didnt borrow anyone elses car, didnt call a taxi to go collect parts, nothing. If that car didnt start, Dad simply wasnt driving. So I started making sure sometimes it didnt. I’m deliberately not going into exactly what I did because thats not really the point, and I wasnt damaging the car. Everything could be put back exactly how it was within minutes. Maybe once every week or two I’d be at his place for dinner or helping with something, and before I left I’d make it so the car wouldnt start the next morning. Then I’d get the inevitable phone call. “This bloody thing again.” I’d tell him I couldnt get there until after work, offer to pick up his shopping or take him wherever he needed to go, then later I’d “fix” it. This went on for months. The stupid part is Dad started blaming the car rather than himself. He’d had it for nearly 12 years and suddenly decided it was unreliable. He started asking me whether he should replace it and I kept saying at your age do you really want to spend 20 grand on another car when you barely use this one? Get taxis, let me drive you, use the bus pass you’ve had sitting in a drawer since 2016. Somehow THAT argument got through to him in a way “you’re becoming dangerous behind the wheel” never did. Then something happened I genuinely didnt expect. He started enjoying not driving. There’s a little community bus that runs near his house that he had apparently considered beneath him for years. Now he takes it into town because he’s become friends with another blokewho uses the same one. My sister started taking him grocery shopping on saturday mornings and apparently they now get breakfast afterwards. If he wants to go fishing one of his mates picks him up. I take him to appointments. His world didnt collapse the way I think he imagined it would if he stopped driving. About 6 weeks ago he sold the car. He got a decent price for it too. He told me afterward, “Shouldve got rid of the bloody thing years ago, more trouble than it was worth.” I nearly choked on my tea. He has absolutely no idea. My sister knows now because I finally told her last weekend. She stared at me for about 10 seconds then said “You are actually insane”, then started laughing. After that she got more serious and said I should probably never tell Dad because he would see it as a massive betrayal, even if it ended up being for the best. And shes right. He would be FURIOUS. I did interfere with his property. I lied to his face multipe times. There were mornings he genuinely thought his car was failing when actually his idiot son had been round the night before making sure he couldnt use it. But I also remember that van. I remember him saying he’d hit a branch when there was another mans wing mirror hanging off. Maybe there was a more respectful way to handle it, but everybody tried respectful for nearly a year and he simply wouldnt listen. Dad would rather blame a 12 year old car than admit he might not be as sharp behind the wheel as he used to be. So I let him blame the car. He thinks giving up driving was his idaea. I’m perfectly happy letting him die thinking that.