About Adult Driver Services

We provide medical driving evaluations and driver skill assessments in Pidgeon Forge, Gatlinburg, Sevierville, Maryville, Townsend, Lenoir City, Friendsville, Louisville, and Oak Ridge.

(Revised and edited from an article that appeared in the Blount County Daily Times in Tennessee)

One of the biggest challenges families encounter when dealing with elderly parents is when to take away the keys to the car. As their powers of perception and cognitive abilities diminish, driving can become a problem. Thomas Antkow, owner and president of Adult Driver Services, knows that dilemma all too well and has dedicated his career to helping families cope with that stressful scenario. In so doing, he plays a key role in keeping seniors safe while alleviating the concerns their families may face.

A featured guest on many syndicated radio shows and subject of numerous articles and interviews, Antkow was formerly employed at Phoenix Baptist Hospital and Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego as a trained Driver Rehabilitation Specialist, clinical evaluator and rehabilitation assistant. Antkow also spent time evaluating military service personnel at Balboa Naval and the Veterans Administration Hospitals in San Diego as well as the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

After attending the State University of New York, he formally began his career in driver safety in 1973 as a professional driving instructor with Fitzgerald's Driving School, one of the largest commercial driving schools on Long Island. He then completed his certification courses at The Center for Safety at New York University and mastered the five-step Smith System Defensive Driving Techniques program. During that same period, he obtained pre-licensing classroom instructor status from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. He was eventually promoted to senior instructor and given the responsibility of training new instructors in defensive driving tactics, in addition to giving behind-the-wheel training for students enrolled in driver education programs at six area high schools. A short time later, Antkow became the adaptive driving instructor for Fitzgerald's, specializing with clients that required special adaptive equipment.

With a career that spans over 35 years, Antkow has evaluated and trained well over 25,000 students, clients, and patients in the art of defensive driving while also giving disabled drivers the ability to regain and maintain their independence behind the wheel.

Antkow's company, Adult Driver Services, is now based in the Knoxville area and is listed with the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security as a qualified driver rehab services provider. He's also a member of the Blount County Partnership and serves as a stakeholder with the National Highway Safety Administration, ADTSEA, ADED, the National Alliance to Stop Impaired Driving, and the GHSA.

For all his experience and qualifications, Antkow stresses a commitment to kindness and understanding when dealing with the emotions that accompany any decision to take away the keys to the car to others, especially when it's done for safety's sake.

Antkow moved to Maryville TN in the spring of 2020 with the intention of semi-retiring.

"At this time in my life, not being willing to sit on my hands, and understanding from personal experience issues of aging and sensing a need right here in my new hometown, I decided to open my clinic in 2020 to specialize with issues relating to senior drivers and their safety. Unfortunately, COVID slowed my progress down quite a bit."

Antkow said that he can speak about those elderly issues from personal experience. "My mother-in-law suffered, and eventually succumbed to, Alzheimer's Disease," he continued. "My brother in-law, a former Hollywood actor, has been diagnosed and stricken with dementia and will soon be admitted to an adult care facility. I have other relatives who have suffered from "senility". My own beautiful wife suffered a basil skull fracture and subdural hematoma from a fall several years ago and has undergone years of recovery. She worries daily if she will follow her brother's path."

Antkow added that in his opinion, the timing of taking away a relative's car keys is avoided by most doctors for reasons of perceived liability. "I have heard it stated from several doctors here in East Tennessee that 'it's a family matter,'" he added. "The timing for when dad or mom should stop driving is a dirty little secret in most families. Most loved ones don't want to tackle it."

Counseling and evaluating driver risk and liability calmly, maturely and affordably is what makes an approach successful, he said.