[Ag-eq] {Disarmed} Not horses, but riding all the same

[Jewel]

From: Jewel 
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 2:52 PM
To: atig-nz at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: Re: [atig-nz] New device could give blind people the ability to ride a bike independently by using ultrasound to warn them of obstacles | NJ Newsday


  

    During the 70s and first half of the 80s when I lived in Belfast Christchurch, I used to ride an adult-sized tricycle on John's Road and its tributary roads.
In those days, it was busy with huge double storey trucks taking next week's steak fillets and lamb roasts to the Belfast freezing works, wool lorries, of a similar size,  and trucks carrying timber to the Painter  and Hamilton timber yard, not forgetting to mention fleets of army trucks  and the occasional vehicle transporting giraffes etc to the wildlife park in McLean's Island  whose name I always forget and then remember later:  Arana Park isn't it?
but it was nowhere near the crazy madhouse it is now!
How I never got lost in my solitary rides, I don't know!
I used to place myself by keeping the left hand rear wheel just running along in the shingle shoulder of the road.
When I first ventured out onto the road, I received a visit from the local constabulary warning me to keep off the road as, if I didn't, the consequences for me would be very serious!  The officer who threatened me may have been thinking of my safety, but, somehow, I don't think that was uppermost in his mind.
He was telling me that the full force of  the law would be brought against me;  however that could only  happen if I was breaking the law, and that I was not doing.
There was no law preventing a totally blind person from riding a bike on a public highway!  Why waste parliament's valuable time in passing a law to prevent something that would never happen?
I invited the traffic department:  yes, we did have a  separate traffic department in those days, to have a look at me on my bike and on the road so that they could assure the cops that I was not endangering the health and happiness of other road users.  The department said that it would not do  that, for to do so would give the message that they condoned my actions which they did not do, but as I was not breaking any law, there was nothing that they could do.
However, they had patrol cars up and down Johns Road all the time, so they had seen me frequently and knew that I did not present a marked danger to myself or any other road user.  As we know, sighted cyclists are  being injured or, worse, killed all the time.
In those long ago days, it was very rare for a motorist to park on the side of the road, but, one day, when I had been visiting a friend who lived some distance along the road from where I did, I was on the way home, going hell for leather when I went straight into the back of one of those rare cars that was parked outside my poultry farmer neighbour while the wife had gone in to buy some eggs. 
When I crashed into the back of his car, the driver leapt out shouting:  "Are you bloody well blind?!"  "Yes!" I replied "I am bloody well blind!" and, of course, he had to ask "Why are you bloody well riding a bike then?"
I replied that I couldn't obtain a bloody driver's licence so biking seemed a good way of getting about!  "It beats walking, hands down!"

          Jewel

From: Tania Macpherson 
Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 1:19 PM
To: atig-nz at yahoogroups.com 
Subject: RE: [atig-nz] New device could give blind people the ability to ride a bike independently by using ultrasound to warn them of obstacles | NJ Newsday


  

What about walking?  Smiles.  


From: atig-nz at yahoogroups.com [mailto:atig-nz at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kennydog
Sent: Wednesday, 13 November 2013 10:07 a.m.
To: Atig
Subject: [atig-nz] New device could give blind people the ability to ride a bike independently by using ultrasound to warn them of obstacles | NJ Newsday


  

Hi guys

While searching for some other info to do withada pting sports for the 
blind, I came across this page. I would give it a whirl, I guess on your 
sight as well if none it could be rather spooky. I guess you would get 
used to it once you sused it out.

Gene

http://www.njnewsday.com/national/10598-new-device-could-give-blind-people-the-ability-to-ride-a-bike-independently-by-using-ultrasound-to-warn-them-of-obstacles.html
-- 
*Check out my ever expanding accessibility central website for NVDA 
tutorials, NVDA road tested programs, and other eyesight related topics 
http://homepages.slingshot.co.nz/~hurrikenny Also, check out which NZ 
libraries have the NVDA screen reader available by visiting the 
following link 
http://www.aotearoapeoplesnetwork.org/content/partner-libraries To 
download your own copy of the free NVDA screen reader please visit 
http://www.nvaccess.org/ *




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