[Ohio-talk] Fw: Article from Columbus Dispatch Ohio Editorials 2010 07 11

[Deborah Kendrick]

While at the convention, I had to write and file my regular column for the 
Columbus Dispatch.  Naturally, there was only one topic uppermost in my 
mind -- the Blind Driver Challenge!
Thought you might be interested to see what I wrote.  The following was 
published in the Sunday July 11 Columbus Dispatch, and I am sending it to 
you courtesy of NFB Newsline, from which I pressed pound-9 while in the 
article!
Deborah
*****

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "NFB-NEWSLINE Online" <nfbnewsline at nfb.org>
To: "Deborah Kendrick" <dkkendrick at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 7:31 PM
Subject: Article from Columbus Dispatch Ohio Editorials 2010 07 11


Deborah Kendrick: Technology soon could empower blind to drive 
Sunday, July 11, 2010   02:59 AM                                      When I 
was 17, my stepfather became somewhat obsessed with the notion that, even 
though I couldn't see and would never be granted a driver's license, it was 
essential that I know the basic workings of a car. He had been a heavy 
smoker and, after retiring the habit, carried an unopened pack of Salems and 
a serious fear of cardiac arrest wherever he went. His fear and solution 
concerning me went like this: If he or some other driver had a sudden 
inability to continue piloting an automobile and I was the only passenger, 
my knowing how to operate the pedals and turn the wheel would save our 
lives.

For a year or so, there were periodic reminder lessons in which we'd go to 
an empty parking lot and do a little practicing.

Years later, I persuaded my husband to adopt the same line of thinking. I'm 
not so sure I honestly believed it was a necessary precaution. I just wanted 
that inexplicable thrill of sitting behind that wheel, my foot having 
complete, albeit fleeting power over when this magnificent machine would 
stop and go.

I have only had this thrill a half dozen times or so in my life, mind you 
(if you don't count the scores of times I've rushed to the bumper-car lines 
in amusement parks!) but the sensation of power and independence is not one 
easily forgotten.

For years while my children were growing up, I had a recurring dream about 
driving. In my dream, my disability was still intact: I had no usable 
eyesight. I was, however, called upon to drive in the face of emergency.

The emergency varied somewhat with each dream, but it always involved 
driving my children to safety, and I was always the only person available to 
do it. And dreams being dreams, I always succeeded.

Prodigious sums of money have been dedicated to studying the greatest needs 
of people with disabilities, particularly visual disabilities, only to 
determine what is obvious to anyone who spends a week without the ability to 
drive. The greatest need is transportation. Sure, there are buses and trains 
and paratransit services in most cities, such as Mainstream in Columbus. 
There are taxis and a variety of volunteer services a nondriving person can 
tap into for an occasional ride to the grocery store or dentist.

But the freedom of jumping into a car late at night to run for ice cream is 
known only to those who drive. The independence of leaving all adult 
responsibilities on hold to travel, spontaneously and without assistance, 
200 or 500 miles to help a friend in need is the exclusive prerogative of 
those with the freedom to get behind a wheel and propel themselves via 
automobile from point A to point B.

Freedom and independence are the key words, after all, that come to mind in 
conjunction with obtaining a license to drive.

It is the dearest dream of adolescents, the loss most grieved by 
octogenarians, this driving thing.

For the millions of Americans with insufficient vision for the standard 
test, it is the loss most often named as remaining once all the other 
necessary adaptive techniques have been acquired.

This week, during its 70th annual national convention conference, the 
National Federation of the Blind unveiled a dream that is on a fast track to 
becoming reality: It is called the Blind Driver Challenge.

The work is being led by Dr. Dennis Hong, who heads the Robotics and 
Mechanisms Laboratory of Virginia Polytechnic Institute. While the original 
concept, he said, was to design a kind of robot car, a car that would simply 
take a blind person where he or she wanted to go, it soon became clear to 
his group that this was not at all the right approach. Blind people have 
been driving their own destinies for a long time, you might say, and Hong 
soon realized that what his group needed to design was a car that blind 
drivers could actually drive, control, employ adaptive techniques to get 
information and then make the same informed decisions as drivers who can 
see.

A gleaming Ford Escape was on display at the NFB convention in Dallas, the 
vehicle that will eventually contain the keys to driving blind. I was among 
many who participated in a simulation exercise (responding to tactile cues 
to "steer" a car) to help the Virginia Tech group gather data, and found 
myself yearning to take that simulation to the next level.

It may sound preposterous, but the NFB and Dr. Hong's group expect to have a 
car driven by a blind person next Jan. 29 in Daytona.

Will blind people frequent the highway in my lifetime? Probably not. But 
pursuing the dream and watching its reality evolve affords a certain kind of 
power and independence all its own.

Deborah Kendrick is a Cincinnati writer and advocate for people with 
disabilities.

dkkendrick at earthlink.net

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