2013-01-23-Non Driving
Seminars@Hadley
The Keys to Successful Nondriving
Presented by
Dr. L. Penny Rosenblum
Bryan Duarte
Moderated by
Dawn Turco
January 23, 2013
Dawn Turco
Good morning and welcome to Seminars@Hadley.
Today’s topic and title is The Keys to Successful
Nondriving. Today’s presenters are Dr. L. Penny
Rosenblum and Bryan Duarte. They join us today
from their respective computers in Arizona. I’m Dawn
Turco, I’m moderating today’s seminar.
The Keys to Successful NonDriving, I have to admit to
you I chuckled a little bit at the title and the use of the
word keys. The rare times I’ve had car keys in my
hands are on mornings such as today in Chicago
where I dashed out in the dark to start my husband’s
engine and get our car pre-warming—it’s a bit of a
frigid day here. Yes, I’m a nondriver as are today’s
presenters, Penny and Bryan.
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I suspect that many of us in the room today are
lifelong nondrivers and perhaps we have a few others
who are new to nondriving. I know that there’ll be
something for all of us in today’s presentation, so I
want to get us started. Penny, I am getting ready to
hand the microphone to you.
Penny Rosenblum
Students, it’s a pleasure to be here with you. My
name is Penny Rosenblum and like Dawn, I am a
lifelong nondriver. I’m going to go ahead and be
switching off with Bryan Duarte and he’ll be
introducing himself shortly. Right now I have a slide
up on the screen and I know some of you aren’t going
to enjoy my photos, but I’ll describe them as I go
along and for those of you who can see them I hope
it’ll add a little interest to your computer talking at you.
I have two photos. One is of a woman in very rural
Maine, who actually hitchhikes to the ferry terminal to
catch the ferry to go over to the mainland, where she
takes little vans from different communities to stores.
And another one is of an Orientation & Mobility
Instructor showing a young man how to use the bus.
Next slide, please, Dawn.
I thought it would be good to start by introducing
myself to you. So this slide says Penny’s childhood
experiences and has four slides on it. I grew up in
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Freehold, New Jersey, which is suburbia. My parents
bought a home, which was the first home in our
neighborhood because by choice, my mother chose
not to drive.
And so I have a picture of our house and I have a
picture showing a little shopping center across the
street. And this little shopping center was a bone of
contention in my home when I was in late elementary
school, because like all the other kids I neighborhood
I wanted to walk to the stores over there and my
parents wouldn’t let me cross the street unless I was
with somebody.
And finally when I was about ten I convinced them I
should cross the street, and I crossed the street for
the first time by myself. I turned around and waved. I
could not see them glued to the family room window,
but I knew they were there and my mother and dad
still laugh about my turning around and waving.
When I got into high school I very much wanted to not
have to take the activity bus. I wanted to walk home
and so I actually called for an Orientation & Mobility
Instructor and I’m showing a picture of a very busy
intersection on Route 9 in Freehold, New Jersey.
Bruce Springsteen sings about Route 9. And after the
O&M Instructor cleared me to cross that Route 9
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intersection I did a couple of times, decided it was too
far to walk and went back to the activity bus.
Ironically my father was a driving instructor. He
owned a driving school, started it about eight years
before I was born and he literally taught half of my
high school class how to drive. That was pretty
stressful for me and I have a picture of a newspaper
clipping of my father looking much younger than he
does right now at age 79 in front of his driving school
car and the headline talks about “Driving School
Instructor Works with Nervous Drivers.” Next slide,
please, Dawn.
As Dawn said, I live in Tucson, Arizona, so I have a
slide up here with my experiences today. I ride my
bicycle a lot. I’ll be on actually as soon as the
webinar is over; I have some errands to run. So
there’s a picture of me in my bike clothes at an ATM
machine. There’s a picture of my husband with our
tonneau of our pickup truck open and he has a list in
his hand and he’s trying to demonstrate that we have
a big area for me to put all of my stuff in.
There’s a picture of our city bus and there’s a picture
of me by a cab. And what’s kind of unique about me
next to this taxi cab is I’m wearing a dress. I have a
bag of school materials in my hand and a water bottle,
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but I’m standing at the trunk of the cab with my
bicycle hanging out of it.
And in my job at the University of Arizona I work with
student teachers and I often have to go out to
schools. I’m doing it actually this exact way on
Monday, where I will get a cab to the school so when I
get there I can look professional. And I bring my bike
clothes and my bike and then I bike home and get
some exercise. So I’m very creative in how I meet my
transportation needs.
Now it’s time to bring up the next slide and ask Bryan
to go ahead and introduce himself to you.
Bryan Duarte
Thank you, Penny, and welcome everyone. My name
is Bryan Duarte. I am a 27 year old husband of a
beautiful wife and I have four children including two
year old twin boys. I also have guide dog named
Dixon, who everybody who knows me loves him first.
I lost my vision when I was 18 years old, due to a
motorcycle accident. And as result of that I became
totally blind. Currently I am a student at Arizona State
University in the applied computer science field. I
really enjoy writing computer software for blind
accessibility.
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And on a daily basis I am an independent, blind, no
keys needed traveler. I every morning wake up and I
get a ride humbly from my beautiful wife to the light
rail. I take the light rail to an intercampus shuttle.
And from that shuttle it’s about a 40 to 50 minute ride
to my actual campus location.
And the return trip is similar with the exception or
addition, if you will, I take the light rail to a public bus
and then I get on a public bus and take it closely to
my home. And then I walk the rest of the leg, so with
all that being said, I do travel independently and I am
totally blind and I will to turn this over with the next
slide to Penny. Thank you.
Penny Rosenblum
Great. Well, thanks so much Bryan for introducing
yourself. So what are we going to talk about for about
the next 50 minutes? I’m going to introduce you to a
curriculum called Finding Wheels. This curriculum
was designed to help teens and young adults explore
nondriving. And if you’re an adult, an older adult, you
may find this valuable or you may find another
curriculum I’m going to talk about briefly, valuable.
We’re going to talk about the advantages and
disadvantages of the different forms of travel and how
you plan for travel when you’re not the one with the
car keys, when you’re not driving. And finally we’re
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going to briefly touch on a curriculum called
Reclaiming Independence, which is designed for older
adults to explore that knicky-knack transition from
driver to nondriver. Throughout this, Bryan and I will
both be giving examples of how we as nondrivers
manage our transportation. Dawn, next slide, please.
As I mentioned, there’s a curriculum called Finding
Wheels. This curriculum was developed by myself
and Dr. Anne Corn and it is available from Pro-Ed.
And I will be having Dawn post a resource list to the
website, so you’ll have the information about this
curriculum and some other articles and resources that
might be helpful to you.
We wrote the Finding Wheels curriculum intending it
to be for teachers of visually impaired students, TVIs,
Certified Orientation Mobility Specialists, COMSs and
families. However, we have had teens use the
curriculum themselves. This curriculum is not a
cookbook, so you don’t have to do it exactly the way
the curriculum says. You don’t have to go and order
the ten units. It’s a guide and the idea is we wanted
to make sure that folks who themselves were drivers
in most cases, really had some good information
about the idea of being a nondriver.
And we have a lot of activities in the curriculum
designed to help the young people explore their
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options, whether they’re going to stay in the
community they’re currently living in or they’re going
to move to a different community, perhaps to take a
job, perhaps to go to school, perhaps to do some
vocational training. So Finding Wheels is a tool out
there that may be helpful to family members. It may
be helpful to young people with visual impairments
and to the professionals working with them. Next
slide, please, Dawn.
So Finding Wheels is divided into four sections. The
first section we introduce four teens who are
nondrivers. And we tell a little bit about each of the
teens through a little scenario about them. For
example, Pablo takes the bus everywhere, so his
motto is “Give me that transit pass and I’m good to
go.”
And he talks about how he takes the bus to his
community college, how he takes the bus to meet
some friends for band practice. But by the time
they’re done horsing around and having band practice
it’s late, so he gets one of the guys in the band to give
him a ride home and in exchange he buys the band
pizza once in a while. Kisha, who talks about the
power of her own two feet and she doesn’t want to be
tied to a bus schedule, she wants to walk places.
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So we have four scenarios of young people who are
non drivers and the idea is we want the young people
using the curriculum to be able to identify and to start
to recognize that hey, I do things like Pablo, sort of,
but I do some of the other things the way Mary Ann
does. There’s just no one composite of who is a
nondriver.
The second part of the curriculum talks about the
realization of nondriving. What do I need to tell
people about my visual impairment? I don’t need to
tell the taxi driver the cause of my visual impairment.
I need to tell him, honk the horn. I don’t see you
pulling up.
The third section is the meat of the curriculum. It talks
about the different types of transportation, walking
and biking, which we call personal wheels; public
wheels, like trains and subways; hired wheels, like
taxis and hiring a driver.
And the fourth section talks about strategies you can
use if you’re a nondriver to minimize your frustration
and maximize your independence. What do you do
when your taxi doesn’t show? How do you negotiate
with somebody to get to the places you want to go
without being a burden? Next slide, please, Dawn.
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Section 1, I mentioned has the four scenarios and we
do refer to them throughout the curriculum. Section 2
is the Realization of Nondriving. And I have a couple
of young people, one is in a wheelchair; one is
walking with his cane. The young woman in the
wheelchair is being pushed by a gentleman and that
gentleman happens to be and Orientation & Mobility
Specialist.
And these young people wanted to go and learn more
about their community college and they have a lot of
learning to do. What did they need to say to the bus
driver when he dropped them off that might have
given them some guidance on where they could find a
ramp, because this young lady can’t get up the stairs?
Thinking about rites of passage, for so many of our
young people in the United States and Canada and
other industrial countries getting that driver’s license
is an indication of “Hey, I’ve become an adult.” But
there are other ways to demonstrate that you’ve
become an adult, so we work with the young people
on that. So I’m going to turn it over to Bryan, who is
going to talk with you about what you need to tell
somebody about your visual impairment—so Bryan.
Bryan Duarte
Thank you, Penny. Yeah, this is a very important
topic when you are independently traveling. It’s a
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functional needs statement. It’s what do you tell and
when do you tell it. For example, when you are
traveling publicly, walking, taking a bus, taking a taxi,
there’s going to be times when you’re going to interact
with people who have never assisted a blind person
before. This is very important to have a functional
needs statement to let them know that you need their
assistance and how to do it, but not giving them too
much information.
I’ll give you an example. Whenever I get on a public
bus, I walk on the bus and I walk directly to the driver
and I tell him “Excuse me, can you please help me
locate my stop? I need to get off at Street Z and I
can’t see the road signs very well, so I’m going to
need you to let me know when I get there.”
Another example would be when you’re asking for a
taxicab, maybe you’re calling a taxicab because it’s
gotten late—you were at the mall and now the buses
have quit running. A good way to do this is to say
when you call the taxi company say, “Hello, my name
is Bryan. I’m the north side of the Dillard’s at the
Chandler Mall and I need a taxi. I’m wearing a bright
red shirt; I have a long white cane and here’s my cell
phone number. Can you let the driver know to give
me a call when arrives, or honk, or to find me,
because I won’t see him pull up, I have a visual
impairment.”
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Notice how in each scenario I gave you I didn’t say I
was blind. I didn’t say I couldn’t see anything. I did
this purposely because it leaves you less vulnerable if
you don’t mention that you’re totally blind. It’s a good
idea to let them know you can’t see, but if you leave it
open it leaves you less vulnerable, because people
don’t know what you can see, so that’s a good
approach. And when you give a functional needs
statement it’s important to give specific details, but
you don’t need to give them a whole life’s story.
Those are good things to keep in mind.
And with family and friends, they know you, it’
probably easiest to just let them know what you need,
when you need it. Be humble, you don’t want to
make them not want to go somewhere with you, but
just let them know. If you could, go to the next slide,
please.
In this slide we’re talking about Where You Live Can
Make a Difference. Making a difference where you
live is interesting if you have a way to plan where
you’re going to live. For example, I just moved out of
a house and I’m in a apartment currently, while we’re
waiting for our new house to be built. And we moved
into this apartment and I said, “You know, let me do
some research, because I think I can get a bus route
that will get me to school independently.” Whereas
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before I was having to rely on a ride back and forth
and it was just getting too crazy.
So I did some research. I pulled up some Google
sites and I said, “Okay look, there’s an apartment
complex that runs on this road. And on that road
there’s a bus that will take me directly to the light rail.
Once I’m to the light rail I can catch the intercampus
shuttle.” Well, we found an apartment on that route
and guess what? That’s what I do every day and I
can do it independently.
And yeah, I might be paying a little bit more in rent for
the apartment currently, but you know what? The
benefits of me being able to travel independently to
and from school, to and from different locations,
because I’m on a bus route is much more beneficial to
me than to live somewhere that’s maybe a little
cheaper, but didn’t have a bus route.
So I would encourage you if you’re planning on going
to school, going to work somewhere and you’re
leaving town or maybe you’re just relocating, to do
some research. See if there’s a bus route, see if
there’s stores, shopping centers, maybe a gym. I
know that Penny’s interested in having a gym next to
her and she found a place like that. Find these places
that interest you, that you’re going to use a lot, and try
to find a place next to those places.
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For the next slide I’m going to turn it back over to
Penny. Thank you.
Penny Rosenblum
Great and thank you, Bryan, you gave some great
examples. And Bryan’s right. I like being near a gym.
When my husband and I looked for our current house,
I said to the realtor, “I need to be within four tenths of
a mile of a bus stop on one of these four routes,
because that’s as far in 110˚ weather as I’m willing to
carry a bag full of books in a dress to go to the
University and teach.” So we all have our different
criteria for what’s important to us.
As I mentioned in my introduction to the curriculum,
Finding Wheels, the meat of the curriculum, many
people say, is the five units that focus on the different
types of transportation that make up Section 3.
Unit 3, we call Personal Wheels, which focuses on
walking and biking. Unit 4 is Public Wheels, buses,
taxis and subways. Unit 5 is Specialized Wheels like
paratransit. And paratransit is the little vans in most
communities that have buses and trains that go on
the same route as those buses and trains and are
available to people with disabilities and people who
are elderly. Also charity services come under
specialized wheels and volunteer services. Your
church, or your mosque or your temple may provide
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rides to people who can’t get to services, so we would
consider that a volunteer service.
Hired Wheels is Unit 6, taxis and hiring drivers
yourself. We’re not talking about asking a family
member or a friend for a ride here, but rather we’re
talking about actually advertising for and hiring a
driver—exchanging money for transportation with
some set rules. And then driving with bioptic
telescope systems, which if you have low vision and
you qualify, in about 42 states you can get licensed to
drive with bioptics. I’m going to turn it back over to
Bryan, who’s going to share a little bit with you about
personal wheels.
And there’s a beautiful picture on the screen, before I
turn this back Bryan, I just want to describe for you.
This is a mom, who I met through a research study I
did. And it shows her with her dog guide in her left
hand, an infant strapped to her chest in an infant
carrier. And with her right hand she is pulling a
wagon with two children, her own child and I believe it
was a niece or a nephew and they’re on a
playground. And she shared with me when I spoke
with her about how important it was to her that she
had places that she could take her children to and be
independent.
So Bryan, back to you for Personal Wheels.
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Bryan Duarte
Thank you. For Personal Wheels, I’m going to give
you a couple of advantages, disadvantages and some
skills that are going to be useful for you. By personal
wheels, I’m referring to walking or biking or any kind
of method like that. Some advantages of this are it’s
free. Another good advantage of this is you are
independent; you’re not on anybody else’s schedule.
And a third advantage to this is that you can get
exercise. It is a huge health benefit to walk and in a
way you get out into society, you get to interact with
people.
Some disadvantages of this are it takes a long time.
You can’t travel as far if you’re just walking or biking—
you might be maxed out at a mile or something like
that. And the third one is that you really are kind of
vulnerable out there. You’re by yourself. You could
get lost and that’s never comforting.
Some good skills to have when you’re doing personal
travel are to let somebody know when and where
you’re going. You know, plan your trip ahead of time
and make sure that you have some supplies with you,
maybe a cell phone or a GPS. It could be some extra
cab money. It could be an umbrella if you’re planning
on it raining. It could be a jacket or anything like that.
But make sure you have some things with you that
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are some useful supplies. Could I get to the next
slide, please?
For Public Wheels, I’m referring to something like a
public bus, a subway, a light rail or maybe even
paratransit methods like, for us I think it’s called DialA-Ride. I think it might be called Sun Van in other
places or whatever. But these are your public bus
systems; these are your public systems that anybody
can take. And it is important to have some good
ideas of how to use them.
So some advantages are you can travel farther. You
can interact with society. There are people you can
ask directions—I love to do that. And it’s relatively
cheap. Compared to gas prices right now, we’re
getting the better end of the deal. Some
disadvantages of this are, you are on somebody
else’s schedule; you have to rely on the bus. Is it
going to be on time? You have to rely on the subway
or the light rail. Is it going to be on time?
And another thing is, is that you really are vulnerable
when you’re out in public. You’re on a public bus,
people can see that you have either a cane or a guide
dog and they know that you’re blind. For a female I
can imagine it could be pretty vulnerable.
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But there are ways around this. And some tips I can
give you are: 1) Talk to the bus driver. Let him know
that you’re blind. 2) Sit up front. 3) Another thing is to
make sure you have your supplies with you still. 4)
Let somebody know when you’re leaving. Let them
know the route you’re planning on taking and when
you plan on being home. Let that be your back door,
if you will.
5) It’s a good idea to learn some self defense if you
can and also maybe carry pepper spray—that’s a
good way to do it. 6) And the biggest thing you can
do is make sure to plan your trip ahead of time. I
can’t emphasize enough how important it is to plan
your trip. Do your research. Call the location. These
are all good ideas when you’re public traveling. Next
slide, please.
Penny Rosenblum
Dawn, before we start talking about Specialized
Wheels, let’s just go ahead and take maybe two
questions, Dawn, so I’ll let you run that for us.
Dawn Turco
Okay folks, we’re going to open up the microphone
now and I saw a hand go up already, so let me hand it
over. We’re about half way through our time, but I
would like to see if anybody’s got a question.
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Alissa
Hi, it’s Alissa from Niagara Falls, Canada. We cannot
take specialized transit here if you’re blind in Canada.
You have to have another reason to take it besides
being blind, unfortunately here in the Province of
Ontario.
Penny Rosenblum
Thanks for sharing that and that’s a great point. I was
going to get ready to talk about specialized wheels
here in just a second. And I was going to say being
visually impaired in most communities is not a criteria.
You have to have difficulty getting to or from the bus
stop in most communities to qualify; visual impairment
alone is not enough. Dawn I’ll turn it back to you to
take one more question if we have one.
Dawn Turco
I was reading a message in the text box. Deanna
was saying that she traveled with a baby in a carrier.
She was talking about using a bike cart of some sort
to help with the groceries and what have you. I was
looking back at the bike cart question and it was also
good for the kids when they got tired of walking. And
I too, used some baskets actually on my bike and I
tried to have one on each side of the back wheel
trying to go grocery shopping. And it was always an
interesting experience trying to balance out my
groceries for the trip home.
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Penny Rosenblum
Well, we have a lot more to cover, Dawn, so I think
we’re going to go ahead and move on to specialized
wheels and let people think about their questions and
we’ll take questions again here in a little bit.
As we heard from our friend Hildie in Canada,
specialized wheels, these are vans—again different
names in different communities, but it’s basically door
to door service. It comes to one place and drops you
off at the other place, which can be a real advantage.
Disadvantages of this method of travel are that you
typically have to schedule way in advance, anywhere
from 24 hours to a week, depending on the
community.
It is a shared ride service, so you’re going to have
different people getting on and off. So you may only
be going five miles, but it make take 45 minutes. And
most services will only take you to the door, so you
have to be able to get into where you’re going and
navigate the rest of the way. As we already pointed
out, you may or may not qualify just based on a visual
impairment.
And you have to really allocate sufficient time when
using this method of travel. Most companies will give
you what they call a ‘pick up window’ or a ‘time
window’ where they’ll say “We’ll pick up anywhere
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between 8:45 and 9:15,” and then again, if your
appointment’s not until 10:15, they may drop you off
at 9:20 or they may drop you off at 10:05, so you have
to allocate for time. Next slide, please, Dawn.
We are going to be talking about Hired Wheels. This
might be taking a taxi; it might be hiring a driver to
take you from Point A to Point B. People often say
“Oh my gosh! This is so expensive. I never could
afford to do this.”
And I encourage you to sit down with a couple of
people who are drivers and to ask them how much
their car payment is a month, how much their
insurance is a month, how much their gas is a month,
how much their maintenance is a month, how much
their registration or property taxes are a month, and
you’ll find out for most drivers it’s $800 – $1,000 U.S.
a month. So if you think about that, taking cabs
sometimes are not as expensive as you think if you’re
buying a bus pass and taking a cab and those are
your only expenses in the month.
Advantages of a hired driver, whether it’s a cab or a
person you hired is you get to go just like you would in
a car. You leave at the same time; you get to the
same place. You can build a schedule the way it
works for you.
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Disadvantages can be the expense. When you’re
hiring a cab, especially if you have just called into
dispatch, you have no idea who’s going to come and
you’re the only person in that cab with that person,
you could feel uncomfortable. You’re depending on
somebody else’s driving skills. Unlike a bus or a train
driver who has to get a specialized license, you’re
going with anybody who has any license. It’s
challenging to find a qualified driver and if we go to
the next slide, I have a little bit about that, so next
slide, Dawn.
So when you’re looking to hire a driver, there’s a lot to
be thinking about. One of the things to think about is
how you’re going to advertise. I personally don’t
recommend advertising in the paper or on Craigslist.
I tend to go with people I know, saying “Hey, do you
know anybody who might be interested?”
You need to interview the person. Find out if you’re
comfortable with them, what their skills are, what their
schedule is. You need to negotiate ahead of time
how much you’re going to pay the driver. Are you
going to pay them for waiting time or are you only
going to pay them for time that they’re driving?
You need to think about who’s going to pay for gas.
Whose car do you use? If you own a car or your
family owns a car, are you going to use your family’s
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car or are you going to expect the driver to use their
car? Who’s going to have responsibility for planning
the route if you have four or five places to go? Whose
job is it to figure out what’s the most efficient way for
me to get my things done?
Think about what does the driver do when you get to
a destination. I hire drivers periodically to help me get
to schools where I’m supervising student teachers.
For a long time I had a wonderful driver, a retired
lady, who loved taking me to the very rural schools in
our state. She’d bring her bicycle and she’d go for an
hour or two or three hour bike ride, depending on how
long I was going to be in the school.
Think about who pays for meals if you’re going to
have a driver for a long period of time. And then the
really challenging part—how do you fire a driver when
it’s not working? So these are just some of the things
that you need to think about.
Dawn we’re going to go ahead and keep going and
we’ll just take some questions at the end. So I’m
going to go to the next slide.
When we think about being an independent nondriver,
that’s the focus of the fourth section of Finding
Wheels—so funding your wheels, using wheels
efficiently, how do you gather your resources? As
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Bryan said, he looked for an apartment that was going
to be on his bus route. Thinking about how you’re
going to cope with nondriving. What do you do when
your driver doesn’t show up, your bus is late.
Interpersonal relationships; you don’t want to be a
burden to people. How do you ask and not over ask?
And public behaviors, what’s appropriate to do on a
bus? What’s not appropriate to do? Don’t tell
somebody your life’s story. So let’s turn it back to
Bryan, who’s going to talk to us about planning your
trip.
Bryan Duarte
Thank you, Penny. For the next slide it’s going to be
talking about Planning Your Trip. And if I haven’t said
it before, this is probably one of the most important
things you can do no matter what kind of travel
method you’re taking—if you’re taking a bus, a light
rail, if you’re taking a paratransit, if you’re taking a
taxicab. These are all important for different reasons.
You need to know where you’re going. You have to
be able to plan your trip. To do this is very simple,
use the resources you have. You have a phone, you
might have a computer, do a web search, find out the
address, find out the location. For example what I do
when I’m planning a trip to a new place, I will call the
Valley Metro, which is the bus system here and I will
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do a search on where to go. Where does the bus pick
up? Where does the bus drop off? What times will
the buses be there? How often does the bus run?
Things like that.
Once I have that information I will turn around and I
will call the actual physical building of where I plan to
go, if it’s a store, a restaurant, it could be a school or
whatever. I will call them and I will ask them very
specific questions. I will say “What corner are you
on? How far from the corner are you? How far in
from the street are you? Are there buildings next to
you that I might run into? Is there anything that I need
to be aware of?
And by doing this you decrease the chances that you
might get lost. You decrease the chance that you
won’t find the destination and you greatly increase the
success of your independent travel. It’s very simple
to do and I encourage that everybody does it.
The other thing I want to say is possibly have a cell
phone or some kind of GPS system with you. I don’t
use it necessarily while I’m traveling or walking,
because I do have to listen to it, but I do like to have
one that will allow me to find out where I am. That’s a
good thing for you to have because sometimes when
you’re out traveling you might lose track of where
exactly you are if you’re not along a main road.
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The other thing is to make sure you have your
supplies. I’ve said this a couple of times already, but
it’s very important. I strongly encourage you that if
you’re leaving your house anytime going traveling to
take a backpack. In your backpack have a charger
for your cell phone. Make sure you have a cell
phone. Take a spare cane if you have one. Take a
jacket if you might need it. And umbrella’s a good
thing to take.
In my backpack I take Dixon’s water bowl. I take a
bottle of water or two. I take some snacks that I might
need. I have my phone charger. I have different
things like that, different tools that might come in
handy—a spare cane. And also have taxicab money
on you, have a couple spare dollars in case you go
somewhere and you run out of time, the buses quit
running, maybe you end up lost somewhere, you can
call a taxi and use your GPS to find out where you are
and then have the taxi come there.
And another thing about planning is to let somebody
know. Let somebody know where you’re going, when
you plan on leaving, maybe even call them before you
leave. And also have a backup plan. If you get
somewhere and you find out you were supposed to
be there for two hours and now you know you’re
going to leave in 30 minutes, have a backup plan.
Maybe you don’t want to go home, but make sure you
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have somebody that can pick you up or have money
for a taxi.
For the next slide, I’m going to turn it back over to
Penny. Thank you.
Penny Rosenblum
Great. And before I talk about low vision nondrivers,
Dawn, I’m going to just change it up a little bit here. I
saw two comments or questions in the chat window
and I will address those and I think I’m going to go
ahead and let people ask some questions, just to give
you a heads up.
Holly asks can having issues with locating a bus stop
justify use of specialized wheels like paratransit. And
Holly, yes, in many communities it can. I can speak
to Tucson, Arizona. If somebody applies for
paratransit services in our community they have to go
through an evaluation process. If they’re visually
impaired it’s actually done by a Certified Orientation
and Mobility Specialist. And if the person does not
have the skills, has difficulty getting to a bus stop,
then that would qualify them.
And Hildie makes a comment about next stop
announcements on buses. Many buses now are
coming with GPSs already on them and so the GPS
will call out the stops. This is a great service,
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however be careful. Sometimes they can be about a
quarter of a mile off. They’re getting better, so you
might want to kind of check in with the driver and still
let the driver know what stop you want to get off at.
A trick I always use, I will Map Quest to see how long
it’s going to take a regular driver to drive from Point A
where I’m getting picked up to Point B where I want to
get dropped off. And let’s say Map Quest tells me in
a car that’s going to be 20 minutes. At about 15
minutes when I’m on the bus, I will say to the driver,
“Are we getting close to the intersection of such and
such and such and such?” That way I kind of remind
the driver I’m there. So that’s a trick that works for
me.
And I’ve got a question here from Teresa about how
do you check the background of a potential driver.
Teresa, the same way I check to see who I’m going to
have do my roof and which company I’m going to go
with is the strategy I use. So I ask for references. As
an individual person I don’t believe I could run a
background check on somebody, but I do ask for
references and I do call the reference person and find
out what that person is like.
And I think having in your phone, they call it ICE,
many of our phones have ICE, In Case of Emergency
numbers. Put that ICE person in there. And I really
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like that Teresa keeps a few dollars tucked away in
her wallet. I do the same thing. I do not leave home
without $40. Personally in my community $40 will get
me anywhere I need to go in a taxicab.
So great comments here and questions. I’m going to
let Dawn see if we have any other questions and then
I’m going to talk about Low Vision Driving. And we’ll
take some questions again at the end.
Dawn Turco
Great catching us up, Penny and I too, have that $50
dollar bill tucked away in the wallet. And the only
thing I’m going to add is for those folks who are
regularly using public transportation; an O&M friend of
mine recommends what she calls a taxi or bus wallet.
This way you’re not flashing your entire wallet and
everything that’s in it around in the public. You keep
your money or your pass for whatever transit system
you’re using. You keep it a little bit separate from the
rest of what you have and that’s her tip.
I’m opening up the mic and if I don’t see a hand, I’m
going to say let’s get rolling again.
Margaret
Yes, hi. This is a wonderful presentation. I live in an
area where frequently the actual address of a
destination has nothing to do with where the taxi or
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driver or whatever would let you off. Sometimes it
can even be on the other side of a block, I mean on a
parallel block. And I was wondering aside from trying
to learning any other landmarks… I was wondering if
this is something you’ve all discussed in some of the
curricula. Thank you.
Penny Rosenblum
No, I really haven’t done that Margaret. I think that it’s
important, and Bryan alluded to this, that you call the
business ahead of time and ask specific questions.
And in 30 seconds I’m going to try and tell a story.
Years ago I was going to the podiatrist and I called
and said “Please tell me about your building and how
far are you from the intersection, and what color are
you, and do you have a sign?
I asked all these questions having explained that I
have a visual impairment and then I showed up on my
bicycle and she looked at me and she said, “I thought
you couldn’t see and you’re riding a bicycle.” So I
think the more explicit information you have that you
can communicate to the bus driver, the taxi driver or
whoever it is, is important. Different communities
have pretty bizarre numbering systems.
And you know, you could also think, too about
whether you can ask somebody from that business to
come out and meet you potentially. “Can I call you on
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my cell phone when I’m arriving? Would you meet
me?”
Okay, let’s see if we have one more question.
Dawn Turco
I’m looking at the clock. No hands up. Let’s go.
Penny Rosenblum
Okay, some of you may have some usable vision, so I
briefly wanted to talk about optical aids to be used
during travel. So I have a picture of a young woman
with albinism using a monocular. This is a young
woman who lives in a very rural community. And her
O&M instructor brought she and several other young
people into the city of Phoenix to give them an
opportunity to do some bus travel. Next slide, please.
When you are thinking about optical aids, you want to
think about having your device readily available. As
Dawn was talking about your having a bus wallet, the
same type of thing, have your monocular or your
magnifier, whatever tools you use, and this could go
for other tools as well, your GPS, you cell phone,
have those where you’re not routing around in your
bag looking for stuff. That makes you vulnerable.
Think about how you’re going to use your tools during
travel. Are you going to need to review a bus
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schedule and so you’re going to need a magnifier.
Are you going to need directions when you’re doing
things during travel? So again, where are those
directions; where is that tool? Thinking about a
destination, are you going to be shopping. I have a
picture of a young woman using a little Optelec mini
magnifying device, a little portable CCTV, video
magnifier. She’s buying a card for her dad in a store.
Thinking about restaurants, ordering, thinking about
looking at museum displays and other things. So
what tools do you need? I have picture of an
elementary aged child at our gem and mineral show
with her magnifier looking at different rocks. She
loves the rocks. Next slide, please.
So when we’re thinking about what magnification is
best for you, I very much encourage you to get a
clinical low vision evaluation by an ophthalmologist or
optometrist specializing in low vision. Keep in mind
that the stronger the degree of magnification the
smaller the field that you’re going to see.
And the picture shows a young woman using a
monocular to read a menu that’s up on the wall in a
restaurant. Also keep in mind that monoculars,
telescopes are meant for stationary tasks, such as the
one in picture, where she’s looking at a menu. These
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tools do not work well when you’re moving, so that’s
another consideration. Next slide, please.
As I mentioned earlier about 40 states allow you to
drive with bioptic telescopic systems or BTSs. You
have to have a good central acuity and you also have
to have a pretty intact field of vision to be able to use
this tool. And in the picture—there are three pictures
at the bottom of the screen and they’re used to
illustrate that a bioptic telescope system only lets you
see a small amount of what’s out there.
So there’s a green road sign, telling what road goes to
the left and what road goes to the right. And I just
have a black circle on two of those signs showing you
with different types of bioptics, a 5-degree bioptic and
a 12-degree bioptic, how much of the sign you can
see and it’s not very much.
So the person who’s using one of these bioptic
telescope systems, which are basically little
telescopes mounted in prescription glasses, most of
the time the person is going to be using the glasses,
the regular glasses that they would use. And then
they’re going to look up or down, depending on where
the bioptic is placed to be able to see through the
telescope, primarily for spotting—so to look at signs,
to look at ongoing traffic to see how many lanes there
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are. But you’re not going to be driving with the
bioptic.
In most states you have to go through a process
where you get specialized training. You take a road
test that’s more involved than your typical road test for
the Department of Motor Vehicles. And in many
states there are different types of licenses, so you
may be able to get a driver’s license, but you’re
restricted to no interstate driving. Or you may have a
daytime only use license, so it’s going to vary. Next
slide, please, Dawn.
So when you’re thinking about how can I maximize
what vision I have during travel, whether we’re talking
about getting a magnifier for near, a monocular to do
some distance viewing, potentially getting the
bioptics, you need to think about working with your
eye care specialist to figure out what’s going to work
best for you. You cannot, and my husband does not
understand this, you cannot go to Sportsman’s
Warehouse and say “Look, Darlin’, there’s a whole
row of those monocular things. You could just by one
here for half price.”
You need as a person with low vision to get a
specialized one. If you are thinking about potentially
being a bioptic driver, long before you get to the point
where you’re actually driving the car, there’s a lot of
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skills to learn, including focusing, and spotting, and
scanning, and tracking using that bioptic telescope.
One suggestion that I’ve read about is for you actually
to sit behind the driver in the car, so you’re kind of in
line with what the driver is seeing and practice your
skills from that position.
Think about using your optical aids in many different
environments so that you get practice with them. I
take my monocular if I go to play or a concert. And
then also think about seeking out others who use
these tools. You can get a lot of good ideas from
talking to other people about how they use them, what
works for them, where do they store them. And then
always make sure you have your optical aids
available.
When I travel I have a purse that’s like a backpack
and it has three pockets on the outside. And put my
little Optelec mini portable video magnifier in one of
them. I put my monocular in another one of them and
I put my cell phone in another one. And I really like
Dawn’s idea of a little travel wallet. I usually put my
travel money in my pocket, but I think I’m going to be
adopting the travel money idea. Okay, next slide,
please.
And I just wanted to mention the curriculum
Reclaiming Independence. This is a 42 minute video
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that I developed with the American Printing House for
the Blind. For those of you who are in the
professional field this available on Federal Quota, so
if your school or agency is getting Federal Quota
funding you may get this video. The video also
comes with a Resource Guide. And in the video we
introduce six nondrivers and I have pictures of three
of them here on the screen.
Josephine, I alluded to her at the beginning. She is
the woman who lives on an island in rural Maine.
Gets a ride to the ferry terminal, takes the ferry across
to the mainland and has learned which communities
have buses and vans that meet the ferry on different
days and really has planned her life that way. I have
to tell you Josephine is now 86 and sends me a
Christmas card every year. She’s just a delight.
Wilbur is pictured coming off of a city bus. He’s living
outside of Washington, D.C. He rides the Metro. He
uses the bus. He takes taxis to get to many places.
And he shares in vignette in the video about getting
rides from a lot of people and that periodically he’ll
invite people over to the house for a meal.
And I think it’s real important regardless of who’s
helping you with transportation that you think about
how you can reciprocate. And we really didn’t touch
on that today, but that’s an important piece. A lot of
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people won’t take gas money from you, but treat them
to a meal. Buy them tickets to a baseball game.
What can you do to let that person know that you
appreciate the travel?
The bottom left picture shows Johnny out with his
cane and actually walking his dog. And Johnny walks
six to ten miles a day. Now this is not a dog guide,
this is just a family dog. But he talks about when he
first started losing his vision and how depressed he
was. And he told his wife, “Might as well be dead.”
And now how after he got Orientation & Mobility
Training he wants to go everywhere, and he really
does. He rides the light rail, he takes the bus, he
takes taxis, he walks a lot.
And I think that’s the big message of Reclaiming
Independence. Giving up your driver’s license is very
traumatic, if you’ve been driving for 10, 20, 30, 40, or
50 years. And you can curl up into a ball and life can
be over or you can go out and get the skills that you
need to travel in a different way, but to still be
independent.
The next slide provides my contact information and
Bryan’s contact information. Dawn if you’ll bring that
up. And I will just read this out briefly. It will also
again be in the handout that will get posted.
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I’m Penny Rosenblum. I’m at the University of
Arizona. My email address is
[email protected]. And my number is
(520) 621-1223.
Bryan Duarte. His email address is
[email protected]. (480) 652-3045.
And we have about five minutes left for questions, so
Dawn I’ll be turning it back to you. And folks if you
have a question specifically for Bryan, he also is very
happy to answer questions, so let us know who the
question is for. Thank you.
Dawn Turco
Teresa is asking what you do when you live in a town
with almost no sidewalks.
Penny Rosenblum
Teresa, that’s a tough one. I would say that you need
to definitely have a cane. If there is shoulder, I would
think about walking on the shoulder for sure, if at all
possible. Always walk towards traffic, so you’re more
visible to the traffic. Think about wearing light colored
clothing. And if all that truly is not an option and
walking is just not in the options for you, then think
about using some of these other methods of travel.
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We have time for just another question or two and
then I need to close this up.
Dawn Turco
Goodness gracious, the hour is up and I want to take
this opportunity to thank both Bryan and Penny for an
absolutely fabulous presentation today. I’m going to
turn the microphone back to each of you to say your
adieus. And if you had any last thought that you
wanted to get into the recording, this is the
opportunity, then I’ll formally close the seminar.
Penny Rosenblum
Okay, Bryan I’ll let you share your thoughts and then I
can go ahead and close up for us, so go ahead
Bryan.
Bryan Duarte
Thank you all. Thank you for listening. I hope the
information I provided to you and the tips and howto’s that I gave you were useful. And I look forward to
hearing from you guys. Feel free to email me or give
me a call if you have questions. Thank you and you
Hadley and Dawn.
Penny Rosenblum
Excellent, thanks Bryan. The same for me, I would be
happy to email or speak with any of you. I think it’s
important, we all have different experiences. I’ve
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been reading here about Teresa and Zoey talking
about the challenges of having people that are
running you off the road.
We all live in different communities, but I think the
message that I’d like to leave with all of you is there
are options in your community and being a little
creative. You know, it might be babysitting for
somebody’s kids after school if that person has to
work late in exchange for them giving you a ride to the
grocery store on Saturday. There’s a lot of creative
ways that you can work transportation in. Don’t be
afraid to ask. The worst somebody’s going to say is
no. And don’t for get to find ways to say thank you
and reciprocate.
Dawn thank you very much for inviting Bryan and I to
be a part of another seminar at Hadley. It’s a great
service and I enjoyed being here. Thank you.
Dawn Turco
Well, you two made a great duo and I know I
thoroughly enjoyed listening. I was relating to a good
deal of it as was I relating to those who had
comments. And I hope everybody picked up
something today.
If you’d like to listen to this seminar again or
recommend it to a friend, the recorded version of this
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seminar, along with the resource list that Penny
mentioned, and the slide presentation, they’ll all be
posted in the Past Seminars room on Hadley’s
website. So you go to www.hadley.edu and follow the
Seminars@Hadley link; go to Past Seminars and we’ll
get it there probably in a day or two. We just do a
little clean up of the recording and then post it. It is
there for your enjoyment 24-7. And lots of folks are
finding our Past Seminars room, so consider that.
You’ve got contact information for both Penny and
Bryan. If you have comments that you’d like to get to
Hadley, we have a specific email for that. It’s
[email protected].
The resources that Penny mentioned and has
authored, they’re wonderful. We highly recommend
them. We also have a course at Hadley called Going
Places. So we have drawn from Penny’s materials
and have a Certified O&M Instructor teaching that
course. So if you’d kind of like some back and forth
with an instructor you can go take a look at Going
Places. And a second course of interest I posted in
the text room, Personal Safety, is another good
companion to this topic.
Wonderful presentation. I thank you again. I will
formally close today’s seminar. And I look forward to
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seeing you in the future seminars at Hadley. Thank
you, everyone.
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