Driving

[Guest guest]

Since a lot of messages have been posted about driving I thought I

would chip in.

First - I love to drive. My car is a fast roadster, big engine, big

tires and lowered with racing springs and shocks. In the past I

drove in Autox events (big parking lots around a course setup with

cones) and for weekend entertainment we would get a bunch of fast

cars together for some mountain road fun.

Everything has changed with PLS. I know I can not drive aggressively

or even allow myself to not be in 100% control. I have modified the

way I drive to heavily compensate. Big distances between cars and

maintaining a cool head help a lot. I have had handicap plates for a

year now.

In May I was required to have my photo retaken for my california

drivers lic. I went in with my cane, went to the handicap window.

The DMV employee asked me a couple of questions and told me she

would not allow me to renew until I did a complete evaluation. She

did give me a temporary lic since mine would expire in June. As I

was getting ready to leave she hurridly told me that failure to

comply immediatly would result in revocation of privilages.

One week after the DMV I got a call. One hour phone interview about

my health, medications, driving history, how much I drive - the

whole nine yards. (I had one speeding ticket)

One week later I got a package in the mail. Eight pages of

documents, two for me and six for my doctor. On the first page was a

notice in red that failure to comply by Monday would result in ....

OK not too bad today is thursday. I did my pages and took the forms

to Kaiser and dropped them off at the medical secretaries desk. She

noticed the red stamp and said " Those Bast***s "

One week later I got another phone call to report for a re-eval exam.

The eval went well but it was intense. The instructor told me to

pull over in a residential neighborhood. I noticed the fire hydrant

where he wanted me to pull over at. He made me go down so many

residential streets, speed bumps, school zones, U-Turns, Lanes

ending needing to merge into traffic, Got on and off the highway

twice and finally parallel parking. I had never seen such a complete

drivers test. Almost an hour.

Well I passed. Only points taken away were for not using my turn

signal once. In the end they put a restriction for Automatic

transmission and a re-eval every two years.

I hope I can maintain my driving for a few more years but will give

it up as soon as I feel I am not safe.