master drive

We went to a driving school called "Master Drive." It made for an interesting and informative day. Basically spent all morning there. The idea was to get us behind the wheel to feel what it was like to drive. A majority of us had never driven and some of us, like me, used to drive until we lost enough vision. It was a lot of fun! We had an instructor with us that gave us directions and we would steer and hit the gas and brakes to drive around a course with cones. I hit plenty of cones and find it very unnerving to drive without seeing where I was going. I had to trust my instructor. TRUST is a key word I am noticing. For someone that has driven before I didn't do as well as I would have liked...but it was just for fun after all. After the cone course we did skids. They would have us start driving really fast and let go of the gas so they could set us in a skid. Our job was to recover from the skid. Surprisingly enough they were saying that we blind people tend to do better than their sighted students, b/c we have to feel the car. I did very well coming out of the skid. I could actually feel the centripetal forces on the car and the shift in weight. By feeling it I was able to anticipate what I needed to do and correct. I absolutely loved how I could feel it all. SO different than using sight. But it had so much information in it. Actually felt like I was one with the car. I thoroughly enjoyed it!

We had some news stations show up to cover us. I actually almost knocked over one of the cameras and the camera man was like "uhhh go left." "Oops I hope I didn't knock someone over!" "Uhhh no just almost got the camera." I kinda got a kick out of that. I also got lost a few times trying to follow the group and not hearing well enough to figure out where everyone was exactly. Good thing some sighted people were around because they usually went to fetch me and bring me back to everyone else.

As said and done I enjoyed the experience but I also struggled emotionally. One of the hardest things I've had to deal with about my blindness is losing the rights to drive. I miss the freedom. I miss being behind the wheel. It is so hard for me to lose that. I was very quite and nostalgic while some of the other students were driving. It was like a reminder of what I can no longer do and it is hard to handle.