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• Any potential for my 14 y/o to drive?
• Posted: 2008-03-27 18:58:38 By Piper P
• Hi All,
  My son Nathan was born with RP and finally diagnosed at the age of 6, I have never held anything back from him about his disease, he functions very well, and has learned white cane, and braille, however one of the most "important" milestones in a teenagers life is about to hit and I want my son to be able to drive, Im not ignorant to the fact there would be restrictions, however does anyone have any suggestions on where I can go or whom to ask about accommadations that can be made in order to allow him to drive? Or am I just fooling myself altogether?
  Piper

• Re: Any potential for my 14 y/o to drive?
• Posted: 2008-03-28 10:17:13 By Darran Z
• Piper,
  
  You are likely fooling yourself altogether. Let me ask this: You stated he has white cane training. Does he use this regularly? If so, how would that look getting out of a car and someone pulls out a white cane?
  
  He may have excellent VAs but the issue is the VF. Many states require a significant range of visual field (VF). The lowest I've seen is 70 degrees required at a minimum. The best source to know what the visual parameters are is to check the DMV/DL division of your State and read up on it. Some have provisions for RP and restrictions to daylight driving only.
  
  But as far as optics and stuff to help, they don't help RP as the problem is visual field, not visual acuity. The optics created today are often geared towards macular degeneration/stagardt's disease.
  
  One final note, is there are some posts I have posted in the past regarding blind drivers. There is an increased incident in accidents. one of the stories I posted was a man who knowlying he was blind by RP, and was recieving disability, continutied to drive and killed a pedestrian because the pedestrian was not in his visual field. Then there is the liability on top of this.
  
  I am not trying to scare you but trying to put things into proper perspective to the seriousness of driving if one is not able to do so safely. Too often, we assume we can drive safely when in fact we do not.
  
  Darran

• Re: Any potential for my 14 y/o to drive?
• Posted: 2008-03-29 10:41:41 By Kim V
• I think that Darren is absolutely correct on this. If your state will allow it fine. Also remember that if he starts to drive it is very difficult to stop, I am one of those and it has been difficult to give it up after all these years. I certainly stopped when I needed to but it was not easy to do. I think if your son is using a cane already there is no chance for him to drive. The thing that often fools us as RP people is that the progression is usually slow so you adapt to the visual loss and really don't feel like you have lost any vision until something happens. That was where I was at, I had a scare that put reality in focus and I gave up my license the next week (didn't drive in that week either). Best wishes to you and your son, but this may be a milestone he will have to pass up. Kim

• Re: Re: Any potential for my 14 y/o to drive?
• Posted: 2008-03-29 19:54:36 By Piper P
• Thanks for the replies, just to state exactly where he is at, he has had white cane training in order to be prepared, however he is not using the cane. However, his visual acuity is less than 10%, and has been declared legally blind by the state of VA, which is where we live, guess I was holding out a little bit of hope because I had someone tell me that there were provisions that could possibly allow him to drive. Please do not think that Im out looking for the miracle, I just wondered if there was optics or devices that I might not be aware of....and I certainly do not want to put anyone or my son in danger. Respectfully - Piper