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Driving Assessment
My name is Sandra Hutchings, Director of the Wales Mobility & Driving Service.
I was born with an hereditary disease, Charcot Marie Tooth, that although in early years did not prevent me being able to participate in normal activities, I found that in my late teens and twenties my mobility was gradually affected by loss of balance and various aches and pains.
When I was seventeen like the majority of that age I wanted to learn to drive and underwent a course of driving lessons, but it was not to be. I experienced problems using the foot pedals, and I experienced a great deal of pain in my thighs, I was concentrating more on the pain than the driving technique, so I gave up.
As my mobility deteriorated I found walking and using public transport more and more difficult, I was now coming up to my 30th birthday, married with two children, my life depended on family and friends driving me and my children to play school, shopping, dentists and hospital appointments etc. By chance I met someone who told me about a lady called Nell Edwards who had been a Invalid Trike driver and who when Mobility Allowance was introduced in the 1970’s had organised driving assessments on a monthly basis in the Road Safety Centre in Cardiff.
I had an assessment and I was advised I required an automatic car fitted with hand controls for the brake & accelerator. At that time driving schools with adapted vehicles were far and few between and practically non-existent in Wales, therefore I had to persuade my husband to change our car from a manual to an automatic and pay for it to be adapted with hand controls, without really knowing whether or not I was ever going to be able to actually drive.
It took a further two years before we were in a financial position to be able to do this and then I had to find a driving instructor who was willing to give me tuition in my own car. Luckily I was successful and within six months I passed my driving test at the first attempt.
A whole new world was opened to me; I no longer had to rely on others for my mobility.
That was over twenty years ago, and by then Nell Edwards had secured a small amount of funding from the then Welsh Office, to set up an assessment service. Nell asked me to help out a few hours a week typing the assessment reports on a voluntary basis and as I was only to pleased to be able to give something back to a service that had given me so much, I took up the offer without any hesitation.
On passing my driving test I was issued with a restricted driving licence for one year and shortly before the licence expired I received a letter from the DVLA asking me to take a form to my GP for confirmation of my ability to remain driving. This I did, and to my amazement my GP looked at me in horror, her words were “ how do I know whether you are able to drive, medically there is nothing to stop you, but I don’t know anything about adaptations or your ability to use the adaptations?”
I felt the panic rise, I could see my independence slipping away so I calmly explained how I had had a driving assessment and that as I was now independently mobile I was working at the centre and explained how the service operated.
It was at that moment that I vowed to spend the rest of my career helping others in my situation and here I am twenty years on co-ordinating the service for all Wales.
There are two mobility centres in Wales, one in South Wales and one in North Wales. We plan to operate a satellite service in Mid Wales beginning in June 2005. Our service offers both driver and passenger assessments that aim to provide the client with a long-term mobility solution.
Driving assessment is not a driving test. The aim of assessment is to evaluate the physical and cognitive ability of the individual to drive in safety and comfort. The assessment consists of an initial interview to ascertain medical condition, likely prognosis, range of joint movement and muscle strength, joint position sense and co-ordination and non clinical factors including previous driving experience and family needs. The client is then tested on a static assessment rig for steering strength, brake pressure, reaction and decision times. For clients who have neurological and cognitive disorders a battery of tests are used.
Clients are then taken for an in-car assessment with a driving assessor in a dual controlled vehicle (using adaptations if required) to a private car park where they are given time to familiarise themselves with the vehicle and are asked to perform a series of manoeuvres.
If this part of the assessment is successful, the client is taken on a standardized road route on public minor and major roads. The client’s driving performance, particularly their responses to specific visual cues and their ability to safely negotiate traffic lights, roundabouts, cross roads and left and right-hand junctions are assessed.
At the end of the assessment the client and their family, friends or carers are given the opportunity to discuss the findings and recommendations of the assessor. Following the assessment a written report is produced and is sent to the client.
Apart from driving assessment, the centre also has a vast information service and can advise clients on all aspects of mobility, we also undertake passenger assessments and give advice on wheelchair storage. Both centres can provide demonstrations of wheelchair hoists, ramps, swivel seats and numerous methods of driving adaptations to keep the client independently mobile.
The Wales Mobility & Driving Assessment Service is a registered Charity. The service operates with a Welsh Assembly Grant and the centres in South & North Wales are accredited to the Forum of Assessment Centres UK of which there are 16 accredited centres throughout the UK.
The Forum of Assessment Centres UK have a national freephone number for general information and contact details of your nearest accredited centre telephone 0800 5593636 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 0800 5593636 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.
Sandra Hutchings
