Vroom! Vroom! Am I too daring for you.

Free mobility is something that many people take for granted. At any time they can stand up and walk to any room of the house, they can decide to take a stroll around the neighbourhood or take a ride to the grocery store. What more with the widespread increase in the use of personal vehicles, they can at any time drive to the nearest shopping mall and pick up a thing or two. It never crosses their minds that there is someone out there that does not have such free mobility.

Born with cerebral palsy, I legged behind other children my age when it came to gaining the ability to do things on my own – even today there are things that I am not perfect at or that I cannot do on my own at all.

One of the things that took me some time to master was the ability to walk on my own. I finally gained my full ability to walk on my own at the age of twelve. Before then I got around using a number of devices: first, it was a wheelchair; I then moved on to a tricycle; then a bicycle with side wheels; and, finally, a walking frame. From using a walking frame, I started to walk on my own. However, this was just the beginning step in my journey towards the enjoyment of free mobility.

When I started work in 2006 I used to commute to work everyday. I would also walk from the bus station to workplace, which are at opposite sides of town. After a while, I approached my bosses and requested for their assistance in acquiring a car. “I want to buy a car,” I said. “I also want it modified so that I can be able to drive it,” I explained.

The company’s assistance to my cause was far much more than I expected. It offered to help me acquire the car and have it modified. Above all, it also took up the bill. So, in May last year, I bought my car and had it shipped into the country. However, I had to travel all the way to South Africa in order to have it modified to my needs.

The modifications on my car
To say that my car had modifications done on it to suit my needs is somewhat not true in the strictest sense of the meaning of the word. The truth is that I had some assistive devices added to my car. The assistive devices that were added to my car were a pair of hand controls and a spinner knob. Hand controls enable me to accelerate or brake using a hand-controlled lever (to accelerate I push the lever downwards and to brake I push the lever forward). The spinner knob enables me to turn the steering wheel with a full turning radius using only one hand.

A big question mark
Before adding the hand controls and spinner knob to my car, one of the specialists at the company that was going to work at fitting these devices to my car asked me this question: Are you sure that you will be able to drive?

Reality hit me right there. In fact, I nearly lost my confidence at what I was trying to accomplish and was about to call it quits. I mean this question came from the person I least expected to ask me such a question and at a time I least expected it. We had been communicating about having these devices added to my car so that I would be able to drive for over two months; made payment for it; traveled for more than 1700 miles; and was about to have it done when the question came: Are you sure that you will be able to drive?

I looked at him and gave him my most honest response. “I don’t know,” I said. “But I am ready to give it my best shot.”

He explained to me that ‘trying’ was not going to be good enough. I would have to learn to drive the car and be able to share the road with other road users. I would have to practice so much that my presence on the road would not endanger my life as well as that of other road users. As a bonus, he gave me no reassurance whatsoever that at the end of the day I would be able to drive on my own, but he said, “You must understand that we do not know if you will be able to drive but since you’ve already paid for everything we’ll do the job.” So they did and we did another 1700 miles back home.

Eight months passed
Back home things did not take off as planned.

[To be continued]