[nfb-talk] A Vehicle That Would Drive It Self

Mon Oct 29 07:03:46 CDT 2007

Go Peter and David!

It sure would be great to go on our own, where ever we want, when ever
we want.  No more depending on others or Metro Access!  My biggest fear
is how reliable is a computer.  We are always having problems with our
computers at work, so are we putting our lives at stake, by relying on a
computer to control this car?  If anything goes wrong, how wold a blind
person know it?  The sighted would be able to see if the car took a
wrong turn?  
Just a few things to think about.  Let me know your answers.  By the
way, isn't the cars devision supposed to help with something like this?
If so, then David and Peter, they sure need you.

Terry Powers

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Donahue [mailto:pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net] 
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2007 3:10 PM
To: NFB Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [nfb-talk] A Vehicle That Would Drive It Self

Good afternoon everyone,

    I feel I must jump in here as well. When I was growing up in the
late 1960s I observed those around me and what happened tothe vast
majorrity of children when they became adults. Many of them eventually
learned how to drive so they could travel independently and without the
need to depend on public transportation.

     During that time I was a student at an outfit called the Boston
Center for Blind Children. This, "School for the Blind" was in no way
connected with Perkins and was located in Jamaica Plane; a section of
Boston. Since I was coming in to my teens like other teen agers I wanted
a car, and to learn how to drive it. But of course how could a blind
person drive a car. I remember expressing this to many center staff
members most of which told me that there's no way that would happen, an
that it was necessary to see to drive a car. You can get a very good
impression of the attitude towards the blind children who attended this
institution was like if I told you that there were no blind employees
working there, and that those who persisted in believing that the
seemingly undoable for a blind person might one day become possible the
penalties for holding such firm beliefs could be quite severe!

    We had one child care worker there named Lucy Pinarde. She was a
very soft-spoken, suite individual who did her best to treat her charges
well despite the hell going on around her.  As was my routine I shared
my desire to one day own a car and be able to drive it myself just as my
parents and others did. One day she took me in her arms, and whispered
in my ear:

"Every day scientists and inventors discover new ways to make life
better for people in this World. Things that are not possible now will
be possible in the future. It's great that you want to learn to drive,
and can imagine that one day a car that a blind person can drive will be
created. Never let that dream die. The future holds promise for ideas
like yours."

    She made similar statements to me on other occasions being sure she
made them out of ear-shot of other BCBC Staff.

    Fast-forward to the year 2000! There I was in a crowded convention
hall in Atlanta Georgia listening to the plans to construct the NFB
Jernigan Institute and the research projects the institute would
undertake. One of these would be the development of a car a blind person
could operate independently!Listenining to Dr. Maurer and others caused
me to recall Miss Pinarde's words to me during my time at the BCBC. We
are now in a time when technology exists to create such a vehicle. This
is what drove Mary and I to contribute to the Imagination Fund in the
hopes that conditions will be more conducive to our being able to
develop sources of funding for such a project in the years ahead. I told
Mary how neat it would be, assuming a vehicle drivable by a blind person
is developed in the immediate future, and assuming Miss Pinnard is still
alive and we learn of each others whereabouts it would be cool to drive
up to her residence in the vehicle, and say, "We did it! Blind people
now have the opportunity to own their own motor vehicle and can operate
it independently. Want to go for a spin?"This will happen if others like
myself keep the dream of owning and being able to drive their own
automoble is kept alive and such a project can eventually have resources
dedicated to it.

Peter Donahue

_______________________________________________
nfb-talk mailing list
nfb-talk at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nfb-talk