Posted on 01/16/2013 1:12:20 PM PST by nickcarraway
Campaign aims to educate motorists about hearing- impaired drivers
The Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) has launched the ‘Deaf Driver’ initiative to sensitise road users to deaf drivers and alert motorists to vehicles driven by people with hearing disabilities.
“The objective of the ‘Deaf Driver’ initiative is to educate drivers on how to deal with hearing-impaired persons and alert them that the driver in front is deaf,” said Maitha bin Udai, CEO of RTA Traffic & Roads Agency.
“We are therefore compiling a brochure on how to deal with personnel suffering hearing loss. We are also designing a poster to be fixed to vehicles driven by individuals with hearing disability. Readers of this poster will be aware that the driver is deaf and will not respond to alarm sounds made by other motorists,” she said.
Maitha recollected the initiative launched by the Traffic & Roads Agency about hearing-impaired personnel two years ago in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the Ministry of Education encompassing an educative bulletin written in Braille distributed to blind students who were integrated in schools.
It also included lectures in sign language for the deaf community members in addition to several visits by traffic awareness teams to autism centres and schools dedicated to children with special needs.
“The aim of the initiative is to educate the public that deaf drivers can drive vehicles like other motorists, but their focus on the road hinges on visual and kinetic perception rather than the sense of hearing. Therefore, dealing with deaf drivers on roads has to be through optical signs,” she said.
“Deaf drivers can’t hear horns by other vehicles or sirens of ambulance, police and civil defence vehicles. They also have difficulty in communicating with others as the hearing impaired person depends on lip movements and hand signs, hence it is important to communicate with deaf drivers through the body language coupled with hand movements,” said Maitha.
I guess if you see one of those stickers on a car, your only option is to give ‘em the finger. ;)
Don’t honk! I’m wearing headphones and can’t hear anything over my tunes.
I’m all for this. And while we’re at it, let’s do something for the blind drivers as well.
I am Deaf and you just made an ignorant comment there.
“I’m all for this. And while we’re at it, let’s do something for the blind drivers as well.”
License the dogs?
Really? Who is discriminating now? Why should the blind not drive especially when we already have the tech that makes it possible...
I'm all for it AND I have a stake in this as well being the male side of my dad's family have mostly went blind in their old age. Besides I hate to sit there and go through the mundane process of guiding a car. The day can't get here fast enough for me wherein cars can guide themselves to at least near a destination without humans actively controlling the vehicle.
Its the least society can do after promising me in my youth flying cars and traveling to the Moon and Mars for vacations. ;-)
I’m also deaf and you are right...that was not a nice comment...
I’m am also bi lateral cochlear implant so I do hear with a hearing device attached to the side of my skull, just like Rush Limbaugh, although Rush has just one implant..
Deafness and being blind are completely the oppposite. However, I do agree that it would be awesome to have a flying car that sort of just guides you along. If cars can park themselves, then the next step is the blindness car.
So, my 20 year old daughter is Deaf and I’m teaching her how to drive. She is a good driver, very careful and meticulous. I know, intellectually, she is doing everything her sisters did, and often better, but it makes me very nervous. She’s a whiz at the parallel parking. I found an Army vet in Harrisburg, PA who gave her lessons as he likes to work with people who use different languages. He had confidence in her and taught her just by pointing (she is an ASL user). She had a good foundation with me, and he helped further that along. She should be getting her license this summer after she returns home from NTID. She is definitely ready.
Given current technology, deafness could be eliminated in the next generation. What us stopping it? The DEAF COMMUNITY!!
They enjoy being an exclusive “culture” and getting TONS of taxpayer-provided benefits for life.
My sister is a very experienced interpreter and I have had this same discussion many times:
Me: What if we could wave a wand and all deaf people could hear? What if we eliminated deafness forever?
Answer: That would be terrible.
Me: Why?
Answer: Because deafness isn’t a bad thing. We are not “broken” and don’t need fixing.
Me: WT..H....?
How can anyone respond to that except by running them over from behind while honking the horn just to prove how “broken” they are. Which is my inevitable feeling after one of these conversations.
My sister says I am prejudiced. Look at your phone bill and tell me how prejudiced I am.
BTW: The deaf get 100% subsidized unlimited access to online interpreters (from smart phone to voice) at $65 a MINUTE!
>>I am Deaf and you just made an ignorant comment there. <<
Reply to my #11 — I dare you.
And when that fire engine is 45 degrees from you on their way to an emergency go ahead and t-bone them. 5 dead firemen + n people they were going to rescue. I mean, anything is better that “prejudice.”
And I have driven with the deaf many many times and it scared the HELL out of me (now I just wont do it). You’all love to “TALK” and drive — who needs hands to hold a steering wheel anyway?
Thanks for wanting to run over my daughter. That is what I made sense out of your ridiculous ramblings. There are plenty of kids whose parents try the implant route. Do you know the implants fail? Skin and tissue around the implant erode. This is rare, but it happens. And all the deaf people I know want to work. In fact, I bet there are a few right here at FR who work, and who vote republican.
Thanks for wanting to run over my daughter. That is what I made sense out of your ridiculous ramblings. There are plenty of kids whose parents try the implant route. Do you know the implants fail? Skin and tissue around the implant erode. This is rare, but it happens. And all the deaf people I know want to work. In fact, I bet there are a few right here at FR who work, and who vote republican.
talk and drive, again - a stupid comment. Are you saying that hearing people don’t do stupid things on the road? I once saw a lady pluck hairs from her chin, talk on the phone and light a cigarette all while driving. A few months ago, a woman was yakking on her phone and driving and smoking. We were the first to arrive at the red light. I decided to take her offsides thinking she’d notice that she had the red light. She didn’t and just kept going. I wont’ even talk about people texting and driving at the same time.
Finally, when did any deaf people kill, maim or injure any firemen? That would be an interesting story and I would love to read it.
talk and drive, again - a stupid comment. Are you saying that hearing people don’t do stupid things on the road? I once saw a lady pluck hairs from her chin, talk on the phone and light a cigarette all while driving. A few months ago, a woman was yakking on her phone and driving and smoking. We were the first to arrive at the red light. I decided to take her offsides thinking she’d notice that she had the red light. She didn’t and just kept going. I wont’ even talk about people texting and driving at the same time.
Finally, when did any deaf people kill, maim or injure any firemen? That would be an interesting story and I would love to read it.
If there were a sticker I could put on the back bumper of my car to let other people, (and law enforcement officers in particular,) know I don't hear well, I'd be glad to give it a try.
I do not have statistics to back me up, but Deaf people are usually better drivers than hearing people because Deaf drivers are always constantly scanning the road and using the mirrors. A hearing driver would typically look ahead and miss out on road hazards that a Deaf driver would immediately spot. Not saying that all of this is 100% accurate but this is common knowledge, and freedumb2003, you might want to ask your sister whether this assumption that I made is accurate or not.
Your sister is right! LOL!
>>Thanks for wanting to run over my daughter. That is what I made sense out of your ridiculous ramblings. There are plenty of kids whose parents try the implant route. Do you know the implants fail? Skin and tissue around the implant erode. This is rare, but it happens. And all the deaf people I know want to work. In fact, I bet there are a few right here at FR who work, and who vote republican.<<
So, you are OK with eliminating deafness? You see it as a problem that should be soon solved?
Then you are NOT part of the deaf community — which probably explains why you are Conservative. I don’t want to run over your daughter if she doesn’t see deafness as a problem. My frustration and anger are for the bulk of the deaf community who wish to perpetuate it — and the goodies that go with it.
Please, make sure you write a check for the $65 a minute each time she calls you using the service I described. And please refund to me the huge part of my phone and cell bill to subsidize all the goodies (I don’t pay a tax on my TV for the blind).
Being a Conservative is to stay in Realsville. You need ALL senses to drive. The blind analogy 100% holds (and has not been logically refuted).
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