One of my closest and longest friends is starting a new YouTube channel documenting his journey to fulfill a life-long dream of his. Even though he's low vision, through a new program available in Ontario, he has the opportunity to gain his drivers license via the use of a bioptic telescope. If you love cars as much as he does, are just curious, or are a low vision person interested in what a program like this could mean for you, check out his first video on the channel! As far as I know, this is the first time someone has documented the journey of learning to drive with a bioptic telescope from day one, from the perspective of a person with a disability, rather than a doctor or other medical professional. You can find the video here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GZdw1CzYtI#a11y#cars#driving#accessibility#disability
@fastfinge I’m not low vision, but I am still going to check this out. This is so cool! I wish I could have my drivers license. Come on autonomous vehicles, hurry up and get here already!
@lynessence@fastfinge Given the GPS in my phone can't reliably direct me to the place I'm trying to go half the time, I'm gonna hold off on trusting self-driving cars lest I leave my house intending to visit Toronto and end up in the river.
@quanin@lynessence with the many issues around public transport, most of the time my flight or train gets rerouted and that happens to me anyway. Or the human cab driver drops me somewhere random and leaves. At least a self driving car would take me to the wrong place in comfort.
@fastfinge@lynessence You're not wrong. But your first mistake in this case is using any of the Ottawa taxi companies. Granted the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've never had that problem with Uber. I can count on one hand the positive experiences I've had with Ottawa's one taxi company pretending to be three.
@fastfinge@lynessence Huh. I wonder what the difference is. Generally speaking if I'm actively communicating with the driver they develop a clue. If we ever do that thing where we meet in-person we should compare notes or something.
@fastfinge@lynessence Maybe, but I lived in a house before I lived here and didn't have that problem. And I've been dropped off and picked up at the houses of friends. It might be that you need a little more proactive communication than I do. For example, the GPS always wants to bring drivers around to the back of the building, so I need to manually redirect them. Usually a quick text does that.
@quanin@fastfinge@lynessence I know some drivers around here when you try to help them will say, I only go where the GPS tells me to go. I have tried very politely telling them that GPS isn't always right, especially in our trailer park, and some of them still don't get it, some finally do, but the ones that don't get it get a 3, and I tell them exactly why. your driver only wants to rely on GPS, and I don't ever want them again. I mean , ok, I get it. you have never been here before, but when your paying customer is trying to hep you, and you say something like that? nope, you are not there for the customer, and I don't want to continue trusting you ever again. thank you very much.
@quanin@fastfinge I have mostly had positive experiences with Uber, but for some reason in Toronto, that was not always the case. When I’m at home, I generally use our taxi companies if I’m travelling with my guy dog because Uber drivers here are notorious for refusing, and we don’t have Uber pet.
