Deaf man obtains Driving licence
Front page news on the Fiji Times
A DEAF and mute 30-year-old man has become the first in the Northern Division to obtain a driving licence after successfully passing his driving test, using sign language.
The achievement by Shiu Karan has baffled Land Transport Authority examiners in the northern town of Labasa who are still trying to understand how a deaf man manages to change gear on time.
An overjoyed Mr Karan only nodded his head when asked through sign language whether he was happy about his achievement.
LTA examiner Rakesh Jattan said while testing his driving skills during his driving test, he was amazed to see how Mr Karan perfectly timed changing the gears.
“Drivers usually change gears by hearing the sound of the engine, when it tires out but for this case, I am still trying to understand how he does it when he is deaf,” Mr Jattan said.
“We only communicated through sign language and he just caught on very well which was also seen during his driving test,” Mr Jattan said.
“He knew all the road signs and read all the road maps like junctions, bends and road humps very well by answering questions put to him using sign language,” he said.
The sign language was done with the assistance of the driving instructor, Shakuntla Singh who is also a teacher at the Labasa Handicapped School.
Mrs Singh said it was not difficult teaching Mr Karan how to drive.
“I believe it was not difficult for me because he had the interest to learn and so he caught on very well without going over the lessons again,” Mrs Singh said.
“It took us three weeks to complete the driving lessons and now he has a licence and we are just so proud of him,” Mr Singh said.
How stupid is this artical, they seem to be amazed that a Deaf man can learn to drive, also the driving instructor not thought to ask how he managed to change gears!
He knew how to read road maps.. for fuck sake he is not blind!!!
Reminds me of in 2001 the media reported that Evelyn Glennie had got a licence to drive a motorbike! They were all wow etc! Deaf people had ridden motorbikes for a long time before. Her then husband Greg popped up on DUK in her defence.
While I loitered around [probably trying to look hard and play the part :-)], the Deaf Bikers stall at NEC Bike Show in the early 90s and there were people visiting the stall up, asking questions like how can Deaf people ride motorbikes as they thought you need your ears to tell when the cars are coming.
Hah!
In motorbike training, defensive riding is all about observation from all possible angles and not to rely on your ears. That reply always shoot the ignorant questioner down in flame. Besides, we Deafies have heightened observation powers due to broken ears which I believe make us better road users.
How can hearies hear if they have a helmet on?
Exactly why their perspective are flawed. They take it for granted that you need both your ears and eyes for biking. They don’t realise. Only time you might need your hearing is when emergency services on the road but if you apply defensive riding all the time, you would be able to see them coming.
Well done him and well done to his instructor!
FFS you DO need your ears, otherwise how else can we fly?
Just look at Dumbo for goodness’ sake…it’s clear you ride bikes to gain enough speed to generate lift with your ears.
That’s why I’m all for outlawing helmets - then I can start up a cheaper airline business than EasyJet…
>>still trying to understand how a deaf man manages to change gear on time.
Deaf can feel the minute changes in the engine vibration and can tell when to shift gears. Also, I’m sure the deaf man had ridden in a manual transmission car enough to get the idea that “when the engine feels like ‘this’, the driver is shifting gears” and just followed what he had observed.
From 1990, until 1999, I drove a straight-shift Mazda truck.
I cannot hear a thing and I know it’s not impossible for a Deaf person to do.
It’s simple….To begin with, you need to watch the speedometer. In a truck, you change gears at 15 mph, 30 mph, etc. In a car, it’s 10 mph, 20 mph, etc.
After you get used to doing it, you won’t need to watch the speedometer anymore. It’ll be a natural thing.
I have taught many people with hearing difficulties to drive over the last 15 years and have had little or no difficulty in teaching gear change timing.
The reason for this in my opinion is that, although hearing people think they listen for the correct gear chance time, it is not so! They actually learn to feel the effort of the engine and know from that when there is the need for a gear change. 22Deaf people do the same quite naturally so it does not suprise me that they can do it just as good if not better in some cases.
In many cases Deaf people make better drivers because they have a much greater awareness of dangers around then, learn’t through life
experience.
Steve,
Thanks for commenting,nice to hear that some instructors don’t treat us any different!
Had a look on your website, you might want to mention that you can sign.
Regards,
Fintan