The Joy Of Sox
I always read Melanie Reid in the Saturday Times.
Today she talked about her awful socks and proposed a satirical book called The Joy of Sox.
I sympathise with her.
I do my own washing and find sorting it difficult after the stroke, as it is an action that needs two good hands and I’ve only got about 1.6. But until recently, I found putting them on difficult and spent a great deal of time finding ones that were easier than others.
But in the last couple of weeks, my hands seem to have cracked the problem and now they go on like they used to before I had the stroke.
Here’s wishing Melanie the same sort of progress.
A Pedestrian Collision Avoidance System
They are talking on BBC Breakfast about the sort of sound that electric cars should make.
As someone, who for a few months had very limited vision to the left, I can sympathise, but really do we want to negate one of the big advantages of electric cars; the fact that they are silent, which I think makes people drive them slower.
So could we do something better to stop collisions between vulnerable pedestrians and vehicles. And of course between cyclists and vehicles too.
With airliners they have a system called TCAS or Traffic Collision Avoidance System. It works well, as you don’t get too many collisions between airliners.
So could something simpler be used by pedestrians and vehicles that they might not see or hear.
In it’s simplest form a vehicle would emit a coded electronic signal with perhaps a range of say twenty to fifty metres. Pedestrians would perhaps have a wristwatch-sized device that made some sort of sound as the vehicle approached. I would suspect that smart phones could also be developed to be pedestrian devices.
Thinking about this idea, it would have other implications.
- You could just drive up to your garage door and a detector programmed with your vehicle’s code would open the door automatically.
- Systems could be used to make car parks more user-friendly. All you would have to do is drive in and out and the system would bill you automatically.
- Vulnerable pedestrians, such as the blind and deaf, could also carry an emitter, which could be received by vehicles to warn them that the person by the side of the road had limited vision or hearing.
- There could also be an emergency mode, so that say if a pedestrian was feeling unwell or had a probe, they could immediately call help from those near at hand. In fact borrowing from flying rules, you could have two levels of emergency; serious and I just need a little bit of help. The latter might be used by say someone who was blind or a bit confused, who perhaps was lost in a strange town.
- One of my biggest problems is those in scooters, who drive them fast in places like shopping malls and come up behind me. I was nearly run over in Canary Wharf yesterday, by someone going far too fast and only avoided trouble, because the lady driving it, hit a man, who called her a stupid idiot in a very loud voice. A device warning of fast traffic from behind would have avoided that problem.
The possibilities are endless.
I doubt it will happen though.
Disabled Access to the London Olympics
I am not disabled, although it is probably true to say, that for a time after my stroke, whilst I was in hospital in Hong Kong, I needed to be moved everywhere in a wheel-chair. I do suspect though that if I had been in a top hospital in the UK, like Addenbrookes from the start, they’d have dispensed with one pretty quickly. It’s not to save costs, but there is thinking from the Norwegians, that it is better to get people up and on the move sooner rather than later after a stroke.
But I do think I appreciate the problems of people with disabilities a bit better than I used to. So when Liz put a comment on the post about the London Aquatic Centre, I thought I’d investigate a bit.
I started by typing the title of this post into Google. By the time you try it, you might get better information than I did. The only thing of value was an old political statement from Boris, saying that the access will be the best. He would say that wouldn’t he!
There was also quite a few paid for Google entries trying to sell disabled-friendly accomodation in London for the Olympics.
On the other hand, when I applied for my tickets, I could have applied for wheelchair friendly seats, if I had wanted to. So at least the ticket ballot is disabled friendly. I suspect too, that the venues will have an appropriate number of seats for the disabled, as we have lot of experience of building stadia with them in mind.
Getting to the Olympic Park probably falls into two time periods; before the Olympic Park is completed and after it’s opened.
I’ll deal with the first one now, as why shouldn’t those with limited mobility want to go and view the construction site, as I have in the last couple of weeks? After all lying my hospital bed in Hong Kong, being able to watch the Olympics on television was a hope, rather than something for which my odds of seeing for real,are only a little bit less than say Lord Coe’s.
The Greenway, that I used to access the viewing site is absolutely flat and I think in my current state I could push an average man in a wheelchair from the station at Hackney Wick to the Olympic Park. As with all new London Overground and Docklands Light Railway stations, Hackney Wick has full wheelchair access using lifts. At a weekend, there is quite a bit of free parking in the Victoria Park area, which is not far from the start of the Greenway.
The ViewTube has pretty good disabled access, so you could get a good coffee and a snack.
The problem would come in getting off and on the Greenway at the Pudding Mill Lane end. It is still very much a construction site and although the DLR station has a lift, it might not be easy to negotiate your way through.
Another word of warning is that the best views of the site are at the other end of the Olympic Park to Stratford station.
So don’t go there!
Obviously, once the Olympic Park and the Eastfield Shopping Centre are open, there shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
A Solution to Pavement Obstacles?
Nothing annoys me more as I walk around, than blocked pavements and badly designed street furniture, such as the obstacles I described in this post. Bicycles chained to railings in cities like Cambridge are a problem too and they hurt when you bump into them.
I have thought about carrying a can of orange spray paint. it would probably get me publicity, but I would probably get arrested too.
So what is needed is a simple card label on the end of a loop of orange ribbon or cord, that could be easily slipped over the offending article. The card might say something like.
I have had a stroke and can’t see too well. Because of this, I nearly bumped into this obstacle that you kindly placed to injure me. In this case there was no harm done, but please move it before you hurt someone with limited mobility or vision.
I would put a suitable e-mail address on it for a response.
You could also sell advertising on the back for charity.
The Anonymous Widower 