Mr. Mark Lloyd-Davies attended the North Wales Mobility & Driving and Assessment Service in early 2021 after experiencing a stroke in January 2020.
Mark is a member of The North Wales Brain Injury Service who supported him throughout his recovery, and it is through their encouragement that Mark was advised to attend for his driving assessment and look at his options to safely return to driving.
After his initial assessment, Mark took a period of tuition with the North Wales Mobility & Driving and Assessment Service in an automatic vehicle fitted with right hand steering spinner and repositioned secondary controls and then re-attended the Mobility Centre to take a final driving assessment to ensure he had achieved the safety and confidence to drive independently.
Having successfully completed his training and assessment, Mark bought a new car and all adaptations were fitted by The Disability Resource Centre at Bodelwyddan.
Mark now drives to all his appointments and attends a local woodwork shop and has experienced all aspects of driving including his ambition of being able to visit his parents over 200 miles away.
This is an excellent achievement and we wish Mark all the best for the future.
“The open road now awaits me” ….and that’s a statement I never thought I would be saying again!
But thanks to the amazing team at the North Wales Mobility & Driving Assessment Service, I am now able to continue on my journey under my own steam allowing me to gain my independence back.
But what a journey; back in February 2019 I was happily driving around in my little red VW Beetle. Unfortunately my life was turned upside down and inside out when I was diagnosed with cancer which left me with chronic kidney disease and severe ganglion neuropathy.
After spending 6-months in hospital I came home needing regular dialysis not being able to walk without an aid and restricted dexterity in my hands. Driving was out of the question!!
It was during an appointment with my Occupational Therapist, who was based in Liverpool, that I mentioned I had completed the form required to surrender my driving licence and was just about to post it off as I couldn’t see any possible way of being able to drive. I had no feeling in my feet and restricted mobility in my hands.
She straight away advised me that I didn’t need to go down this drastic route and that I needed to look into to being assessed by a Driving Motability Centre who could offer me the chance to try various adaptations that would assist with my driving, and that I was fortunate to have The North Wales Centre right on my doorstep.
This was the inspiration I needed, all I had to do was to follow it up.
I started off by notifying the DVLA of my health conditions, but gave up waiting on a reply from them. I decided to take the bull by its horns and do something myself. So, I contacted the North Wales Mobility & Driving Assessment Service directly and they advised me that I could have an assessment done by their staff during which I would be offered different forms of adaptations to see what best suited my disabilities.
I made an appointment to go and have this initial assessment. I won’t lie, I was nervous and apprehensive but at the same time if there was a way I could get back into driving, I wanted to give it a go.
It was thanks to their guidance and assistance that after an initial assessment and 9 hours of familiarisation driving tuition with a very supportive Beverley Stevens ADI, who is currently a Driving Advisor at the Centre and has recently started to give tuition in vehicles with many different types of adaptations, that we agreed on the adaptations best suited for my disabilities.
These are;
- Automatic transmission
- Over Accelerator ring
- Push brake
After the tuition I was able to pass their re-assessment and have now been given the green light to drive again. I cannot tell you how good this makes me feel.
After having been a driver for 30 + years and passing my driving test first time and continuing to have a clean driving licence which I am proud of, I was really reluctant to voluntarily surrender it.
Thanks to this service, I don’t have to – They have been a life saver.
