Visually impaired discuss pedestrian dangers
♦ Group celebrates White Cane Safety Day with lunch during monthly meeting.
It’s tough enough for pedestrians in general to safely navigate Rome’s intersections and other crosswalks when drivers are distracted or don’t know the laws.
Try it when you’re visually impaired and relying on a white cane or guide dog to get around.
“Just the other day a 71-year-old lady was crossing at Second Avenue and Broad Street when a gentleman on his phone turned right at the red light and hit her because he was paying attention to his phone and not where he was going,” Rome Police Officer David Mcguire said. He was speaking to a dozen people from the Rome-floyd County Chapter of the Georgia Council of the Blind during lunch as they celebrated White Cane Safety Day Tuesday at Landmark Restaurant. “The National Transportation Safety Board has listed distracted driving as the most dangerous thing on the roadways now — even more so than driving under the influence.”
The pedestrian Mcguire spoke of suffered a broken ankle and was taken to a hospital for treatment, according to reports.
None of those at Tuesday’s meeting — many of which are blind or continue to lose their sight from retinitis pigmentosa — said they’d ever been injured trying to cross a street. But a couple believe they came close.
“I was walking with my dad once and a car ran over my cane,” Council of the Blind Chapter President Tonia Clayton, who usually uses a guide dog, told Mcguire. “I was fine, but the cane was destroyed.”
Clayton told Mcguire she thinks the intersection at Broad Street and Second Avenue is the hardest to cross.
“One thing I don’t like is when you come up to a crosswalk and there’s already a car pulled up into the crosswalk,” she said. “The rule of thought is to walk behind the car, but then you’re not sure how far back the next car is.”
Clayton, who has a medical transcription degree and is a certified web page designer despite her visual challenges, told Mcguire she appreciates the “bump dots” placed on city curbs to help the visually impaired know where the edge is.
Chapter Secretary Marsha Farrow said she always tries to wear either a bright safety vest or bright clothing when she’s out and about with her white cane.
“Safety has got to be a priority, especially with texting and driving,” said Farrow, who works as a vision rehabilitation therapist.
But she said she wasn’t always fully comfortable using a cane.
“I’m 62 and I’m just now in the process of getting trained to use my cane because I was one of those who fell through the cracks for services in Georgia,” Farrow said. “The state of Georgia said I was over income and not eligible for services for the visually impaired because I wasn’t on Social Security. That’s the crazy thing about Georgia. Orientation and Mobility training is not something you can pick up in Walmart. Specialists are hard to come by.”
Dr. Philip Dillard, an 82-year-old retired head of the English Department at the former Floyd Junior College, agreed that cane training came much later as he lost more and more of his sight, but he did share a humorous story about his training in Warm Springs.
“My trainer wanted to see how I was doing, so he asked me to walk with my cane,” said Dillard, who went completely blind when he was 37. “I walked 10 steps and he said ‘You’re dangerous as hell!’ He had shown me how to tap my cane on the right, then tap it on the left, then tap on the right, but I was raising my cane in big arcs in the air. ‘You’re killing snakes!’ he yelled.”
All joking aside, Clayton and Farrow stressed that if any visually impaired residents need guidance on cane use or other services, they can always reach out to either one of them at 706346-8940 for Clayton and 706-859-2624 for Farrow. Their group meets every third Tuesday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the Rome-floyd County Library, 205 Riverside Parkway.