Connie's Story

Don’t Give Up!
Missoula’s Drivers Ed Project
By Connie Lewis

I wanted to learn to drive and I brought this up in a meeting at People First. Other People First members wanted to learn to drive also. There wasn’t anybody to help us study for the written test.
About the same time we were talking about this DDPAC had some grant money to help people with disabilities. DDPAC is the Developmental Disabilities Planning and Advisory Council. DDPAC gives money to People First of Montana to pay the advisors and they give money to the People First members to go to the DD Conference every year.

People First voted to write a grant to teach us driving. We needed the grant money to help pay for us to have the skills to teach us. I and two other members had to help write the grant to tell people how having a drivers licence would change our lives. DDPAC liked our proposal and gave us more then $16,000.00 for drivers education project. So the Missoula People First got to do this.

The first thing that we needed was someone to teach us a drivers education course. We found Ken Walt, a retired teacher. He met with some of us and we told him that we wanted to learn how to drive. He agreed to teach the drivers education course. I was one of the first people to sign up. The first day of class we told a little about ourselves. He gave us folders, high lighters, pens, pads, and drivers ed books to hand out to us. We were also given the Montana State Drivers Manual. We went through the book first and there were movies we had to watch on safety. We answered the questions the teacher had when he called on us. We went through the drivers ed manual answering those questions and highlighted the things that were the most important. The classes lasted Ten weeks. I studied at home also.

I didn’t have any problem studying. About two weeks after the class ended I thought that I would go to the drivers bureau and take the written test. I was a little nervous. I paid my $32.00 and passed my written test. I had to show two forms of identification. I had missed two questions on the test and thought that I missed more. I was a little upset until they said that I passed. They didn’t take my picture and would not give me my learners permit until I had my doctors ok. Some people get afraid to ask their doctor and I wasn’t afraid and I wasn’t going to give up.
He said that it was ok. I had to sign a yellow information sheet for the drivers bureau but didn’t know that the doctor had to sign papers for the drivers bureau.

I thought at the time that the papers that the doctor had to sign were suppose to come from the doctors office. I was a little down at the time because I thought I was getting no where. I thought when I happened to go to the drivers bureau they gave me a folder that had the papers the doctor needed to sign but I found out that I didn’t have them. I was upset when I didn’t have what I needed . I mentioned to our People First advisor one day what the problem was and she helped me get the doctor’s papers that I needed faxed to me. I finally got the papers mailed to me also. I got the papers signed by the doctor and he sent them to Helena. They needed to see them at the drivers bureau in Missoula too. My advisor took me down to the drivers bureau and I got to hand the doctors papers to them and this time they took my picture and this time I had my learners permit.

I was ready to start driving but our teacher had two other jobs, so he didn’t have any time to teach me. I asked someone that I worked with if she could teach me how to drive. Our People First Advisor said that we could pay her the money from the grant. She agreed to be my teacher, but we needed a car with assistive devices because of my physical disability. My new driving teacher called Community Medical Center to see if we could rent their car with assistive devices. They agreed to rent us their car. Even though I got to have the car to drive, the assistive devices were not on the car so I wasn’t able to take the car out to drive. There were a few times that the left foot gas pedal was not in the car. So because the left foot gas pedal was out a few times though it made me mad . I got upset so I went outside where I live and pulled the weeds . The driving teacher was mad also so I got into the habit of calling the hospital at times to remind them to make sure it was in. It seemed to work .

I got to drive for the first time and the driving teacher said that I was a “natural born driver”. The driving teacher got me a pop for driving so well. I drove a few more times in the bad weather in Montana. My learners permit expired that same day I took my driving test, so I took my written test again, but failed that too. It was just not my day. But I didn’t give up. I studied again and passed Now I can drive again. I will take my driving test next week. I’m sure that I’ll pass this time. But if I don’t , I’m not going to give up. When I took my driving test the first time I did one thing wrong but I didn’t give up. Since I took my driving test again, now I can drive again. I finally took my driving test on February 21, 2002 and I passed my driving test, so now I am official. It will take about Four to six weeks before I get the real Drivers Licence but I have a spare licence until then. I would like to thank Mr. Walt for teaching the drivers ed course and Marie Westfall Pesheck for teaching the driving and DDPAC For lending the money to us to make it possible for me to drive.

THANKS AGAIN !

CONNIE LEWIS