Beep Beep?
Anyone know when I should be driving? Getting people to drive me into Philly every day is getting a bit old….the company has been nice though.
Anyway, all the stuff I read on previous blogs said that if I crash, insurance won’t cover me, I’ll lose my license if pulled over, microtears in the tendon from braking, etc. Doesn’t seem too probable…. Any timeline suggestions/experiences? My foot is getting MUCH better with PT.
Here’s a pic of my scar at 6 weeks — not that that’s related:
Difficult one, also being the UK not sure what the litigious US would be like here.
You foot is the right one like me, so the key issue is your ability to stop the car on the brake. I did a little research in the UK and got various opinions from “up to you” to “you need to be able to demonstrate you are in control of the vehicle” to “you have to be signed-off by the Doctor and tell your insurance”.
Personally, I took the view based on how I felt and experience from a couple of “test drives”.
I was driving again at just after 4 weeks, basically as soon as I got into two shoes and was FWB I was looking to drive. I have to say it has been fine, but again I think this is very much a personal thing based on you are feeling.
In the UK, after abdominal surgery the old test on whether you could do an emergency stop was whether you could stamp your leg on the floor. Well I can certainly do that, providing I landed the foot heel first!
In the US this is probably all different but I took the view here that better not to ask (Doctors/Insurance etc. as there’s no legal requirement to do so) and get a standard “you can’t drive for X months after ATR” and then I’m buggered because they have that conversation on record.
Being able to drive again restores some normality and independence again so well worth the effort, but at the end of the day I don’t think you’ll get a definitive answer on accepted timeline.
jgsquash
May 8, 2009