Driving with a cast on her leg

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Apologies to @23 Romeo Tango. Bad of me to fail to send Good wishes your way. Hope your wife and pooch are improving by the day. :thumb:
No worries mate, the main thing is the wife’s ankle is pain free and the doc was happy with what he could see on the last xray. Belle (the dog in question) seems to be picking up and wanted to go out for the morning walk with the others, but the wife kept her back for some more TLC.
 
Interesting, though I guess this is one of those things where you might get a different response from different insurers?
I think you're almost certainly correct. You might even have different responses from different members of staff at the call centre, depending on their own interpretation of the company's guidelines.
 
On the subject of who should be allowed to drive, there should be an observer who can rule on who's safe on the road. This could be split into small districts and be manned by impartial, level headed observers.

I'd volunteer to sit at the roadside for my district and take photos of anyone that I've taken a dislike to and pronounce them banned for 6 months or until they can persuade me that they should have their licence back

I could hold weekly meetings for those pleading for their licence back, let's call them surgeries. I would need some kind of throne naturally in order to display my authority, trumpeters optional for the show off types.

Or,

We could just allow dashcammers to send in their videos of wrongdoing to the police, I can't see that working but some seem to support it.

Is it Beer’O’ Clock already? :D
 
Insurers would go on a clinical view. Example: Health and driving - what you need to know

Given that the clinical view is based on the ability to be in control of the vehicle, in particular the ability to undertake an emergency stop without discomfort that would affect the performance.

In this case, provided the cast isn't of a size to impede into the brake pedal area affecting the ability to undertake the emergency stop, I don't see any issues with driving an automatic.
 
Or,

We could just allow dashcammers to send in their videos of wrongdoing to the police, I can't see that working but some seem to support it.

I like the trumpet and throne idea better. A few grapes. Couple of nymphs. You get the picture.
 
I'm currently out of the country, so I scored there big time, but I got a message from her a couple of nights ago saying that one of the dogs has been vomiting blood and she needs to go to the vets first thing in the morning.

That's fine, but I ask "Is our Son available to take you", no answer. A few hours later she tells me the dog has stopped vomiting blood and things have settled down, but she will still take the dog to the vets in the morning. "Ok, is our Son available to take you"..........a long pause

Morning comes and I get the message from my wife that she has just arrived at the vets and she will let me know any news as soon and there is anything to tell. "How did you get to the vets?"..........Silence.

Guess who drove to the vets with cast on her leg?
"It was an emergency, I had no other choice

Obviously I showed my disapproval and to scare her into not doing it again I told her that she probably wouldn't be insured in the event of any accident. That got me thinking, I know it's common knowledge that insurance companies will try to get out of a payout any way they can, but would they have a good argument in this case.

What are your thoughts?

p.s. The dog is picking up after an anti-sickness injection and some anti-acid medication.

I only said it was maybe silly as :-

1) It wasn’t an emergency, the dog had stopped vomiting and her plan was to go the next day (time enough to arrange a ride)
2) I know only too well that owners can become distressed if the dog is unwell - it could have re-occurred in the car and been a distraction at a critical moment.
3) SWMBO was reticent with the plan, so she was maybe unsure of its safety, and wasn’t sure you would concur either.

You invited our thoughts, and I did say that just a lower leg cast MAY be ok, however accidents are often not caused by a single action/event, but usually by more variables/events or items leading to an accident.

I’m glad the dog is ok, I’m glad nothing untoward happened on the drive, but I’m still not convinced it was a good choice of action.
 
^^^^ I respect your opinion and my initial response was the same as yours, I was disappointed that she had drove with her cast on. I guess somehow I thought it was unsafe, but then I thought about it a little more. Why did I think it was unsafe, what issue is a knee high cast on her left leg stopping her from doing what any driver without a cast could do :dk:. I was still annoyed at the fact that she had hopped up on the side step of her pick-up to gain access to the drivers seat.

Lets look at your points above.
1) time enough to arrange a ride - This happened at 02:00 UK time and stopped at ~06:00. She wasn't going to call anyone during those hours and everyone who could drive was heading to work when she needed a lift. Taxi, already discussed.
2) it (vomiting) could have re-occurred in the car and been a distraction at a critical moment - How is this different to ANYONE in the same situation. Are you saying you would never drive a sick dog to the vets even if you didn't have a cast on?
3) SWMBO was reticent with the plan, so she was maybe unsure of its safety, and wasn’t sure you would concur either. - I've got to agree with you on some of this one. I guess I wasn't given the whole story because my wife probably know I wouldn't agree to it. As already mentioned, pet owners sometimes will do what they've got to do to get the job done. Although I don't believe she would have done it if she thought it was unsafe, she probably didn't tell me because she thought I would believe it was unsafe.

I am also glad that nothing untoward happened for obvious reasons and I guess if it had I wouldn't be asking for opinions, I would be giving the true facts from a real life experiance.

I invited opinions and thoughts, yourself and many others are complying. Thank you all. There was nothing much happening midweek, Serena had stopped screaming and F1 wasn't starting until Friday so nothing else to talk about ;)
 
I’d have done the same for what it’s worth if in the same position.

All is well that ends well.
 
Why would an insurer / Police consider this unsafe?

The car has automatic transmission, the left leg was the injured limb so the vehicle could be properly and safely controlled by the normal use of the right leg.

Having an elbow in plaster is an entirely different issue because you will not have full control of the steering.
Assuming the ankle is in plaster it is at risk of fouling the pedals, at least I expect that is likely be the view taken by a police officer...

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I really don't see any issue here , as said numerous times an automatic car can easily be driven with one foot ( although I normally use both as it is logical when u have two feet which correspond to two pedals ) .

I remember once , a long time ago , I sprained my right ankle when on a job in a remote location , and drove the works van home with my painful right foot dangling in the step space next to the door and using my left foot for brake and accelerator , and changing gear without the clutch . Really not hard to do and since I normally left foot brake in automatic vehicles then braking was instinctive .

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I think the bottom line is that there's no universal answer.

I.e. the issue is not so much if you can drive an automatic car without being able to use you left foot - instead the question is whether the nature of the particular injury (pain, and risk of worsening), and the physical elements relating to it (large cast, inability to bend leg, etc), are such that they can impair your ability to safely control the vehicle.
 
Complete leg cast is somewhat different to an ankle cast though. I doubt you would get any physician to agree you are fit to drive in a full cast.
 
My gut reaction would be that it's just plain daft. But, I'd be interested to hear what @Giantvanman has to say on the subject. He's probably seen worse.

"Left leg in cast.
Automatic car."

Potential offences would be:-
Driving without proper control
Driving without due care and attention
Dangerous driving
and the latter two have correspondingly more serious offences linked to injury and death caused.

Assuming the cast was only below the knee, I would say as long as the cast did not interfere with the brake pedal i.e. rub against it or sit behind it, then a summons or ticket would be unlikely.

Thinking in purely common sense terms, the DVLA do not prevent one-legged drivers to drive. They could demand some who has lost a right leg to have training/be re-tested but they wouldn't withhold the licence indefinitely.

However, if the vehicle is fitted with a left- foot operated handbrake (if you know what I mean), this would open the driver in a left lower leg cast to a potential summons for driving without care and attention, driving without proper control and even dangerous driving because the driver would likely be unable to activate the emergency brake, which is how the handbrake/manual footbrake is classified.

A big no-no would have been, for example, driving with a broken right ankle or broken left ankle in a manual car, obviously.

In law, there are "legal excuses" which allow, for example, a person to use a mobile phone on the move or drive a car whilst uninsured in a medical emergency and although the term "medical emergency" applies to humans, it would be a heartless magistrates' bench indeed that would hand out a conviction for simply driving that way .... I would hope. Their reaction in the event of a collision or the endangerment of another would likely be quite different.

An insurance company is another matter, however. Being devoid of any semblance of humanity or common sense, they would seek to remove all paddles before setting the insured adrift on a certain creek in the event of a collision where there was the tiniest suspicion that the driver was not 100% fit to drive/ exercise proper control.

Just my humble opinion; hope it helps.
 
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But more importantly - How to convince plod and your insurance.
 

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