Too Drunk To Tesla?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m … well … sort of dying … from a rare heart condition called Restrictive Cardiomyopathy (Non-Tropical Eosinophilic Endomyocardial Fibrosis).

It’s a form of low-output heart failure, meaning: my extremities don’t swell up, but my batteries are running at significantly lower-than-normal voltage and don’t hold a charge. When your voltage is low, nothing works right.

I hit glare ice in mid-November in my car.

Prior to that, my car was damaged in two successive hail storms in two successive years. The second time, they called it a total loss. Between my unique circumstances and the fact that I like the car, I ‘bought it,’ but it now has a salvage title and no collision coverage. The damage from the spinout – while not bad – isn’t of interest to the local body shops and renders the car undriveable (busted windshield, hanging front bumper).

Which puts me in a tough spot.

I usually can’t drive safely, but when I can … I can. I don’t drive far or often. The mid-November thing was a cardiology visit. I should have stayed home based on a severe weather forecast, but … didn’t.

I have vision issues that overwhelmingly affect high-acuity tasks, primarily at near. I can’t use a Smart Phone, so Uber/Lyft are right out. It’s beyond my capacities, and interest, to shop for a used car. I also … don’t have a working car to go looking :wink:

So I’ve been thinking…

What about a Tesla – maybe a Model 3 with AWD and good all-season tires or snow tires?

Let’s forget legality, morality, and ethics for a moment and take this in a factual context: COULD a Tesla get me around town, capably, including in low-traction winter days, if I’m … how best to say it … slightly impaired?

In other words, let’s use alcohol as an analogy: two beers or two glasses of wine – maybe three … you’d drive your car but you wouldn’t drive your motorcycle or operate your table or chain saw.

Hopefully.

Know what I mean?

If I got pulled over for something, it would neither be obvious nor likely that I am/was legally impaired. I also wouldn’t use it as a way to allow me TO go places when I otherwise don’t think I can or should.

But I think about things like … if the dog has a medical emergency and I have to get him to the vet. Currently, I’m screwed. I’d have to call somebody and that isn’t always a viable option.

For a number of years, I’ve really only picked up curbside grocery pickup, and driven the dog to various walking paths, all within about five miles of my home. On poor condition days, I generally stay home. The cardiologist visit was exceptional and I chose wrong.

So … for those Tesla owners … in terms of the car’s /capability/, do you think it would work? Is it good enough to get you around town, including in poor road conditions, without your help?

2

I don’t own a Tesla but follow automotive stuff and the answer is unfortunately a hard NO. The current state of autonomous driving can deal with mapped bare roads semi-ok but not great. The general consensus for highways is GM’s Supercruise is the best. But poor road conditions on local roads, no way. If you can post here why is the smartphone interface an issue with Uber or Lyft? That would also be the waayyyy cheaper option.

Sorry to hear about your condition–I value your posts!

3

I agree with this. In addition to help from Dopers, I would think both of those companies would like to help with any accessibility issues with their apps.

4

The long story made short(ish) is that … this all started with prescription eye drops. I was put on them for almost seven years. Turns out, you shouldn’t really be on them for even seven days.

The preservative in the drops – Benzalkonium Chloride – chemically burned my eyes.

Instead of being a smooth surface, protected by a smooth, stable tear film layer (comprising, essentially, oil, salt water, and grease), I have a rather divoted, scratched up cornea with an unstable-to-non-existent tear film layer.

Think about looking through badly scratched eyeglasses. Much worse up close.

I wear two pair of polarized glasses (one prescription, one not (but worn over the first pair)) to deal with glare intolerance and everything is fuzzy/difficult to resolve at near.

Blowing it all up (eg, on a computer monitor) helps, but isn’t a fix and only buys me a bit of useful working time.

When I use my (flip) cell phone, my thumb finds the raised dot on the “5,” and memory takes over from there (akin to what used to be called “ten-key by touch”). I can dial and talk, but no texting. Same issue. The phone is for emergencies.

The polarization nixes most displays. In a daylight situation, I’ve never been able to do anything marginally useful with my wife’s/family’s/friends’ iPhones or Androids.

[segue]

I’ve been watching a YouTuber trying out his Tesla’s autopilot in snowy conditions, and … yeah: epic fail :frowning:

5

But … I just found this:

Gotta’ work my way through it. Maybe…

6

Hey–we’re here for you. There is a workaround (and maybe that’s it).

7

That sounds like your best option. Because my nephew used to work for Tesla, on their self-driving code, and he didn’t think they were close to being able to drive in icy weather.

8

You are obviously a lot more familiar with your eye condition than I, but reading your description of it, I want to mention that I too have an irregular corneal surface. In my case it is, as far as I know, natural and not caused by eye drops or anything like that. It’s not terrible, but I often notice multiple images of small objects with a lot of contrast against their surroundings, like indicator lights. My ophthalmologist recommended scleral contact lenses, which are larger than normal contacts and essentially provide an artificial cornea on top of your real cornea. They work pretty well for me. Has anyone ever talked to you about them?

9

I am unsure why you must use polarized glasses when at home. You mentioned glare but I would think that is minimized at home.

For Uber/Lyft you can use an iPad or other tablet to summon a ride. Most such tablets have settings for people who are visually impaired and they have fairly big screens for ease of use. If the glare off of the screen is too much perhaps non-polarized glasses would suffice for this task (just a guess on my part).

Be sure to get one with a cellular data connection (if you were to use that) so you could call for a ride when not in your home or on WiFi.

10

I came here to post this possible solution after getting dinner in the oven and you beat me to it yourself. Be sure to listen to problems people have with Google Home being on and forgetting it’s there. Maybe it is easy to turn on/off. I don’t have one so I’m not sure how well it works.

11

First, my sincere thanks to those chiming in. I’ll get back to everybody else in the next day or two.

Sclerals are kind of a niche product, so it’s always surprising to me to meet somebody who’s even aware of them, much less wearing them.

I was a a patient of Perry Rosenthal, at the Boston Foundation for Sight.

I still hold their record for the number of lenses they had to make before arriving at a good fit. It took six weeks of five days/week, 8hrs/day each time I went.

But they were a near miracle. Sadly (there are no short stories in my life), I eventually ended up with conjunctivochalasis after wearing them daily for years.

Through my many weeks at the clinic, I became close to a number of the providers, one of whom left for the industry (ie, stopped seeing patients), working with scleral providers worldwide. They each assured me that I really couldn’t be fitted again.

Almost ten years ago, out of options, I decided to head back to Boston to try again. A pain clinic put me on an anticonvulsant to manage the pain – not great day-to-day, but pretty excruciating during the lens-fitting process.

The anticonvulsant is what triggered a very rare adverse drug reaction. The drug reaction is what triggered the heart issues.

So … yeah … they were a great option.

My eyeglass prescription is, apparently, extremely complicated, usually requiring several remakes to get it right. Because of this, I don’t buy glasses as a fashion accessory but as a tool, and as rarely as possible.

Polarization helps a lot with the glare. Getting additional pairs of eyeglasses is impractical. The local optometrists and opticians agree :wink: Glare – beyond the discomfort – seems to trigger the production of slime in my eyes (corneal nerve damage), so glare makes my usable vision worse in short order.

I’ll try the voice-operated Uber thing on my wife’s iPhone this weekend. I can probably also guilt a friend with an Android into helping me out, too :wink:

12

Traditional taxis might also be an option - they are usually pretty good about helping those who are limited in their ride-sharing options, especially now that they have a need to differentiate themselves.

13

Are corneal transplants an option?

14

You stop that. I mean stop it right now!

15

Hear hear!

Does that…work?

(I’m not doubting or anything. I mean, I’m down to try it for all of my maladies!)

16

No maladies!

17

This is exactly what I drive, and unfortunately I have to agree with @Tride, that it is a hard no for solving your problem. The self driving stuff just isn’t there yet, and I even have the Full Self Driving beta package.

Imagine being chauffeured by a 15 year old just learning to drive. Sure, the kid can see better than you, but sometimes brakes for no reason, gets in the wrong lane all the damn time, and has no reasonable strategy for handling traffic.

The highway driver assistance stuff like lane keeping and traffic aware cruise control are great, and make highway driving much easier. The around town self driving stuff is the opposite, it makes driving more difficult.

I hope some of the other things people have suggested work out for you.

18

If this is the case, I would instantly nix Tesla from consideration. Everything on Tesla is done on a touch screen including basic things like opening the glove box and Tesla has a habit of randomly moving things around every update and assuming everyone driving is a 25 year old with perfect vision and motor control.

Notably, Tesla offers zero accessibility features and Musk has been pretty vocally hostile about accessibility and inclusion. Stuff like larger font sizes, larger touch targets or high contrast themes simply aren’t an option in the UI. I think you would be absolutely miserable in a Tesla.

19

Great analogy. Many thanks for your experienced insight.

Thanks very much for that, too. People who know physics better than I do could probably put some logic to this, but … some displays work for me. Others don’t. Our home thermostat … I can read … if I tilt my head about 45 degrees.

My laptop display requires a slight head tilt.

Anything I can look at straight on (an upright monitor) works better than anything that lays flat (eg, a tablet not on a stand). I can see – but not use easily or for long (rarely required) the infotainment display on my wife’s 4Runner.

Never looked at a Tesla display, but it quite likely would also be a problem. You’re right.

I periodically, and forcefully, press the spacebar, assuming that’s always how you pause the game. Pfft. Nothing. There must be some comparable keyboard shortcut that could stop the ride and let me off :wink:

Nope. Unless you take your own left cornea and transplant it to your right eye, you risk rejection (which is ugly and – essentially – how I got to this place). You have to be on anti-rejection meds indefinitely, and ain’t nobody thinks that’s okay in my case – too many adverse drug reactions and a diagnosed primary immune deficiency.

Thanks for that. I looked this morning. The old taxi service here became some hybrid Uber/Taxi thing that will let you call them by phone. That might very well be an option, but my understanding (and a look at reviews) shows significant reliability and punctuality issues – probably a non-starter for much of my transport needs, but may work for something with significant lead time and/or flexibility.

Reliance on technology is always potentially fraught. Good reminder.

I’ll have to see who I might know that has a tablet I can dink with. The upside of an incremental device is that I don’t have to cut the cord with my flip phone. While it’s extremely limited, it does do the job that I need it to: allow me to make a call in an emergency.

Even if a tablet were – for me – only a gizmo to hail a ride … that would be enough. I’d really have to figure out the cellular piece, though. My town is rather outstanding for its poor coverage :frowning:

Many thanks to all.

20

Back when taxis were more of a thing, everyone I knew who was a semi-frequent taxi user never bothered with dispatch and always had a guy they would call. If you have a pleasant ride with a taxi driver, ask for their private number. If they’re busy on a run, they’ll usually send one of their friends over. It was always much easier and more pleasant to deal with taxis when you have a guy.

Even when travelling to another city, I’d usually get the number from the driver driving me from the airport because they wanted the ride back and they were available for any other trips that were hard to do on public transit.

From your description of your circumstance, however much you’d be spending on taxis over a year can’t possibly be as much as the cost of owning a Tesla.