Tales from the Shark Tank

Part of my job is sitting as an administrative law judge, determining if people should keep their driver’s license when they have medical conditions that their doctors think impair their driving. They get very passionate in their pleas; this is their independence we’re talking about. I understand that.

But today I spent two hours explaining to a gentleman that the reason his license had been invalidated and wasn’t going to be given back wasn’t that his doctor mailed in a medical evaluation late; it was that the evaluation said he couldn’t control the movements of his body and limbs under stress. And he can’t; he sat in the hearing room contorting himself into a pretzel even as he tried to argue that he could drive, he could, if we would only let him prove it. It took him 4 tries to hand me a letter that turned out to be irrelevant. (It was from his state representative, explaining the administrative hearing procedure.) It looked almost like slapstick comedy; hold it out, snatch it back, repeat and repeat — except the snatching back was completely involuntary, and his frustration completely unfunny.

I feel sorry for him. I really do. This must feel like the door of the prison of his body clanging shut. He said he had an appointment with a new neurologist; I offered to wait for her report. I’m not even sure he heard the offer. I know he didn’t respond to it, or really to anything else I said. It’s quite obvious, even to my layman’s eye, that if he responds that badly to a situation where nothing is moving quickly and everyone’s voice is low, he should not be out where he might have to make a split second decision and execute it. My job is to make sure everyone is safe, and I’ve done that. So why do I feel like the bad guy now?

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2003 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Life as I know it. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.