Drive, determination makes truck special

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 27/09/2024 (730 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MUNICIPALITY OF NORTH CYPRESS-LANGFORD — Alberto Dallari manoeuvres his 2022 white Chevrolet Silverado Trail Boss crew cab down a gravel road in his rural subdivision about 50 kilometres east of Brandon.

As Dallari brakes and accelerates, he uses his left hand — not his foot. And on the steering wheel is a ball-shaped knob he uses with his right hand, to steer and turn the truck with ease.

“I also had zero-effort steering put in, making it really easy for me,” said Dallari, “because of my strength.”

Dallari was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when he was seven years old and as the condition progressed, he lost the use of his legs when he was in his 40s.

“I would fall down unexpectedly and then I couldn’t get up, so the doctor told me I should be going in a chair. So, I did. And that’s when I lost my driver’s licence,” he said.

“But I thought how am I going to drive? Growing up on a farm in Italy, I was driving a tractor and other equipment when I was nine. And now, I was faced with I can’t even get into a car. But that’s when I found out about mobility equipment,” said Dallari.

Through the business Brandon Mobility, Dallari said he was able to maintain his independence by driving. The Silverado is the latest vehicle he has had modified.

The rack-and-pinion steering was taken out and sent to a supplier in California, adapted with zero-effort steering and then sent back. But everything else, Dallari said, was completed at the local Wheat City business.

“They put in the customized hand controls, so I pull back towards me to accelerate, and I push forward to brake. And that’s something I had to get used to. At first it was actually weird — and pretty hard to go from driving with your legs to using your hands,” he said.

The driver’s seat in the Silverado is a regular seat, but the base is different. It has been modified so it moves back and then swings out.

“It swings me out of the truck and then lowers me down to the level of my wheelchair so that I can transfer onto it,” Dallari explained as he demonstrated how he moved from the truck to his chair.

This is the not the first truck that Dallari has had modified. But he said his 2022 Silverado is easier to drive because it has the gearshift in the middle console and not on the steering wheel, so he can use his right hand to go from park and drive to reverse.

And, he added, he’s going to install a snow plow on the front bumper.

“I’ve always liked trucks,” said Dallari.

“And because we live out in the country, I thought maybe I could clean the snow myself. It gives me something that I feel I can do, you know? And then I can help my wife Linda at the same time. She really likes this plow idea, so she doesn’t have to do it,” he said as he laughed.

Dallari relies on his wife’s help to get from his truck seat to his wheelchair, but for total independence he rides into his 2018 Toyota Sienna — on his scooter.

His Toyota van was designed with wheelchair accessibility in mind by a U.S.-based company, Vantage Mobility International, which hollowed out the vehicle’s interior.

“The van is great because I don’t have to get off my wheelchair, since there is no seat where the driver is,” said Dallari, “and there’s a lock on the floor that is the same idea as a fifth wheel on a truck.

“And on the passenger side back door, a ramp comes out, so I just drive in, I don’t even get off my scooter. And while I drive, I have the same hand controls, the same zero-effort steering.”

Maintaining his independence is fiercely important to 58-year-old Dallari. So is speaking up for himself.

There were challenges back in 2008 as he was trying to get his driver’s licence back, which included taking tests at a rehabilitation hospital in Winnipeg, attached to the Health Sciences Centre.

Dallari had to prove to Manitoba Public Insurance that he had the medical fitness to drive.

One of the tests included turning the steering wheel on a simulator, which he could not do and was about to be denied when he said he got an idea.

“I asked the lady testing me if we could go down to an actual car to see if I could steer, and when I did it, she said, ‘OK, you can do it,’ Dallari recalled.

“And the reason I couldn’t turn the prototype — that dummy steering wheel — was because there was something wrong with it, they ended up calling an engineer to fix it.

“So, if it wasn’t for my persistence, she would have failed me.”

And that’s the message Dallari said he has for other people who may be in the same situation he is in.

“I want to show people who have a disability that it might still be possible that they can drive.

“I could have easily given up, but my personality is — keep going and do whatever I can, and I guess when I can’t do it, well, I guess I won’t do it.

“But until then, I’m still driving.”

» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com

» X: @enviromichele