ATZ Driving Solutions

ATZ Driving Solutions provides down to earth and friendly Occupational Therapy Driving assessments and vehicle access consultations for people from teen to centurion. We ensure that they can have their voice heard, and understand all the options for their driving future.

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In a nutshell we tend to group the work provided into 5 categories, but are aware that not only are there often overlaps, but we often have people needing us to create a customised service just for them! So if you don't see what you need, give us a bell, if we can't help, we will endeavour to find someone that can.

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1. Occupational Therapy Fitness to Drive Assessments (Most commonly requested service)

In line with the Austroads Assessing Fitness to Drive and Transport for NSW guidelines on the minimum medical requirements for Driver Fitness, I can provide you with a practical Occupational Therapy Driving Assessment that explores your visual, physical, cognitive and emotional capacity. From completion of this assessment, we can determine if you are fit to resume driving on your standard NSW licence, if you need specialised vehicle modifications to enable you to continue driving, if lessons are required to correct unsafe practices or if driver transition is required. 

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2. Occupational Therapy Potential to Drive Assessments

For those considering the goal of learning to drive, we can provide a specialised assessment to ascertain a person's readiness or likelihood to pass the NSW Learner Driver Knowledge test and have the potential to learn to drive. This assessment is completed before a person get's their L's and provides a clinical opinion on whether they should proceed immediately on the path to obtaining their L's, consider participating in a skill development program to enhance driving readiness or consider alternative options for community access.

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3. Occupational Therapy Heavy Vehicle Driving Assessments

In NSW approximately 12% of the population hold a Heavy Vehicle licence. Driving Heavy Vehicles is a role that brings with it a high degree of risk of accident and injury. In line with this risk the correlation between medical conditions and chronic injuries can further increase this risk. The OT Heavy Vehicle Driving Assessment commences in the standard sedan (C) to confirm fitness to drive and then progresses to assessing the driver in the appropriate licence class- (LR, MR, HR, HC, MC). This assessment if often completed in line with return to work plans to confirm fitness to resume a professional driving occupation.

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4. Vehicle Assessment and conversion consultancy for passengers and drivers

In essence a vehicle conversion assessment explores the barriers being experienced by a person with regards to getting in their personal vehicle. Once the barriers are identified, we undertake demonstrations and trials in line with working with a specialist engineer to prescribe changes and additions to the layout of the vehicle so that it becomes wheelchair accessible.

 

It will depend on the individuals need as to the extent of the conversion. That is, at one end it may just require a ramp or hoist installation to get the wheelchair or mobility aid into the car. At the other end of the spectrum is the full floor conversion so that someone may access the car in their wheelchair and then either drive the car from that same wheelchair or dock the wheelchair and transfer to a modified car seat.

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5. 1:1 tailored skills training for adolescents wanting to increase readiness for learning to drive. 

For those interested in increasing their driving readiness ATZ Driving Solutions offers tailored support sessions to target the areas of concern, increase the client's confidence and independence with specific life skills. This may include transport training, increasing confidence with incidental activities of daily living- such as grocery shopping, or following recipes baking safely, as well as use of the driving simulator to rehearse coordination, observational skills and multi tasking. 

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