
What are the requirements to be a Navigator in a Road Rally event? Reading? Strong Stomach? Composure? What about Vision? At Braille Rallies, you can forget that last requirement. In fact, replace it with blindness.
Often, Braille Rallies are fundraisers for charities, foundations, and schools for the blind. The navigator is provided with the instructions as you’d expect for a rally, but the text is in braille. The driver must rely on their blind navigator for directions, but the driver locates the landmarks mentioned and gets them to the finish.
The idea for these events is not new. While they still go on annually in parts of the country, the events are often as old as rallying itself. The photo shows a checkpoint at a California Sports Car Club Braille Rally in the 1960s.