An interview with deaf driving instructor, Fahad Hussain! (BSL)

Hi! Can you tell us who you are please?

Hi everyone, my name is Fahad Hussain and I am a profoundly deaf British Sign Language user. I am based in Northampton.

I am the first fully qualified Deaf Driving instructor and have been teaching learners to drive since 2018. I teach practical driving lessons in the car lessons and I also support and teach driving theory sessions online using BSL too.

What inspired you to become a driving instructor?

Ever since I first learnt to drive – I had lessons with a hearing instructor and I passed! My hearing instructor didn’t use BSL, so I felt as though I didn’t know the in-depth information that I wanted to.

For example, I knew to check the mirrors – but why? What was I meant to be looking for? I felt that hearing pupils were lucky to receive the full information in lessons, whereas I just got the basics.

The challenge of being an instructor varies from day to day, with different pupils of different levels. I love to see my pupils feeling confident and driving safely. When they pass their test I feel so proud, it feels like a real achievement. I always make sure my communication methods adapt to my pupils too and this works well.

I mainly teach deaf people. I have tried teaching hearing pupils, however I found this was still a struggle and it was also quite stressful as I have to focus so intently to understand what they are saying. Using BSL with my pupils is amazing – we can sign together and there’s so much less stress!

I can use beautiful BSL and provide clear access to other BSL users.  There’s no communication stress or missing information. There’s no barriers between us either. I know some hearing instructor can use simple signs but there has been feedback from the pupils that still feel misunderstood or restricted because they are fluent, native BSL users and the instructor isn’t.

My main aim is to make sure my learners pass their tests and drive safely. The difficulty for me is to find different ways and styles of teaching if, for example, a pupil is misunderstanding or struggling with a lesson. I also plan to make materials for theory tests and tuition in BSL as most deaf people I meet find hard the theory aspect the hardest.

No, I would say most deaf people have stronger visual driving skills and focus more in this way than hearing.

I would love to grow my business more and set up workshops for theory tests – as I see so many deaf people struggle to understand the questions.

Follow your dream! Be patient with yourself, be confident and work hard to achieve it!