For over 30 years having a wheelchair accessible vehicle has meant getting in through the back, loosing rear seats and staying in the back where the luggage should go, or, if you are really lucky, sitting in the front but still loosing a lot of the original vehicle’s features.

Times change, and what is expected from wheelchair accessible vehicles should change too. And we didn’t think a new ramp or a luggage net is really good enough.

Now imagine its 2008, and a design enables you to travel up front, to access the vehicle the same way any car passenger would – via the front door, and without loosing any of the rear seats or features of the original vehicle. That’s what we imagined. And what we managed to do.

The feeling of getting into a car instead of straight up a ramp while ducking your head to avoid the roof line is something that people who travel in wheelchairs are very used to. A feeling of getting into a car in a completely different way with the wheelchair being in position even before you get into the car just can’t be described in words. Believe us – we have tried. The feeling of sitting next to the driver, with a door next to you and the centre console in front of you – it’s pretty much one thing you can expect when you buy a car. Unless you stay in a wheelchair when you travel.

For many years we have built and sold rear access wheelchair accessible vehicles along with others in the UK. Every time a new vehicle that allows enough headroom and space is launched we all look at ways of adding a ramp and wheelchair channel to the back and the result is a selection of vehicles that allow you to enter from the rear, and usually stay in the rear. Some are affordable with basic design and equipment, some are more expensive with better materials, but you still end up in the same place.

New base vehicles that are launched get better and better every year. More standard equipment, more extras and entertainment features, better safety features and overall, better design. The only problem is it’s very rare that a new vehicleis launched without all of this great new stuff being in the front. The rear of a car tends to be seats, and maybe a cup holder. Perhaps electric windows, if you can reach them. What’s the point in an iPod compatible stereo that manufacturers are only too keen to tell you about if you can’t reach the stereo in the first place? The airbags in the front – excellent. If you are in the front.

That made us wonder why people still accept this. For years we have sold rear access accessible vehicles, and people have on the whole been very happy with them. But is this because they genuinely don’t want any of the features non-disabled people expect and demand from new cars, or is it just because they are so used to not having a choice?

From now on, there is a choice. And we hope that in 10 years, we don’t ever have to sell a rear entry wheelchair accessible vehicle again.

www.wav-evolution.co.uk

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