Shake Hands

VPG, a new company in Florida, is making a wheelchair ready car, I want to shake their hands! http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/smallbusiness/1007/gallery.vpg_mv1_wheelchair_car/index.html

What a great thing. A car which is fully equipped with a ramp and an accessible drivers seat without having to modify a van or mini-van. I'm quite impressed. While the price tag is $40,000 and up, at least someone is finally thinking about the needs of the handicap world. Hopefully as it becomes more mainstream the price will drop. This article has made my day for sure. I wish my dad had been able to have this option. His van was so hard to drive, it wobbled in the wind and was so difficult on corners. He drove like a turtle because of the turtle top on it. He couldn't go inside parking garages where most handicap van accessible parking places tend to exist. He couldn't even park at the hospital, because the garage ceiling was too low, he had to park in the ambulance bay! This was a hospital!

This car is SUV height, it will fit in normal accessible spots. The article says it's easier to handle, and when you are driving with a hand break, that's a GREAT thing.

The pictures:

The interior is a similar set-up to what his van was, but it's a nice, comfortable size. Having driven his van more than once, this is a wonderful thing for those of us who don't like driving massive vehicles. Way to go on this new invention. Let's keep the out-of-the-box ideas flowing!

Scrambled Eggs Here I Come!

Tomorrow I have ankle surgery #2, this time to remove 2 of the screws which were put in during surgery #1. I am hoping this will be it and my foot will finally feel like it's back on track to mending again. I'll be put in a 'soft cast' and will probably need crutches again along with my walking boot for a few days. This will once again have me thinking of my Dad and all of his struggles to maneuver in a world not meant for the disabled, permanent or temporary.

He went through so many unnecessary pains and frustrations because ADA wasn't much to begin with and in the last several years the regulations have been relaxed. Stupid, no-brainer solutions which could make the lives of so many easier aren't done because they aren't required. My question is, why should they be required in the first place? Don't you want to help someone out by making it easier to enter your place of business for example? Sure some accommodations cost more, but many don't and in some cases if they became the norm could be cheaper.

So tomorrow I have to start fighting for empty handicap parking spaces again because there are never enough, or if there are, they aren't anywhere near a ramp to go onto the sidewalk. I have to hunt to find an automatic door opener, if there is one, and then practically run through the door before it closes again because the button is invariably 4 or 5 feet from the door and on the other side from the door that opens, if it's a double door. I could go on, but why? It just angers me more to think what people, like my Dad, and hopefully temporarily me, have to go through just to have the same rights and freedoms to do things as everyone else. Ever wonder why all of the snow in a parking lot is plowed into the handicapped parking spaces? I have, and other than shear stupidity I have yet to come up with an answer.

I'm sure you are wondering why the eggs then? Well from an earlier blog, you now know scrambled eggs solve everything! So as I recover I'm going to enjoy some to help fight through the pain, but to also remember that there is hope for the ADA to be improved and that people will start to take the initiative to make things easier. Even if it's just one simple accommodation, it makes a difference.

Plus, I'll feel better knowing my Dad is smiling on his famous eggs.