Email from Motability

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

When looking to see about Motability vehicles, I noticed that they said driving lessons were available, which sounds very helpful. I for one never needed to learn to drive as public transport was perfectly easy to use before the various medical thingummies took hold. But I queried the bit about apparently only younger people being funded and got this reply -

Thank you your recent correspondence.

As you are aware, you do not meet the criteria to enable us to assist you towards the costs of your driving lessons.

It has been decided to target the limited funds available for driving lessons at young drivers aged between 16 and 24 years old. This is to assist young disabled people who are moving from being driven by others to driving themselves and achieving full independence.

This is in no way discriminatory; it just reflects a focused use of available resources.

We will continue to monitor the situation and if additional funds were to become available in the future then the possibility of extending driving lesson provision to others could be investigated.

Sue Quinn
Grants Advisor


So it's OK to pay for youngsters to achieve independence, but not to help someone older to avoid losing it?

I didn't need the use of a private vehicle to maintain/reach independence when I was 16 to 24. I could skip up and down the stairs on the bus, leap from trains onto uneven platforms at Clapham Junction, jog up or down the circular stairs at Camden Town Tube Station and never cared if the escaltors broke down at Embankment Tube Station, as I usually trotted up them in 4inch heels anyway. Why would I have needed a licence to drive a car I wasn't ever going to need to own?

It just seems wrong, as though I'm not worthy of assistance because I'm 37 and too old to be bothered with.


But because I'm old and past helping, I guess I deserve it for -

not having the foresight to realise that I was going to get battered by RA within a couple of years and

using the money that was obviously wasted on rent to pay for driving lessons (which would not have been used as I wouldn't have got a car). :mad:

I shall now go and drink copious quantities of tea, and consider whether I should give up now.

Back to being verbally attacked on the bus again, I suppose.

playbingo

If you have a family, why dont you try the social fund i think they give monies out for parents to learn to drive.

krisskross

RA is such a horrid illness. My husband is going as a day case for a huge whammy of IV steroids next week. Hope it at least means a bit less pain.

A lot of people think it's just a bit of arthritis which is to be expected, we wish. Not many other illnesses use drugs with such dreadful side effects that they can only be prescribed 4 weeks at a time and then only after a satisfactory blood test.

JC9297

But Motability are a charity and have limited resources and have to decide how to allocate those resources. The majority of people who are in their thirties will already have learned to drive, so if they do become disabled driving lessons will not be necessary. It may seem unfair to you but for a young person who has been disabled all of their life the chance to finally have some independence (which you enjoyed when you were younger) must be wonderful, and as Motability does not have endless funds they have to set criteria for who they can help.

atherlon

"This is in no way discriminatory "

Discrimination is a sociological term referring to the treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group that is taken in consideration based on class or category. The United Nations explains: "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection.

seems that Motability meet that critiria !!!!

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

JC9297 wrote: »

The majority of people who are in their thirties will already have learned to drive, so if they do become disabled driving lessons will not be necessary.

So it wouldn't cost them that much then, if it's only a few people that would need it? By the same argument, you could say to someone young 'well, you would have learned anyway'.

And because I had a whole two years of independence past their cut off point, does that really mean that I've had my lot and don't need it anymore?

I understand that they are a charity - had they said 'we can only afford to fund the first 1 000 each year', that's fair enough. But to say anyone over the age of 24 doesn't deserve independence is ridiculous. If they are funding the lessons for some people on the grounds that they can't be expected to pay for it out of their DLA, why are others left in the situation that they have to either spend the money on cabs (and who hasn't been left stranded in the biting cold waiting for a non existent cab to turn up?) or not leave the house in the first place?

They'd be quite happy to take my DLA for a vehicle and pay the insurance for my 17 year old to drive it if I were to nominate her as my driver. It would be a lot cheaper for me to do it for myself - ie, independence because I have to rely on other people (who? I have nobody) to drive me around.


Silly.

mum-of-3

I am going to apply to have driving lessons through my individual budgets. I have never been able to learn due to knee and hip problems but my condition has only become very serious in the past 12mths. I am only a few years over the cut off point.

dmg24

I agree with you Jojo. The sole criteria they are using to allocate this funding is age. There is no reason why someone aged 18 should require/ desire driving lessons more than someone of 38. In that respect, it is discriminatory.

Pete268

dmg24 wrote: »

I agree with you Jojo. The sole criteria they are using to allocate this funding is age. There is no reason why someone aged 18 should require/ desire driving lessons more than someone of 38. In that respect, it is discriminatory.

It is not only age that is the sole funding allocation criteria.. When one looks at the crietria for funded driving lessons on the Motability website:

''Driving Lessons: if aged between 16 and 24, and in receipt of the Higher Rate Mobility Component, you may be eligible for help towards the cost of driving lessons''

Thus it also rules out the very young veterans severely injured in such as Iraq and Afghanistan etc and who receive the War Pensioners Mobility Supplement instead of the Higher Rate Mobility Component of DLA.

Many of these young lads and lasses (the youngest being 18) could not drive before becoming injured, often very severely, in the line of duty and are ruled out from receiving help to learn to drive because they receive the 'wrong' allowance.

Perhaps Motability need to review their entire policy on the issue of driving lessons.

Peter

Tally-Ho_2

Pete268 wrote: »

It is not only age that is the sole funding allocation criteria.. When one looks at the crietria for funded driving lessons on the Motability website:

''Driving Lessons: if aged between 16 and 24, and in receipt of the Higher Rate Mobility Component, you may be eligible for help towards the cost of driving lessons''

Thus it also rules out the very young veterans severely injured in such as Iraq and Afghanistan etc and who receive the War Pensioners Mobility Supplement instead of the Higher Rate Mobility Component of DLA.

Many of these young lads and lasses (the youngest being 18) could not drive before becoming injured, often very severely, in the line of duty and are ruled out from receiving help to learn to drive because they receive the 'wrong' allowance.

Perhaps Motability need to review their entire policy on the issue of driving lessons.

Peter

That's terrible.
Considering they have been injured serving their country, one would think the least that could be done would be to provide such as driving lessons in order that they can obtain some level of mobility.
I sometimes wonder which way this country is heading.
Tally

dmg24

Pete268 wrote: »

It is not only age that is the sole funding allocation criteria.. When one looks at the crietria for funded driving lessons on the Motability website:

''Driving Lessons: if aged between 16 and 24, and in receipt of the Higher Rate Mobility Component, you may be eligible for help towards the cost of driving lessons''

Thus it also rules out the very young veterans severely injured in such as Iraq and Afghanistan etc and who receive the War Pensioners Mobility Supplement instead of the Higher Rate Mobility Component of DLA.

Many of these young lads and lasses (the youngest being 18) could not drive before becoming injured, often very severely, in the line of duty and are ruled out from receiving help to learn to drive because they receive the 'wrong' allowance.

Perhaps Motability need to review their entire policy on the issue of driving lessons.

Peter

As Jojo was enquiring about the entitlement of DLA HRM claimants to driving lessons, I did not feel the need to repeat that criteria.

With regards to entitlement for veterans, perhaps you could ask on the Forces Moneysaving board for information about charities that may be able to provide funding?