Motability questions

sunnyone

A Suzuki life is already adapted as its a drive from wheelchair/powerchair, it has a lowered floor to allow you to drive your chair into the vehicle, you then wheel into the drivers seat space with auto lock down and drive off using the hand controls in the same way as I do.

scoped1

sunnyone wrote: »

A Suzuki life is already adapted as its a drive from wheelchair/powerchair, it has a lowered floor to allow you to drive your chair into the vehicle, you then wheel into the drivers seat space with auto lock down and drive off using the hand controls in the same way as I do.

Just out of interest, do you have a lot of upper body movement/strength?
because looking at photos of the suzuki life, it seems it has a steering wheel, which i know for sure i would be unable to use -
My arm strength is very minimal and limited.
I have a friend with a similar disability who got an adapted vito through motability a few years ago, (I don't know the full details of who paid what for what, but he was in full time work)
and his arm strength is probably slightly less than mine, so he had a lot of hand controls, like a joy stick type thing for steering and accelerating/breaking. So from that, it seems my extremely limited strength wouldn't stop me being able to drive a correctly adapted vehicle.

This just seems frustrating, as I can't work due to my disability and other problems, and it's inevitable that I'm going to have to move on to a full time care package, and I can see it leaving me extremely isolated and unable to visit or see my family often.

The grant system doesn't really make sense; to me at least, in that it seems to penalise me for having a severe disability that renders me unable to work. Surely means testing for grants would make more sense because if I could work, I would surely have more money available to myself to purchase a car?
Furthermore, even if I was able to work, I would be unable to get a job, because I have no means of actually getting to a place of work, so it seems a catch 22 as far as that is concerned.

sunnyone

scoped1 wrote: »

Just out of interest, do you have a lot of upper body movement/strength?
because looking at photos of the suzuki life, it seems it has a steering wheel, which i know for sure i would be unable to use -
My arm strength is very minimal and limited.
I have a friend with a similar disability who got an adapted vito through motability a few years ago, (I don't know the full details of who paid what for what, but he was in full time work)
and his arm strength is probably slightly less than mine, so he had a lot of hand controls, like a joy stick type thing for steering and accelerating/breaking. So from that, it seems my extremely limited strength wouldn't stop me being able to drive a correctly adapted vehicle.

This just seems frustrating, as I can't work due to my disability and other problems, and it's inevitable that I'm going to have to move on to a full time care package, and I can see it leaving me extremely isolated and unable to visit or see my family often.

The grant system doesn't really make sense; to me at least, in that it seems to penalise me for having a severe disability that renders me unable to work. Surely means testing for grants would make more sense because if I could work, I would surely have more money available to myself to purchase a car?
Furthermore, even if I was able to work, I would be unable to get a job, because I have no means of actually getting to a place of work, so it seems a catch 22 as far as that is concerned.

I have very little upper body strength and very limited use of my primary hand, with a little bit more use of my left hand and the type of steering and hand controls I have can be altered as my condition deteriates.

The life was just a suggestion, drive by wire (which sounds like what your friend has) is very, very expensive as in the tens of thousands just for the steering adaptions, I can see why the grants have to be targeted to those in work and education, the limited pot must help as many people as possible and providing you and me with fully funded adapted vehicles would cost well over 100k for just two people.

If you did find a job access to work will provide you with transport.

scoped1

would the motability car - with 7k up front, have those specialised controls?

or is that added on top?

I was just talking hypothetically about jobs really, i know a disabled accessible taxi from here costs about £20 to get to the nearest town,
so it seems £40 a day, or £180 a week, would stack up as a cost pretty quickly.

I understand it needs to help the most people, but shouldn't it also help the most at need? I mean when i was talking to the person who helps me organise care, he said the way care works, i wouldn't be able to get them insured like my current carer is, as they have a large pool of carers.
It just seems that when I have to move, I'm completely stuck, and it feels a pretty helpless place to be in. I mean, All i hear from social workers is how there's this and that to help you independent, but how am i meant to be independent if i can't even get out my house...
sorry if it sounds like im ranting a bit, it's just it feels like this move is coming - that's why i enquired about motability in the first place, and it just seems it's tough luck that I won't be able to get out and do things.

sunnyone

scoped1 wrote: »

would the motability car - with 7k up front, have those specialised controls?

or is that added on top?

I was just talking hypothetically about jobs really, i know a disabled accessible taxi from here costs about £20 to get to the nearest town,
so it seems £40 a day, or £180 a week, would stack up as a cost pretty quickly.

I understand it needs to help the most people, but shouldn't it also help the most at need? I mean when i was talking to the person who helps me organise care, he said the way care works, i wouldn't be able to get them insured like my current carer is, as they have a large pool of carers.
It just seems that when I have to move, I'm completely stuck, and it feels a pretty helpless place to be in. I mean, All i hear from social workers is how there's this and that to help you independent, but how am i meant to be independent if i can't even get out my house...
sorry if it sounds like im ranting a bit, it's just it feels like this move is coming - that's why i enquired about motability in the first place, and it just seems it's tough luck that I won't be able to get out and do things.

For £7k AP it wont have drive by wire steering, most of the AP will be for the auto box, the basic hand controls are free.

It dosnt matter how many carers you have if you have both parts of their drivers licences to ring RSA/fax through copies so that you can change drivers daily if that's how it will work out when you move, if you need to insure 50 carers over the course of the year it dosnt matter as there is no maximum number just that you can only have two named drivers at a time.

Would a people carrier/hoist with hand controls do if you cant get a drive from, at least then the carer can load up your chair and you can drive the car? Not independance but access to a car you can drive nothing else comes along.

I certainly understand what you mean about the more seriously disabled deserving more help from the grants dept., the more disabled you become the more reliant on others you become so any tiny little bit of independance becomes even more important, independance of any kind is expensive and while it is now possible to drive with one stump providing one vehicle to a one stump driver could mean that thousands of other disabled people are stuck at home 24/7/365.

ATW will pay for the taxi minus the normal bus fare that an AB would pay.