Less Able Motoring – Can Wheelchair Users Drive In Style? Is A WAV CHAV?

We are called Blue Badge Style so it would be amiss of us not to take a look into stylish accessible vehicles at some point. For a long time the notion of a stylish wheelchair accessible vehicle (WAV) was a completely alien concept. But nowadays there are far more options out there for less able motorists. It’s realistically possible to convert a wide variety of cars in order to make them more accessible, or even to buy a vehicle that you can drive while remaining in your wheelchair.

The days of the Invalid Carriage, a little one person buggy for disabled people, are long gone. For decades, cash schemes like Motability and charities such as  Disability Motoring and Mobility Choice have been assisting less able people onto the roads. More than 600,000 people now take advantage of Motability and the options available to them are better than ever. These days able-bodied friends are as likely to be envious of a disabled friend’s car as the other way round. In 2003, those antiquated Invalid Carriages were banned, called in and crushed. From a stylistic point of view that was really not a bad thing.

There are basically two broad options for less able motorists (although there are many different things to consider within these options). The first option is to buy accessible driving aids for a car you already own. Aids include push or pull controls, steering aids – like a steering ball or peg, left foot accelerators, hoists, lifts and easy releases. These let you adapt the car you already have and work with most cars. Theoretically, you can adapt any automatically geared car. Good places to look into these products more are at Jeff Gosling or Alfred Bekker. They both have extensive ranges of driving hand products.

The other option, for people who want or need to remain in their wheelchair and can’t easily transfer to the driver’s seat, is to get a specialist Drive From Wheelchair Vehicle. Due to the practical implications, of needing to fit a wheelchair into the car and the amount of space that that requires, these cars are all pretty large. In short, they’re people carriers – not the most stylish vehicles in the world. But there are some pretty good options out there.

One of the better cars is the Sirius I Can. It’s based on a Volkswagen Caddy and enables you to drive from the comfort of your own chair, eliminating strenuous transfer or assisted help. There is an extendable ramp at the back of the car and then a clear path up to the driver’s seat. The boot and ramp have a remote opening system so you can open them from a distance.

The I-Can has lowering rear suspension meaning that, once the ramp is deployed, you have a much lower floor entry point and a shallower ramp angle. Because of the space needed to wheel in, there are only three seats, as standard, but you can add folding seats to make it up to a five seater. The distributors can also provide a broad range of driver aids tailored to individual, specific needs.

The Bekker CareVan is based on Chrysler Grand Voyager and is a pretty huge beast of a car. You might recognise this model as being the car that the contestants are driven around in (and shout at each other in) on The Apprentice.

The floor of the CareVan has been professionally lowered from the bulkhead to the rear bench seat, and replaced with a level floor, some 10 inches lower than the original. The wheelchair occupant can either drive from wheelchair, be a wheelchair passenger, a front seat driver/passenger (using the standard seat or an optional electrically operated six way seat) or secured in the middle row – loads of options for wheelchair users.

The ramped entrance is in the middle of the car, between the front and back seats. The front seats are able to rotate 180 degrees and can be inserted or taken out of the car as and when you need them. This is a massive, American vehicle which fits up to six people and is also very flexible for wheelchair users in terms of how you want to use it and where you want to sit.

The Peugeot Impulse is a little bit more compact than the Bekker and seats up to four people. But it is also very flexible in terms of who wants to sit where. Unusually, two wheelchairs can fit in at the front of the car. It comes with a driver’s seat and a passenger’s seat but either or both are easily removed to accommodate a powered or manual wheelchair. Then there are optional fold down seats in the back of the vehicle which can be used as well.

You can get into the car using the rear remote operated electric tailgate and flat floor system, then secure yourself into the locking station and drive off to wherever you want. Alternatively, there is the option to leave the front seat in and transfer from your wheelchair inside the car. This avoids the problem of transferring directly from the ground to a car seat. It’s not the most stylish car in the world but nor is it too bad to look at either.

There are also a couple of sites selling used WAVS that might be worth taking a look at, especially if you’re looking for a wheel-in vehicle. One is the Alfred Bekker site which seems to be one of the most stylish and classy websites for disabled motoring products in general. Another place that sells used WAVs is Sirius Automotives – also worth checking out.

This weekend, there is an event in Donnington Park which is a excellent opportunity for anyone who wants to discover more about adapted motoring to do so. It’s called Get Going Live and it’s an all day driving experience devoted to adapted vehicles. Visitors will be able to test drive a range of adapted cars, experience all-terrain mobility vehicles or simply to gain advice and information from mobility experts.

The event is on July 13th, it starts at 10am and finishes at 4pm. It’s taking place at the Launch Pad, a self-contained, fully accessible venue at Donington Park with ample parking. Anyone who is 14 or older is welcome to come along for free and try out the cars and there will be qualified drivers to help them out. It should be a good chance to find out more about the latest products available for less able motorists.

You can just turn up but if you know that you want to attend it helps them if you register here before you go. That way they’ll know how many people to expect – admittedly, at this stage there probably isn’t much they can alter dependent on the expected number of attendees but it doesn’t take very long and you’ll also be entered in a prize draw to win a VIP adapted skid car experience.

Get Going Live will be a good way to find out more about motoring for the less able. But if you can’t make it or just want to know more we’d suggest taking a look at all the resources we’ve included links to in our guide. There are many sites out there which focus on WAVs and it’s obviously important to find out as much as possible about them. We hope to have helped with our introduction and to have made some good suggestions. Please get in touch with us if you have any personal experience of expertise regarding adapted vehicles.