Unique Auto

Posts Tagged ‘wheelchair’

Aavans.com Crash Testing and Wheelchair Vans

The mobility industry is an interesting one, for many reasons, but mainly because it’s somewhat elusive.What I mean is that information is sometimes difficult to gather.   For this post, I will concentrate on crash testing because it is interesting to look at differences between buying a regular vehicle and buying a converted van for wheelchair accessibility. 

When you shop for a regular vehicle, let’s say a Honda Odyssey minivan, do you question whether the vehicle has passed all the government safety requirements?  Probably not, I never have.  I have purchased 4 cars in my life and never once asked if the vehicle had been crash tested.  It is something I think the majority of us just assume, that the vehicle we are buying has been crash tested, and has passed.

Did you know that all modifiers of vehicles, like VMI, have to re-crash the vans we build after they are modified.  Since we change the structure of the original vehicle, by cutting off the floor, NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) requires the van be crash tested again.

When you are shopping for wheelchair accessible vans, ensure the van you are looking at passes all NHTSA crash test requirements.This especially becomes important when shopping the manufacturers who sell wheelchair vans direct and don’t use a network of Mobility Equipment Dealers.How do you verify that these companies have passed all federal regulations in terms of crash testing the van?I would first contact NMEDA (National Mobility Equipment Dealers Association) and determine what is required.  I would then contact the manufacturer of the van you are looking at purchasing and ask them

Aavans.com  – Crash Testing and Wheelchair Vans

Wheelchair Vans – Mobility Vans

Take a look at Aavans.com today!

When I returned home from the hospital, I was greeted by a cheering, crying crowd of friends and relatives. I attempted to smile, but when my wife and little girl came before me,i started crying. It had been over a year since I had seen my daughter in the flesh, and I couldn’t contain myself. Generally soldiers are perceived to be tough, but it is all right for the fathers and husbands to cry a bit some times. I was not aware what i should look forward to or how she is going to feel about my new mode of transport. Last fall I was injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq and since then I have been paralyzed from the waist down. My daughter, Sarah, just smiled and said “Daddy.”

It has been several months since then and I still worry about my family. I worry about how they are going to take car of me. To start wth, i had no clue on how they are going to move me into our van. That was the time when my wife started inquiring about handicap lifts.Handicap lifts are devices that help disabled people get from their wheelchairs into their vehicles. It looks a bit like your own private swing that is attached to a luggage rack. You simply take a seat in your lift and then you can easily be moved to your vehicle. All handicap lifts have wheels on the bottom, so it is easy to move someone on the driveway right up to the car seat. Handicap liftsalso have hand cranks that allow you to lift someone as high as you need to easily transfer them into the vehicle. Once the person is sitting comfortably in the car, most of the handicap lifts could be folded and easily stored in a trunk or backseat. They do not even need to be disassembled.

Although it was very difficult for me or my family to cope with my new condition, handicap lifts paved the way for a smoother transition. Atleast we need not be bothered about how to transport daddy in and out of the family minivan. And mommy doesn’t have to start weight lighting or eating raw eggs so she can lift me into my seat.This new handicap lift is a great addition to our already installed stair lift in the house, and makes every day easier.

When our parents died when we were teenagers, I knew I’d have to grow up fast and help take care of my sister, Jess.  She’s a quadriplegic and has been in a wheelchair she was born. Since i was her elder brother, I always had to care for her, but i never took it as chore since the reality is that she also cared for me. When i finally acquired my licence, jess was too happy. She said that she had not seen much of the world since she was confined to that chair, but now she wishes to see all the wonderful places. I never felt bad with my little sister coming along with me most of the places i visited. But one thing really bothered me and that was loading and unloading that massive wheelchair of hers. It was one of those motorized things and must have weighed around a hundred pounds. Either that or I’m just weak. But ofcourse i couldn’t tell any thing to her. But i begun to acquire a wheelchair lift straight away.

Shopping for a wheelchair lift is like shopping for anything else—you wouldn’t believe how many different models they have! There are basically two type ofwheelchair lifts that can be used for you vehicle—an internal wheelchair lift and an external one. An internal wheelchair lift is secured inside the trunk of your vehicle and it slowly hoists the chair into your trunk, while the external models attach to the hitch of your car or truck and lift the chair into the trunk. Because of storage reasons, I decided to go with the internal wheelchair lift.

Jess reacted very positively and smiled on seeing her new lift. It was revealed later on that she was also bothered by the pains i took in loading and unloading the wheelchair for quite sometime.

“That’s sweet,” I said. “But you didn’t have to worry about me.”

“I wasn’t,” she said, and smiled. “I thought you were going to drop my chair.”

We both laughed for a long time. Then we got in the car and went out for a bite to eat. Since we have acquired this new wheelchair lift ,loading and unloading her chair requires almost no effort – almost as simple as operating the stair lift at home. It seems so surprising to me that i spent so much time struggling with it in the past. But hey, that’s what big brothers are for.

My younger brother, Stephen, was born with cerebral palsy. For those of you who don’t know, cerebral palsy is a disorder that limits the movement of those who have it. People suffering from CP face a tough time speaking and communicating. I don’t understand a lot about it, but I know it means that Stephen is going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, even though he’s not paralyzed. He can move and even crawl around quite well. but for the people suffering from cerebral palsy walking is really tough and at times can be painful. Last year Stephen acquired a motorized wheelchair. He quickly learned to operate it. But my mom had a problem with it. Whereever she took it, she found it tough to get in and out of her minivan. Motorized wheelchairs are heavy and unwieldy, she said. Not that I know what unwieldy means. That’s when dad looked intowheelchairs lifts.

Wheelchair lifts do exactly what you might expect—they help you lift a heavy or unwieldy wheelchair into the back of your car, truck, or van. Wheelchair liftscome in two types: external lifts and internal lifts. The external lifts fit perfectly on to the hitch of your car in the back, Where as internal ones are kept safely in the trunk and can let your chair climb very quickly. Since Stephen’s wheelchair is a little heavier than most, my parents looked at models of external wheelchair lifts.

The model they ended up choosing can lift up to 350 pounds and is really easy to use. Stephen just drives his chair onto the ramp and it’s ready to be loaded. After the durable, metal ramp is locked into place, it does all the work by itself. Even a power source is not needed for it! When these wheelchair lifts are finished doing their job, they can even be folded up for easy storage.

Mom loves the freedom wheelchair lifts have given our family. Now she can take Stephen’s wheelchair just about anywhere without having to worry about getting it in and out of her minivan.

Grandpa’s personality acquired a new colour after becoming a proud owner of the new mobility scooter. You must watch him! It takes him over night to charge it and in the morning he zooms off. He rides on it downtown on the sidewalks and smiles,beeps and acknowledges every passerby. He claims that he never enjoyed so much. Before he got his new scooter, grandpa hardly left the house, and now you can’t keep him inside on a sunny day. But one thing still worried grandpa. After he was done with spinning his wheels, he faced tough times pushing his mobility scooter into the trunk of his car. Even though scooters are very light but they are still heavier for the grandpa to lift it. Oftentimes, he had to stop a stranger on the street and ask for help, which always embarrassed him. Grandpa takes pride in being a self dependent man. And that’s why he was so happy when mother bought him a scooter lift for his birthday.

A scooter lift does just what you might expect—it helps grandpa lift his mobility scooter into his car. The scooter lift my mom bought for him is easy to use. You need not have to be bolted on the car,it is simply attached to the hitch of the car. It runs on the battery of the scooter itself. Grandpa just connects it to the battery and the scooter lift does the rest. After only a few moments, the scooter lifthoists the mobility scooter up high enough so that grandpa can guide it into the open trunk. Then he just removes the scooter lift from the hitch and places it in the trunk right alongside the scooter. Its that simple! You can break nearly all the lifts into three constituent pieces, so they can be kept preserved any where.

Now grandpa can move around,with out seeking help from strangers, for as long as he desires. His new scooter lift allows him to the freedom and independence he has always cherished. Mother is happy, too. She claims that she never found her father so much full of live and vigour. She says she aspires to be like him when she reaches his age. I hope that, too.

Wheelchair accessible vehicles make it possible for those, who have limited mobility to travel so that they can move around with more ease and comfort. They are a range of vehicles that have been modified to permit the people who use wheelchairs to use them. Most of the adjustments done are something like lowering the floor and adding a ramp or adding a power lift in order to lift the chair from ground to the level of the floor of the wheelchair accessible vehicles. They are fitted either on the side or behind the vehicle.

There are over 500 different wheelchair accessible vehicles, so you can always find one that suits your needs according to your individual requirements. In addition, nowadays these wheelchair accessible vehicles look good. One can not makeout by looking at the exterior of the vehicles that the enhancements have been installed. A lot of them are so well designed that there is hardly any difference in finishing and conditions of the orignal vehicle.

A great number of wheelchair accessible vehicles are transformed, in a way that allows a person using a wheelchair to travel or even actually drive them. While sitting on the wheelchair,mostly they have to sit on the back seat,but some models enable them to sit on the front seat too. All wheelchair accessible vehicles provide extra room for the wheelchair user along with the driver.

Such vehicles are usually preferred by people who need the wheelchair to move, because it is much easier getting in and out while remaining in the wheelchair instead of being carried by someone from the wheelchair into a car and then putting the wheelchair in the vehicle. Though such vehicles promise some mobility solutions for most wheelchair users, it is very important to have a number of test drives to make sure whether a wheelchair accessible vehicle might suit a specific person or not.

Every wheelchair accessible vehicle company has an expert in it’s rolls,which advises on the kind of mobility solution required, that could meet every person’s special needs. As such majority of the automaticle and manual vehicles can be modified with out a problem and they can be equipped with simple hand controls meant for steering, braking and acceleration. But the most user friendly controls are those which are convenient,very comfortable and could be used in a secured manner.

Since so many years, these vehicles have made lives of the wheelchair users, independent and funfilled and thats why figure highly in the list of physically challenged people as one of their basic needs. Those models , which due importance to security, comfort and convenience, always give it’s users a more stress free and fun filled experience.