Is car culture good for disabled people?

[liv]

Out of frustration with pandemic restriction arguments on Twitter, I made a comment saying, why don't we just ban cars instead of all these daft rules? And immediately got several replies of, but that's ableist! Obviously banning cars completely from one day to the next is not in any serious sense feasible. Fine. But it's exactly the same knee-jerk response you see, sincerely, anytime anyone makes a suggestion for any planning policy which makes things even the tiniest bit worse for drivers: what about disabled people?!

I just don't believe it, basically. And maybe this is my ableist prejudices but I really think this 'what about disabled people?' shows a similar bias to the way that any move at all to encourage driving alternatives is immediately 'too expensive', but the ongoing cost of cars and the damage they cause is just normal and therefore invisible. I don't think a culture where the only reasonable way to get anywhere is to drive is good for disabled people any more than it's good for any other humans.

I acknowledge that there are some people who really can't travel anywhere except by car. And they do need to be accommodated. But surely there must be at least as many people whose disabilities mean that they can't drive, and who are screwed over by the total inaccessibility of the world to non-drivers? Why is it ableist to exclude people who are 100% car dependent, but not ableist to exclude people who can't use cars? Epilepsy, some cognitive issues, visual impairments, in addition to a range of physical disabilities and body differences which mean that only highly customized vehicles would be usable and those aren't available except to ultra-rich disabled people.

I would guess that most disabled people are somewhere in between these two extremes of must always drive and can't ever drive. If driving is cheaper and more convenient and less tiring than other forms of transport, then the gap is going to be wider for many disabled people than for abled people who can choose to do the less convenient thing in order to promote social good. But it's not a law of nature that driving is easier, it's because driving is heavily subsidized and towns are built to make driving as convenient as possible, and if this were changed then a higher proportion of disabled people would be able use other forms of transport.

On a very simple level, if all public transport had level access, and enough space for several wheelchairs, and seats comfortable for a wide range of bodies, disabled people wouldn't "have to" drive instead of taking trains and buses. If accessible public transport were also affordable, and served most places frequently, then disabled passengers wouldn't be unfairly restricted by needing to rely on public transport. Also if we didn't fill up the roads with one car per adult, public transport would be able to move much faster so disabled people, who might be more time-pressured than some abled people, wouldn't need to worry about a half-hour journey taking two hours by public transport.

Equally, if towns were designed for, rather than against, active transport, then many disabled people would also be more able to get around without needing a car. Wide, unobstructed pavements are good for wheelchair users as well as foot-passengers. More disabled people would be able to ride bikes if there were safe, segregated cycle infrastructure and you didn't have to be able to cycle and react fast to dodge cars. And some disabled people who can't ride a standard bike can ride a trike as long as there's enough space for a wider pedal vehicle as well as a narrow one. If pedestrians and cyclists weren't squeezed into sharing the same inadequate spaces then wheelchair and scooter users would be able to mix with either (depending on speed) without everybody obstructing or colliding with everybody else.

If there were fewer cars there would be less air pollution and people whose disabilities include respiratory problems would have fewer symptoms. There would also be fewer disabling injuries caused by road accidents, if it's acceptable to mention prevention of acquiring disability as a benefit. All the bad effects of climate change, which over-use of cars hugely accelerates, are likely to be at least as bad for disabled people as for abled people, so I would argue that disabled people benefit from more environmentally sustainable transport in the long term even if it is more disabling than cars in the short term. But mostly I don't think it should be; underfunded, bad public transport which competes at a huge and contrived disadvantage with cars disables people, but good public transport, which is what I am arguing for, would not.

I think when people say that we can't have pedestrianized city centres, or reduce the amount of space dedicated to parking, or restrict or financially penalize the most polluting cars, or create Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (currently a huge controversy around here), because 'what about disabled people?' they are possibly thinking of disabled people who are do not have the capacity to travel independently from their home to a station where they could pick up public transport. At the moment, because public transport is extremely inadequate, this could be a very long distance, but some disabled people aren't able to travel even short distances, even with the best available mobility aids. Honestly, if we had human-friendly towns and cities and prioritized infrastructure for public and active transport over infrastructure for cars, we could make accommodations for the small numbers of people who still couldn't travel.

IOW, I'm ok with cars as mobility aids for people who really need them. Those disabled drivers (or perhaps passengers of publicly subsidized taxis?) would have a much better time than currently because the roads wouldn't be overcrowded, and there would be parking near all facilities because there wouldn't be any competition with all the abled drivers for the prime spots.

So what am I missing here? Is it really ableist to ever even consider supporting transport solutions other than each individual driving a single private car? Do we have to put up with all the fatalities caused directly by too many cars and indirectly by climate disaster forever because doing anything about it at all is ableist? My feeling is that what's ableist is making isolated changes without thinking through the consequences in an integrated way, but refusing to even imagine a better approach doesn't seem like the right answer.

Comments

[lannamichaels]

I have not seen very many pedestrianized spaces, but the designs I have seen are anti-vehicle in general. That does allow wheelchairs, but it assumes everyone who isn't using a wheelchair is able to walk and to carry things long distance. It doesn't seem to include public transit options, it just seems to be presented (the ones I've seen) as: walking is great! cars/vehicles are bad! everyone can walk! This could also include paving that's very bumpy, because that's more romantic, or stairs, because of whatever reasons that make people love stairs as a design element.

My only experience of those as concepts was a shopping place I went to a few years ago that was some streets blocked off to traffic. It was close enough to public transit that I was able to walk to and from, but I also wasn't carrying anything (struck out on the shopping trip) or having to go up or down stairs.

I don't drive and I get away with this by living in a place with decent public transit + delivery options. But there's still lots of times I have to get a cab to get to places that transit doesn't go to, or would go to but it would take hours. I once waited alone for two hours at a suburban subway station for a train because I just missed the last one due to someone else's fault, and the next one was in two hours. A car ride would have taken maybe 20 minutes top, but I couldn't get a cab to come out that far to get me. And this was in the good place where there even was a public transit option.

I guess I have a knee-jerk reaction because I see off-the-cuff remarks that go from "no cars = instant paradise!" without adding in the step of "improve public transit a lot + no cars = instant paradise". And even then, there's gonna be needs for private and on-demand vehicles. It just often feels like it comes from the same place as "remove mobility aids = good thing". It's like, the ideal utopia is one I can't live in because there's fricking stairs all over the place. ;)

(I nearly got into a fight with a NIBMY who only wants to build walk-ups around here and no elevator buildings because of the character of the neighborhood. The character of the neighborhood includes no one who can't do stairs, apparently.)

[lilysea]

(I nearly got into a fight with a NIBMY who only wants to build walk-ups around here and no elevator buildings because of the character of the neighborhood. The character of the neighborhood includes no one who can't do stairs, apparently.)

My power wheelchair using self wants to run over their feet...

[lannamichaels]

I am deeply frustrated by the whole trend of replacing houses-that-were-broken-into-apartments-after-they-were-built with apartments-but-looking-like-single-family-houses, because around here that means that even the ground floor has steps going up to the front door when it would be so easy not to have that. And it would be even easier to replace a house-that-was-later-broken-up-into-apartments with an actualfax apartment building. I'm lucky enough to live in a place with a lot of sidewalks and grocery stores and transit, but one of the reasons I've been looking for a new apartment for so long is that I have to target one of the very very few apartment buildings around here that don't require stairs. It sure would be nice if they would build more!

[lilysea]

I 100% support public transport being fully accessible to wheelchair users, Blind passengers, Deaf passengers

That said,

Some issues that mean some Disabled people need cars:

people for whom fragrance = migraine trigger [can't catch the bus or train if another passenger's spray-on deodorant or bodyspray = multi-day migraine];

people with compromised immune systems;

people who can't defend themselves against unwanted touch or aggression from other passengers, whether because of physical Disability; selective mutism; Anxiety/PTSD;

people with Anxiety/PTSD who have been harassed for being visibly Disabled on public transport so often that it is making it difficult or impossible to travel;

people with chronic pain for whom being grabbed or jostled can = days or weeks of increased pain...

[bugshaw]

I'm generally pro public transport and anti-car.

In my late 20s/30s I was disabled (frequent wheelchair user outside of the house, limited mobility and lots of pain) and couldn't drive, but often got lifts/taxis. The key thing for me about cars was the ability to go door to door. Even the 5-10 metres from door to vehicle was often difficult and painful, even in a wheelchair, and waiting in the cold is horrid when you can't pump your limbs to keep warm. A solution of "nice flat safe pavement to accessible bus stop 200m away" was no good for me but might be great for stronger chair users who aren't generally in a lot of pain. I don't know what the answer is, but this is another dimension of disabled access.

Edit: As you say in your Low Traffic Neighbourhoods paragraph. But in thought experiment world, I could have a power chair and secure storage/charging that I didn't have to haul it up stairs for, and there would be space for it on the bus, and while waiting for the bus - and my destination would be able to fit the power chair, or have parking spaces for it and a supply of manual chairs for indoor use, then hop back on the power chair to go home. And if I hung a bag from the back while I was trundling, no one would nick it.

I think if people really cared about the disabled, they wouldn't park so much on pavements and across dropped kerbs.

[bugshaw]

There's car barriers near where I live. If I get a cab home from town, I can ask to be dropped off before the barriers and walk the 100m home, or if I need to be dropped off nearer the house it's an extra £1.50 disability tax.

[wychwood]

I am 100% in favour of in general making car-driving less incentivised - I was only really thinking about allowing Blue Badge holders, when we talked about it before. I'm just very aware of how difficult things were for my mum before she got her mobility scooter - if she had to walk more than about 50m to get somewhere, it might as well have been on the moon. And pedestrian spaces tend (for obvious reasons!) not to have roads or bus routes coming right into them - so you end up having to travel relatively long distances to get across / out of them. Which is all solvable, but also a significant burden. So I think your idea is good, but there are so many practical barriers that would need to be addressed that it's hard to just agree with, even as a deliberate non-driver!

[vyvyanx]

I agree with you. Personally, I haven't been able to drive for twenty years because my eyesight isn't up to it. I got very ill with Covid because I had to travel to work using inadequately funded public transport. I don't see why we couldn't ban private cars for anyone who isn't relevantly disabled, and extend and improve public transport for everyone else.

[jenett]

I'm someone who
- is fat

- has chronic health issues that affect stamina (including a really sharp drop off when I guess wrong about how much more time I can be out doing things. When that hits, I get to "Cannot walk safely" within five minutes.)

- has migraines (which are mostly not a problem when I can manage triggers, but certain kinds of background noise, light patterns, and movement are things I usually try to avoid, and all three are moderately common in public transit settings.)

- has cranky lungs (both in the sense of being reactive to smoke/some other triggers as well as allergy issues, and in the sense that I usually have some degree of cough, even when I am not remotely contagious to other people around me. I get side-eyed a lot from people wondering if I have TB, even in non-pandemic times.)

I live about half a mile from the nearest bus stop, and about a mile from the nearest subway stop, to put this in some context.

My biggest reason for needing to drive is that the car transit is predictable and I can adjust a lot of factors for my personal needs.

It's that part that I find hardest to deal with with public transit.

- I am sitting down in a seat that I am used to (not crammed in or possibly needing to stand, and I don't know which until I get on that particular bit of transit.)

- I don't have to feel guilty about how much space I'm taking up, in a body that takes up more space than some. (I have not come in for super large amounts of harassment for this, but I've had some, I've had pushback against needing a seat before I fall down, and the whole process of bracing for maybe needing to deal with it is exhausting.)

- I can have stuff in the car that helps if I am on the edge of a migraine (multiple pairs of backup sunglasses, stuff to listen to that is tolerable and drowns out road noise, etc.)

- I don't have to deal with super unpredictable noise from other people right near me. (I do not blame small children for sometimes needing to make loud noise. This does not make the resultant migraine less annoying to deal with. And then we have all the people who make loud unpredictable noises with less cause...)

- I have a reasonable amount of control over the immediate climate. (I am fairly heat sensitive: AC in buses and subway locally is usually fine, but in the winter I overheat really easily, and a bus is not a great place to strip layers. In the car I can shrug off a layer or two without much bother.)

- I am not subjected to scents or allergens from someone sitting next to me (sometimes not a big deal, sometimes it is.)

- I can choose routes that involve less stop and go, or at least more predictably. (Rather than the lurching of buses, which when I'm dealing with a certain combo of issues, is really exhausting.)

- I don't need to be paying constant attention for the unpredictability of things going on. Obviously, stuff happens when you're driving, but I have designed my life so that my usual route is unlikely to have weird stuff come up (it's mostly smaller streets in three towns.)

But I don't need to adjust constantly for "that person needs more space, this kid is increasingly unhappy, oh, there's a slow down here, I need to remember where my stop is." I don't have to monitor for pickpocketing or forgetting that I put something on the seat (and with brain fog sometimes being a thing, the number of times I have done "Oh, yay, the phone is actually in the car" is not tiny.)

- My driving commute is about half the amount of time of what a bus commute would be (bus stop to bus stop).

(Theoretically, a more direct set of bus routes could solve this, but I live in the Boston suburbs, where the roads were designed by drunken cows, and our transit is basically a wheel and spoke system. To get from the suburb I live in at about 10:30 on a clock dial to the one I work in at about 9 on a clock dial, the only two options are to walk half a mile to a bus stop, bus for 20 minutes, change to a subway for two stops, bus for 30 minutes, walk half a mile or bus, bus, and walk about a mile on the other end. If any piece of that is running late, I will be an hour later to work.)

- The amount of walking needed on either end is currently mostly manageable for me (about half a mile on each end for my 'I need bus to work' route), but there are a regular number of days in my life where that is too much.

On the stamina front right now, that's probably 3-4 working days a month on average, but it can be a longer stretch of a month or two at a time if I get a bad cold. I spent between 2010 and about 2016 where relying on doing even a quarter of a mile a day was not viable.

Some days, it's a factor of the weather: right now I could regularly manage it about seven or eight months of the year, but there's a couple of winter months and a couple of summer months where the temperatures would make me good for nothing by the time I got to the other end. (Which as a method for "go to work and use my brain a lot as soon as I arrive" leaves something to be desired...) And that's without things like "have people adequately shovelled the sidewalks early enough in the day" (which they haven't).

I keep eyeing biking as an option (I live right off one bike path, and they have recently opened another that means I could do the about 5 mlles to work almost entirely on bike paths) but that still wouldn't solve the winter or height of summer issues, even on days when the stamina wasn't a problem.

Moving closer to my unusual job is a lovely theory, but in practice finding housing that fits my budget there is... not super realistic.

There are definitely some pieces of this that better transit systems (and a wider spread of affordable housing options) would help, but some of it would still be awfully complicated for me in terms of my core work commute unless I lived walking distance from work. (Which given my limited walking distance....)

I would definitely be a fan of "regular van or small bus commute with multiple known people, a consistent route, etc." if I didn't have to drive for that, but the logistics and timing of that are complex. I would still need some solution for things like medical appointments, and seeing friends (one set of people I normally see is a bit over a mile, just outside my viable walking range on a regular basis, the others are 30 minutes away by car with no usefully viable way to get to their house other than a car.) Plus things like medical appointments.

I spent almost 4 years living in rural Maine, and the options there if you didn't drive were horrendous. There was a route the town provided that hit main points (hospital complex, the two big grocery stores, downtown in the town of 9000 people) a couple of days a week, but other than that you were reliant on the 2 car taxi service, or hiring someone privately to drive you somewhere. Given that most medical specialist visits involved at least a 45 minute drive each way, and in many cases 2 hours each way, that got complicated really fast.

[azurelunatic]

These are a lot of the factors that I contend with as well.

From an extremely cynical perspective, it seems like reducing parking and increasing high-fitness modes like biking is the only step that people in the US make a sustained push towards in city centers, without handling the stuff that would make it more feasible for me. (When I do have to go into Seattle from 30 miles away, I do prefer public transit at least from the nearest big transit hub in my city, when the connection is good enough on the other end.) I am in the liminal space of disability where I can walk enough that I am unlikely to be eligible for a disabled parking space, but walking from the nearest parking garage to wherever I am going is likely to be extremely exhausting, and standing at the transit stop can be unbearable.

Reduced parking without increased other-methods means that I am unlikely to be able to score a parking place within a distance that I can walk with a cane. Carrying anything reduces that distance.

Disability means that I have to carry more things than an abled counterpart, including water and layers of clothing and sometimes temperature-sensitive food. My experience with bus-riding is that you may have one of a mobility aid more than a cane, or a large bag, otherwise you are subject to verbal and possibly physical abuse from other bus riders.

[ewt]

Car culture is *terrible* for my particular disabilities. My bicycle is absolutely a mobility aid, but there are lots of places it's simply too dangerous for me to ride, and I can't walk that far (or for short distances, there are days I can choose between walking, and carrying anything at all -- even a small handbag only big enough for keys, wallet, and phone -- if I don't want to be in pain), and a lot of the time I can't take my bicycle on public transport either, because it isn't allowed or because there isn't level access.

And yes: getting more of the people who currently drive for convenience to drive less or even not at all would absolutely make the roads clearer and safer for people whose particular disabilities (or other circumstances, e.g. work) mean that driving is their best or only option.

I don't think you're missing much, if anything.

[ewt]

Which is to say: "but anti-car measures are ableist!" is mostly true because our public transport systems are hideously inadequate and driving cars is normalised.

It's possible that, if I had unlimited money, I would find driving more accessible than cycling. But I also can't afford to insure and run a car in London; and expecting people with limited walking mobility to be *able* to drive, and so not accommodating us in other ways, is also pretty bad.

[jae]

I actually don't buy that there are people (or at least not lots of people) who can't travel anywhere except by car. In fact, in the Netherlands where driving is rarer than cycling, disabled people tend to end up with special modified bikes rather than special modified cars. And I don't know about the UK, but here in North America there's waaaay too little thinking outside the box about these things.

-J

[alexseanchai]

my opinion is basically, let's make public transit way more widespread and way more accessible, as though we were going to ban privately owned automobiles, without actually going as far as to make it inconvenient to privately own an automobile

[green_knight]

Yes. I like my car, but I rarely use it where I live (London, inside North Circular). For most of the journeys I need to do my car is useless (can't get there, and particularly can't park there) and it's much more hassle than using public transport.

Public transport is relatively fast, reliable, and convenient, but it's mainly convenient because I don't mind walking 20 minutes to the tube station. (I could take a bus, but usually don't.) In pre-covid times I could do most of my shopping by walking/cycling to Tesco every couple of days; my schedule allowed me to do that.

When I lived in a village with _a_ bus every hour between 9.30 and 4.30 (some of them going to different locations) using public transport was a challenge; I partly got around it by cycling, but not everybody can cycle 40 minutes one way AND bring groceries back, and I had to plan those outings very carefully. You notice that going to work on public transport was not possible. I had a car and used it daily; I would have used it for certain purposes anyway (logistics), but I would have appreciated not having to do this. (I once paid £50 to get a taxi from the nearest town, 8 miles away.)

[damerell]

Won't work; cars work because they so efficiently externalise their costs on other people. It's always going to be easier to play defect.

[alexseanchai]

okay, so what's your plan for encouraging people to fund and use public transportation, bike routes, and wheelchair-navigable routes? and how's this going to work without penalizing people for whom accessible transportation means the fewest possible other people in the vehicle, without the ableist gatekeeping inherent in making anyone justify their need for the accessibility accommodation named 'personal automobile'?

[damerell]

One obvious consideration here is that an idea only has to be better than the status quo; which, I fear, yours is not because if it doesn't become inconvenient to drive, people will just keep doing it and the attendant carnage will continue.

It's obviously hard to get anywhere from here; but I suppose I would suggest that it be made inconvenient in ways that aren't price-related - things like the congestion charge are all very well, but they just make it free for the rich (you might say, and worse for the poor, but of course a significant proportion of people are too poor to have cars _at all_, no matter how much they might want them).

Hence I'd suggest the first approach would be to enforce the law, to begin with; at the present time, essentially all motorists are criminals [1]. If someone needs to drive and is capable of doing so without endangering other people, serious enforcement should cause them to stop endangering other people (albeit not pumping filth into their lungs). If they're not, well, I don't think it's unfair to ask if their needs overrule the danger to others.

Then we might reasonably say that one way to avoid that problem is to decrease the danger to others; slower, lighter cars - in fact, essentially what I said in my first comment here, which is that no-one needs the accessibility accommodation named 'personal automobile' if by that you mean a tonne-plus lump designed to travel at illegal speeds.

Of course change would make life worse for some people (and for some of those people, life is already bad); but that's not a slam-dunk argument because the status quo makes life bad for many people, from asthmatics, to people who have no access to cars and find that essentially everything is organised on the understanding that one has a car, to - well - the trail of corpses the status quo leaves in its wake. This kind of "X needs a wheelchair, Y needs a car" argument breaks down when we notice that X's wheelchair doesn't give other people lung cancer.

[1] In the UK, in free-flowing traffic in 20mph limits, 80% of motorists exceed the limit. I don't mean 80% do it sometimes. I mean, at any given time, 80% of motorists who can break that law are breaking it. Figures from the DFT.

[lilacsigil]

The way it usually works in practice, though, is to increase public transport options to some extent without making a way for disabled people to use them, which is why we get very antsy at the idea. A "walkable" city is only useful if it's also a wheelchair-friendly, low-mobility friendly city. No cobblestones, no interaction between pedestrians and traffic, no required walking more than 50m at a time, people able to bring scooters everywhere, not just small, light mobility aids...

No public transport is a huge problem in the rural area where I live, and it definitely affects disabled people who can't drive - a friend with epilepsy had to be entirely reliant on her parents and thus couldn't work until she got a subsidised place in a bigger city (and it had to be a subsidised place because without a job, she couldn't save up to move or get a rental deposit). It's very common for elderly people to keep their license on the promise of only driving in town at low speed, but of course accidents still happen.

[alexseanchai]

A "walkable" city is only useful if it's also a wheelchair-friendly, low-mobility friendly city.

yes this

[ewx]

Hopefully N will be along to give her opinion, but the most obvious thing I've noticed while out with her in a wheelchair is that roads are, for the most part, considerably better maintained than pavements. That's not quite the same as the questions of whether private cars should exist at all and if so who gets to have one, but the priorities it reveals definitely belong to 'car culture' and are penalizing the disabled.

[yalovetz]

Technically, I have a driving license, but it took me several goes to pass my test and I have always found driving completely overwhelming, so have never owned a car and never driven regularly. I recently realised that I'm autistic, and that the reason I find driving so difficult is because it requires me to multitask, which I'm terrible at, and involves intense concentration and a lot of sensory input, all of which pushes me into an overloaded state that I just can't handle. Apparently not driving is relatively common among autistic people.

I have also just spent the last week caring for a friend (also autistic and with other neurological disabilities, including dystonia). He can't drive and has sensory needs that mean he finds sitting down in confined spaces, such as cars, extremely uncomfortable. On public transport he prefers to stand so that he can move about easily. He has trouble sometimes, because he will stand in the disabled space on the bus, but people will try to force him to flip the seat down and sit, because they recognise that he's disabled and think this means he ought to sit down. They don't understand that he is more comfortable standing.

So yes, I agree that accessibility is not just about cars. Some disabled people need cars to get around. Others, like me and my friend, need public transport because we can't drive, or even travel as passengers in cars. Better, more accessible public transport would benefit everyone, and would probably reduce the use of cars by at least some disabled people.

[naath]

as a wheelchair user I want pavement that aren't covered in parked cars and poorly maintained (and at a vile camber) and accessible busses that run on time and go where I need.

Complete car ban would make it hard to get some places, but that is a need for BETTER BUSSES not more cars.

The main issue I see is for people who are short-term disabled and can't *get to the bus* because wheelchairs are expensive and take time to get. (and ALSO the NHS should buy people decent wheelchairs as soon as they need them to get the bus and not assume they have car access so only need to be able to get as far as the car; or indeed HAND OUT wheelchairs from stock to the temporarily disabled, and ones you can WHEEL YOURSELF, or electrically powered, and stop assuming a carer)

(my inability to drive is probably unconnected to my disability, but exists; so to get to non bus places I have to find someone to drive me, maybe a taxi, it is VERY INCONVENIET)

[green_knight]

My personal experience:

When I'm exhausted and frazzled, my car is wonderful. It's *my space* so even when I'm an hour away from home, I am in a familiar space, it has the right temperature and amount of air, I don't need to interact with people, I have everything I need (including no need to watch for the safety of my possessions, which means less 'pickpockets' than 'I forget them') Especially when it's cold and dark (and raining), public transport takes a mental toll, so the extra option of doing certain journeys by car is very welcome. I don't hear many people talk about mental illness when they talk about cars.

My Mum's experience:
My Mum had several physical disabilities, meaning she struggled to walk longer distances, and struggled a lot to carry things; she was also frequently uncomfortable with bumpy rides, and definitely needed a guaranteed seat on public transport as she could not stand safely (when you can't hold on, you need to be _very_ able to balance).
You see where this is going. For her, having a car meant a vast improvement in her quality of life, long before she got her blue badge, from 'getting close to where she needs to be' to 'being able to leave shopping in the car'.

For me, good public transport (and safer cycling options) go a long way to wean me off frequent car use; I think ultimately, living where I do right now, I'd be happy to have a zip car in the immediate neighbourhood so I COULD drive if I needed to without the expense of a car, but I'd still want to have access to cars. (My actual circumstances are more complicated; I am VERY glad to have a car, especially in times of Covid.)

My Mum, due to _her_ circumstances, would not have been able to live her life independently without a car. She would have needed people to take her places (or pay for taxis), and more help in carrying things up to her flat.

I think we need to do *a lot* more to make it cheap and easy for people to walk/bike/take public transport, both in built-up and rural areas; we need to normalise accessible architecture/town planning; we need to enable people to cycle without risking their lives... and we need to acknowledge that sometimes, cars *are* a good solution for individuals/specific circumstances.

[yrieithydd]

We need to get people who can walk/cycle/take the bus/train doing so rather than using cars and normalising ways of sharing cars - car clubs are ok for trips around town, but actually that's not what I'd want a car for so I've never joined one. I've got a friend who rents a car quite frequently for holidays and the like. Until this last year I did a lot of my travel by train, but I've only done two train journeys in the last year due to pandemic issues,* and have had several occasions where my mum (my bubble mate) has driven from Cardiff to Leicester and then I've driven back. If I'd rented a car for the last one, it would have meant a fortnight rental and then the car would have joined mum's car on her drive for all but two days! It's also the case that the 4 car journeys probably cost less in fuel than the train ticket would have done (unless I'd booked ages in advance and been stuck to specific trains which isn't equivalent to driving)


We need to design the system so the car isn't the default but which takes into account the differing needs of people, so that situations where the car/van is the only answer can be accommodated but car isn't the default.


Sadly there are people who only seem to care about the needs of disabled people when they don't want to be inconvenienced by not being able to drive themselves.

*having people using the food and drink exemption from mask wearing to sit and swig their alcoholic beverages all the way from Nuneaton to Birmingham (c 40mins of journey) didn't improve my confidence.

[mrissa]

Don't lean your argument too much on car modifications being prohibitively expensive. I have a family member whose legs are no longer reliable (sometimes they go limp, sometimes they spasm, it's an adventure for family member but not a fun one) but who has hand controls on their car for a quite reasonable sum of money. Not everyone can have that work for them--when my vertigo is bad, there's no car modification that would work for me--but "only available to the ultra-rich" is not true for all or even most cases where car modifications would help.

[mrissa]

(What I'm saying is: I think you can do without that bit and still make the rest of your arguments just fine.)

[smhwpf]

I agree that it is hard to believe that it is beyond the wit of humanity to design urban spaces and transport systems that will lead to much lower private motor vehicles, while catering to the needs of people with a variety of disabilities (some of which make driving a major accessory aid, and for some of which cars are either no help or an active hindrance).

One things it would require is resources. Including resources directly targeted towards people with disabilities to facilitate access. The other absolutely crucial one is involving disabled people in the design of your systems. Given these two, I have little doubt it is possible.

[yrieithydd]

What's more I think the Dutch have been doing this for the last n years.

[sorcyress]

I like this post a lot, it provides some interesting thoughts on the car-debate (including in the comments).

(Background: Full year bicyclist in the US Northeast)

It was a treasure to me when I heard a friend explain "I don't have a license, I know my ADHD would make me an unsafe driver". It was the first time I'd ever heard someone admit that they wouldn't be good at driving and so didn't, it was extremely empowering to have that articulated and something I could roll over in my mind. As things stand now, I think I am a decent driver, but it takes a _lot_ of mental energy for me and I have never owned a car --driving infrequently with a borrowed vehicle helps me to keep it a novelty (and therefore easier to focus on) than it would be if it was my primary source of transit.

So yeah, chiming in as "disabled* and regular cars is worse for me than not-cars"

~Sor


*I consider my ADHD to be disabling, in that it costs me an extraordinary amount of time, energy, and money. I've seen the conversations about whether ADHD would exist without capitalism, and I don't agree with them --there are enough joyful personal projects that have been taken away from me due to my own limitations, even while medicated, that while abolishing capitalism would fix many things, it wouldn't fix me.

[ayebydan]

Great for you and your buddy. Have you considered that my family live in a place where if we didn't have the use of a car we could not survive/to survive we would pay ridiculous disability fees to get things delivered? Just because a situation works for you doesn't mean it works for all of us.

[sorcyress]

Yes, you are correct! It does not work for everyone which is why I said "[I'm] disabled and regular cars is worse for me than not-cars"

[damerell]

Well, you won't be surprised I basically agree (and am equally vexed by the way it's always delivered as a slamdunk, so a) I could not even possibly have thought of this and b) screw disabled people who can't drive, basically, especially if they're also too skint to make routine use of taxis).

My only gripe is - yes, some people will need powered mobility aids. Tonne-plus powered mobility aids that will go at illegal speeds... maybe not so much. If disabled people enjoyed roughly the same mobility as everyone else - hence in this scenario able to move around cities at bicycle speed - that would be more equitable than what we have now and avoids the scenario where mysteriously every cager in the UK turns out to be disabled.

[ayebydan]

mysteriously every cager in the UK turns out to be disabled.

ableist. :(

[damerell]

I think you may be confusing the usual "not really disabled" stuff, which is obviously bad, with the idea that if we allowed disabled people and only disabled people to use cars, essentially every driver in the UK would start looking for a really bad doctor.

[ayebydan]

What are you missing? A day in the life of a disabled person who can't use public transport because it is abhorrent.

And I can't even go into this more because I'm genuinely stunned that of all the people on my rl you have come out with this.

[ayebydan]

EVERY conversation like this forgets the MAJORITY of disabled people. The in between. I won't qualify for most benefits. I won't qualify for a scooter. I won't qualify for a bus pass (most times). I can't afford taxis. I won't qualify to drive myself. I can't ride a bike due to disabilities. I can't walk due to them either. The amount of ableism on your thread here is horrendous.

[silveradept]

In addition to the aspect of "being in public means dealing with people and their ableism" (one memorable incident that I pushed back against involved someone making loud commentary about how she didn't want to be "trapped" on the bus if something bad happened because another passenger's rolling chair was poking out slightly into the far-too-narrow aisleway. It's also fairly common for chair users to have abled people think they're helping by pushing the chair without asking, or for working animals to be petted, despite the clear indications that they are working animals on shift), a lot of the impetus behind removing cars and making places more walkable and bikeable tends to elide that doing so often means having to make things more local. If the only place that a wage worker can afford their groceries is the megacorp on the outskirts of town, they have to go to that place and come back, and they are limited in what they can carry to what they can carry in their hands unless they have additional cargo capacity, like what a private car provides. If they only have enough time in their week to shop once, then they have to get everything for a week on that trip, and that also probably means a private car and its additional cargo space.

If there were a local grocer who had pricing that was the same as the megacorp and who was accessible by a short trip on public transport, and the wave worker's workplace was accessible by a short, or at least not unnecessarily delayed, trip, then the local space and transit has become more accessible, and the wage worker can start making comparisons about whether trading their private car and its upkeep costs for public transit costs will be effective. But it is almost always the case that the local grocery has to charge more than the megacorp, which makes it fine for the higher wage workers who want to be locavores and nobody else, and the workplace is usually only accessible by going completely in the wrong direction, having to wait for a significant time, and then go in the correct direction if someone is taking transit

"We need less cars on the road and more accessible spaces" is a fine thing to say, but swapping out private cars for public transit, and adding infrastructure that makes spaces less physically demanding to use, without recognizing the need to have to reconfigure the way that spaces are planned and used (and how to get enough political courage to tell the NIMBYs to go away and stop bothering you) is going to be less effective.

Any place that manages to get to the point where they can do radical reconfiguration then needs to bring on disabled people so the space itself can be planned by the people who are going to be using it, certainly.

I think it would be much easier to get traction on both increasing accessibility and lowering private car usage if there's serious effort put into making it possible for a disabled person with the smallest benefit awarded to be able to handle all of their needs without having to leave their neighborhood and without having to expend an inordinate amount of time or effort to achieve them compared to someone abled.