Is car culture good for disabled people?
Mar. 17th, 2021 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livOut 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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-24 06:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-24 06:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-24 07:06 am (UTC)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.