Driving Adaptations for Wheelchair Accessible Cars - Lisa's Blog

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Hi everyone,

Hope you found the last post about the ignition and steering informative and entertaining, this post will continue with my wheelchair accessible car driving adaptions, focusing on the “gear stick” and hand controls.
I drive an automatic Sirus I-Can VW Caddy drive-from-wheelchairvehicle because this allows one hand to always be on the steering wheel and one hand to be used for accelerating and braking on the hand control. This means that I don’t have to change up and down the gears manually, the car does this automatically, hence the name! Drive From Wheelchair

There are 4 modes my wheelchair accessible vehicle can be put into – Park, which as suggested by the name, is used when parking, Reverse which is used when reversing, Neutral which can be used when stopping for a short time e.g. practising safely pulling over and then immediately driving off, Drive which is used when driving forward and Sport which I have not used yet, but apparently it makes the acceleration more responsive.Drive From Wheelchair

I love my Sirus VW Caddy WAV (Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle) and have started to feel much more natural when driving. This even includes when I am practising a manoeuvre where you have to go from driving forward to reversing quite quickly, for example when doing a turn in the road. The first time I did a ‘three point turn’ manoeuvre, it did blow my mind a bit, not just because of all the skills involved, but also because I am using hand controls, I use one hand to keep the brake on and have to take my hand off the steering wheel to change from drive to reverse and vice versa. This went against all my instincts and I was glad I was on a quiet road with no one around, so that I could have my internal crisis with no judgement!
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