Personal Mobility for Physically Disabled

I wonder at the engineering ethics behind electric or motorised personal mobility solutions for able-bodied people. I think engineers and inventors should be focusing their attention on better mobility solutions for people who are unable to walk. Today's wheelchairs are often bulky, heavy, not very maneuverable, and cannot negotiate stairs, escalators or uneven and soft ground.

Current laws require that public buildings have disabled access, and a wheelchair-bound person has the right to sue companies that do not provide adequate wheelchair facilities. This is a good solution if wheelchairs are necessary, but I think a far better, if less simple, solution would be to change wheelchairs to make them more flexible and adaptable. I think anyone in a wheelchair would prefer to have access to narrower corridors and soft ground and steps rather than have to go the long way up a ramp or find some out of the way elevator.

There are some wheelchair models that are able to negotiate single steps. They have fatter wheels, and some rare designs have an extra pair of wheels on the front, which dangle in the air when going on flat ground, but connect with stairs encountered and just roll over them. The ride is bumpy and the wheels get in the way of one's feet, but it's a start. Retractable lobed wheels might be a better alternative. Lobed wheels grip onto stairs like cogs with teeth, and can go up whole staircases with minimal bumping. The size of the lobes must be fairly consistent with the size of the stairs, though, and this would mean that buildings codes should have standards for step sizes in public buildings if lobed wheels became popular in wheelchairs.

People with more mobility have come up with their own solutions. One man in Australia had one leg amputated, but the other leg was fine. He found crutches difficult and clumsy, especially if he had to carry things, so he designed his own wheelchair fitted with one bicycle pedal. The wheelchair itself is narrower and more streamlined than usual, and looks a little like a tricycle with a very comfortable seat. He says the improved mobility, speed and his own fitness makes his invention far more suitable to his active lifestyle than the wheelchair provided by the health care system.

This kind of solution is not going to work, obviously, for people with paralysis or any motor neurone or muscular disease. Electric wheelchairs now have very large and heavy motors or batteries. Although I have not thought of a good solution yet, I think we should be looking at a completely different alternative. Perhaps wheels are not the best solution. I always remember a line in the book "Chocky" by John Wyndham. It was about a visitor from another planet who spoke telepathically with a boy. The boy was very upset when, upon seeing the new family car, Chocky said humans were "stuck in the age of the wheel." This has remained with me since I read it at the age of ten. There must be a better way to travel, but what is it?

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