Thanks to a spinal cord injury in 1988, I now drive a wheelchair van. I consider myself very lucky in this respect, but you can come to your own conclusions about that.
Getting to this point has been a multistep process. While still in the hospital during six months of rehab, I was able to purchase a used van that would allow me to ride as a passenger while others drove. The previous owners lived in Arizona, and had removed all of the cold weather equipment from the engine so that the frigid temperatures in Northeast Washington wreaked havoc on it during the winter months. The repair bills during the five years that I owned it equaled the purchase price. The frustration and fear endured while letting others transport me was priceless.
In 1993 I graduated to a vehicle that I could drive myself. I purchased a new van, and the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation paid for the necessary modifications needed for me to drive it. The full-sized van with a wheelchair lift allowed me to travel independently, and to drive seated in my wheelchair without transferring. On the day I got my driver’s license I drove 160 miles to park on a Pacific Beach and unload onto the packed sand. The freedom to travel by myself was exhilarating, and it allowed me to drive extensively for work and leisure.
Early in 2007 a friend called to let me know that he had spotted a vehicle on eBay that looked like something I could use to replace my old van It was a 2006 model with less than 4,000 miles on it and was located in Iowa. Already equipped with a wheelchair lift and hand controls, it seemed like a reasonable deal for $34,000.
After paying an extra $2,000 to have it transported by truck to my home in California, my almost-new van only needed replacement of two batteries to get it running. Oh yes, I also discovered that the lift could not handle the combined weight of me and my heavy wheelchair and the seat was not removable so that I could drive from my wheelchair. There was also the matter of the hand controls, which were a type that I could not use. $15,000 in modifications later, the van had a new lift, a power steering booster, new hand controls, relocated switches and some other changes that made it safe for me to drive. The price of independence was getting steeper.
While the van was being re-modified, I was hired for a job which required me to move cross-country from California. As soon as the “new” van was delivered to me, I visited the local mall to grab a couple of last-minute items I would need in Virginia. The transport company was scheduled to pick up the van the following week.
While I was shopping, another driver decided to ignore the ‘hash marks’ painted on the pavement and parked next to my van. In Sacramento County the penalty for parking in that marked area is over $1000, so I asked mall security to have police called to ticket the car and have it towed away. A well-meaning security guard showed up first, and offered to move the van so I could get in. Following my instructions and operating the van from a standing position using the hand controls, he backed it out of the parking space and I told him to put it in park so that I could go around the front of the van and see if cleasred the offending car so I could get on the lift once the side doors were opened.
Big mistake!
Just as I cleared the front of the van, it suddenly surged forward and struck a car that was parked next to me. Bouncing off it in a shower of glass and chrome, engine revving, the van continued to accelerate until it struck a large concrete pillar next to the entrance of the mall, narrowly missing two shoppers. At that point the security guard struck his head on the visor and fell to the floor while the van rolled backwards, engine not running, into a parked pickup truck.
Even though the security guard was knocked unconscious when the van struck the mall, he was not seriously injured and was hospitalized only overnight. While I hoped that my insurance company would total the vehicle and simply buy me a new one, they insisted it could be repaired in three weeks--for $15,000.
Three months later, after repairs costing $25,000, the van was shipped East by truck again--all the way to Virginia. Thankfully I was working in the nation’s capitol, so public transportation could be used for the daily commute in the interim. With the arrival of my van, even with the $78,000 that had been spent on it already—plus the cost of replacing another two dead batteries--perhaps I would finally be able to enjoy driving it on a regular basis. I should have known by then that this van would not make that easy, as the cost of driving independently would soon rise again.
©2010 Michael Collins
