Good afternoon, and welcome back to another episode of Mobility Engineering's question and answer series. We've received another question in regards to vehicle adaptations and road safety, and so what I thought I'd do is get on here and film it and get the answer out there for you and also for everyone else that's interested to find out the information. So, today's question, I will just read it out for you it comes in from Hazel, who's an occupational therapist. We love occupational therapists. Says, hi guys. I recently won, attended one of your informative education sessions on vehicle adaptations, which we do thank you very much. And anyone's, by the way, interested in registering for one of these sessions please contact the office and we'll put you into one of the sessions that's no worries at all. Basically, what she has asked is I currently have an NDIS client, and I value your knowledge on the process of organizing trials for scooters versus power chairs for him to be able to access the community, which is definitely what we want to support.

He will be mainly traveling around via public transport, which will retrain taxis, or various carriers’ cars. My question is whether you are aware of taxis, which have been modified to accommodate scooters, as well as power wheelchairs, knowing this will greatly help with justifying between the two.

All right so first of all, Hazel, thank you once again for your question, that's a great question as a very common one that we get or something relatively common that we get so we thought we'd get on the video. We do a little bit of research around to find the bits and pieces that you need to know and get on the video and answer it so other people can benefit from that as well. So, there are a few layers to this answer that I've written a few notes down, just so I apologize for glancing at them just to make sure we get the right information.

First of all, traveling in a wheelchair in Australia is a bit complicated and it's a little bit of a gray kind of a political area. The big deep root cause of the issues that are around vehicle adaptations and transporting disabled persons around Australia is that, or particular people in a wheelchair is that the wheelchair occupant at per Australian vehicle laws, vehicle design laws is actually not classified as an occupant. They're not classified as a human they're classified as a piece of cargo. Now, personally, this is something that really bothers me, and I think it's one of the worst representations of our government out there and the fact that they are not raising the standards for disabled occupants. And this is one of the reasons why we are so passionate about this industry, and we want to change that effect on the Australian government.

So, because of that, but the root cause of that, this is not a political statement, but the reason why I'm talking about this is because there are actually no laws and regulations on scooters, or wheelchair carriers, or anything like that. They just law just says, you got to tie people down. So, what we try and do is give you guys what we believe is a best practice based on 20, 30 years of occupant protection in vehicles. So, first of all, I'll talk about some standards and some guidelines that we've found. So, there is an organization called transport, they are a defunct organization however, they were around for a long-time providing advice and information for people to transport around their disabled passengers. They've got what they call the yellow book or the Bible of transport disabled persons in Australia.

This is a fantastic publication If you can get your hands on it, it's got some guidelines on what you need to do. Another thing that we came across was actually fantastic, was from the south Australian transport government website, it's called disability information. And this document has got all the little bits and pieces ins and outs, and the last and most document you need to be aware of is an Australian standard. The Australian standard is AS3696. And section 19, talks about wheelchairs versus scooters and how to travel around. But AS3696 is the Australian standard for transporting persons who are disabled. So, this is a great document for you to be, if you're a professional in the industry, particularly it's a great document for you to have your hands on. It does cost money for you to buy you just go to SAI global or standards Australia website, and you can buy that document.

So, scooters versus power wheelchairs, first of all, the taxi industry actually does not allow scooters in general into their vehicles while you are sitting on the scooter. So, the answer to the short answer to the question is, no, you can't use the scooter in a taxi, so you need to look at the power wheelchair option. But I'll elaborate on that just to give you a little bit of background information and also to provide people with more info. So, in general, a scooter is not allowed to be traveled on top of you are out to ride your scooter into the vehicle, transfer onto another seating position, and then that's okay, and leave the scooter tied down. The reason why is because, well, it is possible. Anything is possible, but from what we've seen, we've never seen this happen.

So, the main core reason why you can't travel around is that a scooter has not been designed for that purpose. So, you've got handlebars, which are in front of you so, in the event of an accident, your head can impact those handlebars. You have a seat that is not very secure. Typically, they're only a little grub screw or some kind of hand screw so you can take them in and out for transport. You also have no real wheelchair tied down points and a lot of plastic structure, which hold if you strap it down and have your weight on top of it in the event of an accident. So, those factors are the main reason why you cannot have a scooter. However, in general, the scooters are not designed for transport so that's kind of a be on the end, or we can't do it. But if you want to know the background, why that's the reason why.

Now it's not to say it's not possible, I always say my motto is anything is possible. So, how would it be possible? It would be possible if the scooter has been designed and tested for occupant transport. And as I said, we've been around this industry for a very long time more than 10 years now, and we've never seen such a device. There could be one out there it's news to us and we'd love to hear about it. But at this stage, you cannot transport yourself around sitting on your scooter. Wheelchairs now power wheelchairs are definitely okay. Basically, since there are no rules and no guidelines and no official sort of rules, there is, as I said, there is the Australian standard, but that's not even in legislation so, there aren’t actually any official legislative rules.

So, what we talk about is what's in those standards, and what we talk about is best practice guidelines based on in industry information research, that's been done on crashes and our experience in dealing with multiple authorities, and vehicles that have been in crashes. So, first and foremost, look for the following in your wheelchairs. One tie-down point. So, you'll see either little loops or little brackets or something on your actual wheelchair that is designed for it to be tied into a vehicle. If it doesn't have tie-down points, we really don't recommend for you be using it. If it does have tie-down points, then it's a pretty good chance that this thing has been tested and it's okay for vehicle transport. But even if it does have a tie-down, points bring us now that I mentioned testing brings us to the next point of testing.

So, wheelchairs, there are multiple, multiple wheelchairs on the market. There are thousands of wheelchairs on the market. And the reason why is because everybody needs something for their need, or needs something for their issue or whatever it is that they need it for. So, everyone is slightly different so there are so many different variations of wheelchairs to suit everybody's individual needs. So, that makes the situation a bit complicated, because if you had just one product, you could easily test it, you could easily say, yep, this thing is automotive, and it's all good we can travel around vehicles and away you go. But when you have multiple models, it makes it quite challenging. It makes it quite expensive. And it also is just difficult to keep a handle on.

So, sometimes it comes down to you as the consumer or you as the prescriber to be aware of what you need and what you don't need. So, if the wheelchair is going to be transported in the vehicle, we really recommend that it's crash-tested. Now, how do you know, is it crash-tested it's most of the time it's not labeled most of the time, you don't really have any clear information. The only way you can really tell if it's crash-tested is by clearly printed, documented information. So, typically speaking, we'd say a test report or some kind of test certificate to show you that this thing has been tested to a certain standard and certified to that standard, right? Now, the standards that we use are typically the international European standards so they will have an ISO in front of them or an E in front of them.

The American standards are also the D O T and the F M V SS standards. Then if they meet any of those standards, they're okay. Australia doesn't have its own specific standard. There is that Australian standard that I spoke about. However, that's just a copy and paste of the ISO standard. So, what you will find is all the manufacturers will basically, they will comply with the ISO standard because it then allows them to also sell their product to Europe and to other countries. Whereas if they only comply with the Australian standard, then they would only be allowed to sell to Australia, and most companies prefer to sell internationally because in Australia we have a small consumer market.

So, how do you get copies of the test reports? Ask the people that you're buying it from don't trust people that say, yeah, yeah, don't worry it's tested. Yeah, you can trust me. We never trust anyone like that. Well, it's not to say that those people aren't trustworthy, but we trust only the paperwork because the problem is when it comes down to if there are any issues, if there are any liability claims, if there's a crash, if there's an injury, nobody cares about anything, except what's on the piece to paper. That's how the legislative environment works in Australia. That's how the laws and the courts work in Australia. So, that's basically what we always advise you is that don't just listen to the guy's word or the girls' word. Also, get a copy of the reports, get documented evidence that this wheelchair is suitable for it to be crash-tested. If the wheelchair is not crashed, test it doesn't mean you can't use it. What it means is what you should be using is a backrest for the wheelchair.

You can actually purchase a separate device backrest, which will try and put onto your screen here. Or if not, I'll put a link in the notes down the bottom to a page, there is a product called the bodyguard. This bodyguard is a device that comes in behind your wheelchair and as a backrest and a headrest or a head restraint should I say? So, this particular product turns your non-automotive tested wheelchair into an automotive okay product. Because what it's done is it has introduced this seat is not tested, but it is introduced to tested backrest and headrest rate to allow this seating position to now be very secure and very safe for the occupant last but not least. What we always recommend is three-point over the shoulder seat belts. So just the lack only straps are not good enough for the occupants.

As I said, they get away with that, even though the rest of the vehicle doesn't have to even though the rest of the vehicle has to wear over the shoulder seat belts, but up occupants that are disabled, as I said before, don't fall in under these same laws so as a result, they can get away with having only lap belts. Our recommendation is to refuse the use of lap belts and to only use lap and selsh over the shoulder seat belts. This gives you optimum and prime, upper body protection and protects your spine.

So, yeah, thank you very much for listening, and thank you for your question, Hazel. Hopefully, that answers what you've got and hopefully, some other people are benefited from this as well. Thank you.