Nearly 70 percent of travelers with wheelchairs have had their wheelchairs broken. It takes a very long time to get airlines to replace them, if ever.
Nearly 70 percent of travelers with disabilities have stopped travelling because of experiences like the ones I just described. They just don't travel.
These poll results were taken by a group of American veterans with disabilities from service to our country.
Existing laws were shaped by the people who earn their money from other people who travel. For example, the cost of a broken wheelchair in the mentality of the airlines is like the cost of lost luggage. There is a difference that the travel merchants either do not recognize, or willfully ignore.
It is not unusual for power wheelchairs to cost upwards of $30,000.00. If a person using a power-assisted wheelchair loses the use of that wheelchair, they lose the power of mobility. One airline thought it had checked the box of its corporate "to do" list by offering the owner of a power wheelchair a manual wheelchair when they broke her power. She was not able to use her arms, thus the power wheelchair.
The airline was ignorant of that; among other things, their mindset was based on an analogy to a lost piece of luggage and how much it cost.
Reframing the law in terms of making travel available to all persons with the money to pay for a ticket will reshape the outcomes. If the travel merchants lose a bit of their profits in the process, they can more than make up the difference by making travel appealing to those 70 percent of disabled people who simply do not travel right now because for them travel is a horror show.
And it doesn't have to be.
Please read the disclaimer. ©2023 Dennis J. Wall. All rights reserved.
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