Cars and the Disabled
How automobile-centered culture is bad for disabled Americans and everyone else.
Yesterday Jen’s car was sold and it rolled out of the garage for the last time. There may never be a replacement, at least not one in the near future. Yesterday too, Jen was asked by an ADRC-CW employee if Jen was going to miss having the car and she replied in the negative. I will not attempt to speak for Jen but she tells me that she never liked driving and would have avoided it if she could have. It is also true that owning a vehicle that is able to carry groceries and go long distances in a reasonable amount of time and relative comfort is a great convenience.
Cars allow a certain measure of independence(1) and freedom(2). We used that car a good deal years ago. Jen had jobs that were far out of town or that required her to go way out of town. I never had a car but had to turn down jobs because I had no reliable means of getting to jobs(3) and even when public transportation was available it was not always reliable because of tight scheduling.
Cars are a great convenience when you can drive yourself, when someone can deliver things to you, thank you USPS, UPS and FedEx, have people who live with or near you who have the time or incentive to drag you with them when they go out for a drive but if you don’t meet these conditions? Cars are a right pain.
Have you gone walking down the road, even on a sidewalk? You know, that space of cement between the road and the front lawn that many people barely notice unless they have to shovel? Unless you live on a cul-de-sac, walking along roadways on the sidewalk is not pleasant. You can’t talk to anyone you have managed to drag outside with you, or even your dog who managed to drag your lazy butt outside. The noise levels along city streets can approach or exceed safe noise levels, especially near large buildings or along sound walls(4). Drivers think nothing of it because they can roll up their windows, crank up the volume on their sound systems and pretty much ignore everything. Even if you are just having a quiet conversation on the phone with a client or your lawyer, cars are becoming more and more soundproofed, further disconnecting drivers from the world around them. Adding to the din is the myth that loud motorcycles are safer because they help drivers notice them(5)(6).
Now, imagine yourself standing on a sidewalk next to a busy street and imagine closing your eyes so that all you have to go by is your sense of touch and hearing. Since you are imagining this situation, put a guide can in your dominant hand. Make it tall enough to go up to your chin if it is standing perfectly straight. Now, slide the tip of the cane forward. Sweep the tip of the cane just above the ground towards your leading foot as you take a step. At the end of your swing, either at the edge of the sidewalk or another obstacle or a point just a little past the toe of your leading foot. Did you hear the tap of the metal tip as it tapped against the sidewalk, wall or other object? Probably not. Now, take another step while you sweep the tip of the guide cane in the opposite direction. Keep your eyes closed. Trust that the long reach of the cane will keep you from running into something or falling into traffic, or an open sewer drain. Keep walking towards the intersection. Let us imagine that the sidewalk is modern enough to have a good ramp cutout and you will feel the change in angle as you approach. When do you cross? Which way are the cars going?
Even with new walk indicators that beep or even talk, it can be difficult to understand what traffic is doing. I have stood on sme corners where the traffic was so loud that it was hard to hear which signal was signaling or even what the robot voice was saying. Then, there were the drivers who considered red lights mere annoying suggestions, even with traffic cameras. I once stood at an intersection and watched a stream of seven cars run a red light to make a left turn, even with oncoming traffic being held up and honking horns at the illegally turning vehicles.
With practice, a little luck and perhaps a prayer to one or more gods of your choosing, you learn to listen to the traffic and can tell where most of the cars are going and can make a fair guess on when it is the safest to step into the line of fire. Even when you are careful though, drivers can make bad decisions. I once had a friend who was in a wheelchair when he was struck by the driver of a van at an intersection. The van barely even slowed as they rounded the corner and completely ignored the stop sign. His wife, who was just behind him, saw him get run down just moments after he rolled into the crosswalk.
People will say that the driver made a bad decision, as I just did, and that is true, but cars assist them in making these bad decisions. Vehicles, especially large vehicles, give people a false sense of safety and an equally false sense of ownership of a certain stretch of road. They do not take the time to learn that the mass of their vehicle is a liability and not an asset. It can take a mile to stop a train and dozens of feet to stop a car. I don’t expect most drivers to understand the math(7) but I do wish that drivers would learn to control their vehicles and develop habits that keep themselves and others safer.
Cars are loud, they are often operated by distracted and undereducated operators and are heavy and potentially lethal weapons. On top of that, they smell terrible, even when you do not have rodents crawling around inside and using them as storage silos. The oils, grease, plastics and metals that go into them all smell bad and then we go and burn gasoline or diesel in them which emits noxious, poisonous fumes. The Covid-19 pandemic alone proved that exhaust fumes alone degraded air quality significantly, but varied drastically in neighborhoods where “essential workers” were still required to drive to work(8).
While engine technology is changing to make many vehicles much cleaner and more efficient, they will not alleviate all the dangers to disabled people. For example, electrically powered vehicles are more dangerous to blind pedestrians in loud urban area and as long as massive vehicles are made to give drivers the false sense of safety, drivers will continue to drive irresponsibly.
Remember, cars are vehicles of isolation and that is what so many people are ranting about right now after all the lockdown measures. If you want to be less isolated, leave your car at home and take a walk or ride that forgotten bike that has been buried in the back of your garage. You may learn more about the community in which you live, you may even realize that your neighbors are nice people that you really have a lot in common with. You may see and hear things that you would have never discovered while driving your car.
Oh, and don’t forget to open your eyes.
1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/independence
2: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/freedom
3: People who never had to use ride-share or had to hire a driver for themselves do not understand how difficult it is to get people to share their own cars with strangers. Hiring a driver is expensive and even government run programs can be untrustworthy at the best of times.
4: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/city-noise-might-be-making-you-sick/553385/
5: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/new-study-confirms-loud-pipes-save-lives-is-safety-myth/
6: https://bettersoundproofing.com/why-are-motorcycles-so-loud/
7: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/stopping-distance
8: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/esnt/2021/qa-scientists-analyze-how-the-pandemic-affected-air-quality