Mobility scooter users fed up with health and safety ruling

Pedestrians on Wheels president Noeline Lane says something has to change or others will be injured getting into taxis. Tuesday, May 08, 2018 Wanganui Chronicle photograph by Bevan Conley.

Mobility scooter users in Whanganui say are fed up with a health and safety ruling they must get off their scooters before getting into taxi vans.

The frustration has peaked after one scooter user with multiple sclerosis fell and injured herself getting into a local taxi van.

Horizons Regional Council and local taxi company River City Cabs recently tightened the rules around how mobility scooters were transported.

Durie Hill resident Shirley Smith pulled a muscle in her groin trying to get into the taxi van last week.

The president of Pedestrians on Wheels, Noeline Lane, said something had to change.

"It's not good because it's going to happen more and more often ... those vans are not easy to get in and out of.

Previously cabs would allow them to do the journey without getting off their scooter.

Lane said the injury should have been avoided.

"That's only going to get worse because unfortunately that's what multiple sclerosis does.

"This isn't working," Lane said.

"I knew it had to happen somewhere, I didn't think it would be quite so quick."

Lane said Shirley Smith now feels restricted to her home and there would be others in the same boat.

"She lives in a place where she cannot get to town now because the mobility scooters will not go in the van - so she's basically restricted.

"There's going to be more that live up other hills that are possibly going to be in this position too. Not fair ... not fair on the disabled person. It really isn't.

"It's going to be tough. How are they going to get to the doctor. How are they going to do the groceries?"

Last week Horizons Regional Council's transport planner Desley Monks said it had always been the case that mobility scooter users had to get off before being hoisted.

She said the issue needed to be considered at a higher level than what Horizons could make a call on.

Pedestrians on Wheels will meet Desley Monks next Wednesday and for Noeline Lane that meeting couldn't come soon enough.

The New Zealand Transport Agency said its role was to ensure the hoists - which are built to carry a certain maximum weight safely – and restraint systems are safe.

It said whether a hoist was able to take a person as well as a mobility scooter was a matter for the operator and manufacturer to work out.