Why Are Wheelchair Vans a Necessity?

Imagine your typical morning. You wake up and get ready, wake the kids, and hop in the car to go to school. You pull up the drop-off spot, they unbuckle and hop out of the car, and you’re on your way. 

Maybe that’s not identical to how your mornings look, but if you have children without special needs, getting in and out of the car is probably a non-issue. Even with little kids who need help buckling their car seats, it still only takes a few seconds to get everyone settled, safe, and ready for the drive. 

But for many families, the simplicity of hopping in the car to get somewhere is non-existent. If one of the family members has special needs and is in a wheelchair, traveling gets much more complicated, even when going only short distances. 

At All Things Possible, we work hard to raise money to purchase reliable, safe wheelchair vans for those in our community. We see this great need and long to help more and more individuals with this important aspect of keeping their disabled family member safe and secure while traveling. Here are the top reasons wheelchair vans are an absolute necessity for those living in and around Charlotte. 

A Safe, Secure Way to Travel

If a family has a vehicle at all, it likely doesn’t have wheelchair accessibility. This means that children who are used to being fully supported in their wheelchairs have to be removed from their chairs and placed into a normal car seat. This is not safe at all, as many disabled individuals don’t have the strength or ability to support themselves in a car, leading to dangerous situations while driving. They need to be secured in their wheelchairs while driving to ensure optimal safety and security.

Reliability of Transportation

Not only does the seating situation need to be safe, but the vehicle itself also needs to be safe. Many families with disabled children are struggling to pay countless medical bills as it is, and they often have unreliable vehicles that frequently break down or need costly repairs. That is, if a family even has a vehicle. Some don’t have a car at all, and they are forced to rely on the availability of friends and family or carry their child on and off a public bus and hold them tightly in their lap. We serve York and Lancaster counties in SC and they have no public transportation system whatsoever.  In Charlotte itself, there are a small number of handicapped transport vans supported by the public transportation system. However, parents have told us horror stories of the pre-arranged van never showing up, coming 2 hours late, or them being abandoned at a medical appointment because the van fails to return for them. Uber and Lyft don’t transport wheelchairs.

Safety for Family Members

When a family has a vehicle that isn’t wheelchair accessible, the parents of the disabled child have to lift the child in and out of the vehicle every time they travel anywhere. As children get older and heavier, this becomes more and more difficult. It can be dangerous for family members to lift their growing children repeatedly, bringing about back pain, injury, and more.

Getting to Appointments

For people with special needs, doctor’s appointments are incredibly important. It’s not just about therapies and checkups, but oftentimes, specialized doctors need to see these individuals on a regular basis, and emergency services are often needed as well. Families without wheelchair vans cannot always get to their appointments, leading to them missing out on important care.

Quality of Life 

It may not seem like a big deal for you to run to the store after work or travel to a family member’s home on the weekend, but for families without a reliable wheelchair van, this is a huge deal. Many of these children have never picked out their own toys in a store, visited their grandparent’s house, been to the ocean, or even seen Christmas lights. Their quality of life can be improved a great deal if they are provided with a wheelchair van, as they will be able to do things that are commonplace for other children. 

If you want to join our cause and help provide more wheelchair vans for those in our community, get in touch with All Things Possible. We would love to connect with you and show you how you can get involved.