From: roland@perry.uk 
  
 In message , at 12:10:17 on 
 Thu, 7 Aug 2025, Nick Odell  remarked: 
 >On Thu, 7 Aug 2025 08:27:45 +0100, Roland Perry  
 >wrote: 
 > 
 >>Things like this have been discussed here before, so I should know the 
 >>answer. But not completely sure. 
 >> 
 >>Vehicle in question is a quite small powered wheelchair, the sort with a 
 >>batteries under the seat. Not a mobility scooter as such. 
 >> 
 >>No numberplate, no lights, no wing mirrors, and I'm not sure what they 
 >>have as brakes. 
 >> 
 >>Anyway I encountered one yesterday motoring along near the local High 
 >>Street, just far enough from the kerb to avoid drain covers, but 
 >>nevertheless very wobbly. Doing about 5mph. 
 >> 
 >>I'm a big fan of provisions for manual wheelchairs, and wouldn't expect 
 >>to push one in the road like that (although presumably it would as legal 
 >>as walking with or without a wheelbarrow). 
 >> 
 >>What does the team think about that powered chair? 
 > 
 >When I am emperor of these fine islands, I shall pass a decree 
 >requiring all wheelchairs, prams, buggies and perambulatory blind 
 >people to be fitted with large, aggressive cutting discs on either 
 >side and when they meet an obstruction of any sort on the pavement 
 >they may cut their way through it in order to pass. The more unsteady 
 >and unreliable my own legs become the more fervently I dream about 
 >this. 
 > 
 >I'm sure that, some way back in my own lifetime, it was against the 
 >law for motorists to park vehicles on the pavements yet, here we are, 
 >with the government making vague promises to bring in legislation once 
 >again to forbid pavement parking in those places where it isn't 
 >already outlawed. Let's see them do that and enforce it and then we 
 >can discuss the problem of unsuitable wheelchairs on roads. 
 > 
 >Yes, I know this doesn't answer your question but then I think you 
 >needed to provide more information in your question in order for there 
 >to be a reasonable discussion about that specific powered chair. How 
 >many yards, furlongs or miles back was this particular wheelchair 
 >forced off the pavement by obstructions after leaving their home? 
  
 It had left the shops and was heading (I presume) home. When I 
 encountered it the trip so far would have been about a quarter of a 
 mile. 
  
 >How easily could they have returned to the pavement at any point? How 
 >much further before they had to enter the road again? What are the 
 >relative safety factors between a wheelchair user, who doesn't have the 
 >advantage of being able to peer over the tops of parked vehicles to see 
 >oncoming traffic before entering the road between badly parked 
 >vehicles, and a motorist who ought to be alert at all times to hazards 
 >such as small children carelessly running into the road to retrieve a 
 >lost ball, encountering a random, slow-moving wheelchair continuously 
 >moving on the carriageway? 
  
 There were no parked cars, or pedestrians, let alone vulnerable 
 pedestrians. 
  
 >These and other questions become ever more relevant to me as I ponder 
 >the possibility of a future of wheelchair use and realise that, where 
 >I presently live, I would be absolutely and totally stuffed by the 
 >local parking situation. I suddenly noticed, a while back, that 
 >literally nobody on my street and beyond is an independent wheelchair 
 >user and I think I know the reason why. 
 > 
 >What was your question again? 
  
 In effect, is such a wheelchair street legal to do a (say) one mile trip 
 back from the shops, entirely on the carriageway, as if it was a very 
 small car. 
  
 I think I might be happy with that mode, as long as the user had 
 insurance and displayed numberplates. 
 -- 
 Roland Perry 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)