From: nickodell49@yahoo.ca 
  
 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? 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? 
  
 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? 
  
 Nick 
  
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