How fast does that chair go?
Or: "Don't break the speed limit."
Ah, the clever things people say to you when you use a wheelchair.
In Ben Carpenter's case, the answer would be "50-mph":
Paw Paw police said the semi hit Carpenter's wheelchair as he was trying to cross from the north to south side of Red Arrow at Hazen Street at about 3:30 p.m. The driver of the truck, a 52-year-old Kalamazoo man whom police have not named, told authorities he'd been waiting at a red light and didn't see Carpenter. When the light turned green, he proceeded west on Red Arrow.Check out the news video of Carpenter's story at MSNBC here.
"I made a mistake," Carpenter said of his decision to cross the road. "A big mistake."
Carpenter said after the truck hit him, his wheelchair somehow turned frontward and its handles became stuck in the truck's grille. From there, police estimate, the truck reached speeds of 50 mph before pulling into a Ralph Moyle Inc. trucking facility in the 39200 block of Red Arrow.
"It's a good thing the place was only a couple of miles away," Carpenter said.
This story is wild and funny, but being a wheelchair "pedestrian" is dangerous business. Unaccessible or nonexistent sidewalks (or construction without available alternative routes) often require wheelchair users to travel in the street. Even when there are ramps at street corners, they are often not placed so that they can be used without brushing the grill of a car, often a car where the driver is looking the other direction in anticipation of turning into the street. If there's one ramp per corner -- as opposed to one ramp per each side of a crosswalk -- it sometimes means that crossing the street involves flirting with the traffic zipping by on the green light. If ramps aren't maintained when streets are re-tarred, there can be such jarring bumps at the base of the ramp that staying in your seat is even tricky.
I've had my scooter clunked a few times by the bumpers of cars that move while I'm forced to use the ramp practically under their tires. I've even kissed the corner of a bus once. I had the right of way and was busy doing my damnedest not to kiss the underside of it too.
I'm glad Carpenter wasn't hurt. I wish it was safer for all of us out there.
4 comments:
I'm in NYC for the summer and crossing a street can be scary. I've taken to only crossing when there are other people crossing as well unless there is really no one coming. And then there is the joke that is most curb cuts. I don't quite know how they expect me to get up some of them. At the point that it's about a 60˚ angle, I start wondering if I'll ever make it up.
This is one of my worst nightmares come to life, and I don't even spend my whole life in a wheelchair.
And yes, what Penelope said about curb cuts. The first time I used one I was shocked, completely shocked, at how dangerous it was.
In my fantasy universe, able-bodied people who design and build such things will be required to use them while sitting unrestrained in a wheelchair with their feet and legs bound together and immobilized, during peak traffic hours. When it's easy for them to use this way, then and only then will the curb cut be considered safe and ready for general use.
Likewise, in my fantasy universe, everyone who drives for a living will be required to go about a big city in a wheelchair for a whole day, similarly restrained with limitation, not safety, in mind before they can obtain a license.
I recognize the ultimate worthlessness of these "walk a mile in my shoes" exercises, but they do raise awareness even if they do not give people the full experience of being whatever it is all the time without ever a chance of respite. I know.
Still, I have a rich fantasy life.
For a time when I lived in Tempe, I took my scooter the mile to school instead of getting in a scalding hot van for the drive (and fight for a van-accessible parking spot). One day a man driving a city maintainance truck caught up to me in a parking lot and questioned me about city curb cuts. He wanted to know if they were really that dangerous and in need of maintainance. Apparently someone had been complaining. They were dangerous. Because of re-tarring, some involved a lip between the bottom of the cut and the road that was easily four inches high. I think about that city worker often: Here's this guy who gets an order to stroll city streets and scrape the tar by curb cuts in the Arizona heat and he has no idea why exactly, or what trouble they might or might not cause. He took the trouble to flag me down and inquire, so he wanted to know but didn't have practical information.
I'm impressed that someone made the effort at all.
Right now my big pet-peeve is roads (Broadway is like this in a bunch of places) where there's a small island in the middle, but no curb cut. So to cross, I have to go around the bloody island and closer to the line of traffic. On a Sunday isn't not great, but do-able. During rush hour, I'm fairly certain I'd end up in the hospital.
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