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> it would probably help the woman in this article if she lost some weight You know how awful this sounds, right? I'm not sure you meant it the way it sounds.

> it would probably help the woman in this article if she lost some weight You know how awful this sounds, right? I'm not sure you meant it the way it sounds. Please clarify. Do you mean that by reducing the physical weight of her body you think the sidewalks would somehow be easier for her wheelchair to navigate? Hopefully not because that's absurd. > It should definitely be possible to make a wheelchair that can go up a single step. Especially for $30k. It's not like there is no innovation in this area (see the "tank chair" for a good example). But there are many obstacles, of many kinds, here. Of course. This is not just your comment: All through this thread people who haven't thought the issue through in detail seem to be waving their hands at the real problem (environment is not suitable for all users) and proposing these ad hoc solutions as though nobody has thought of them before. Until we can all float around in hoverchairs, we need the damn sidewalks to be functional. I have no problem thinking outside the box but at some point you have to come back to reality

IshKebab 9y ago
> Do you mean that by reducing the physical weight of her body you think the sidewalks would somehow be easier for her wheelchair to navigate? Yes of course. For uneven pavements and similar. It's simple physics. It sounds like it would need a redesign of the wheelchair to go up full kerbs, but it would definitely be easier to design that wheelchair if the weight limit was 100kg rather than 150kg.
- oddlyaromatic 9y ago
  Weight gain is kind of part of the disability if you have a mobility problem, or, you know, actual paralysis. This is a ridiculous transfer of responsibility from those who design and maintain the environment, to those who experience disabilities caused by the failures of that environment's design and maintenance. I want to be polite but also clearly express how angry this idea makes me. Also I disagree on how much the physics of a power chair would be affected by this. Yes, maybe it would be marginally easier if heavier wheelchair users were less heavy... In fact, it would be even better if they could walk. That's about as practical an idea. We cannot control the person's physical size or abilities. We can broaden the range of humans for whom we design things by doing better work. That's all we can do. That's what we should do.

IshKebab 9y ago

> Do you mean that by reducing the physical weight of her body you think the sidewalks would somehow be easier for her wheelchair to navigate? Yes of course. For uneven pavements and similar. It's simple physics. It sounds like it would need a redesign of the wheelchair to go up full kerbs, but it would definitely be easier to design that wheelchair if the weight limit was 100kg rather than 150kg.

oddlyaromatic 9y ago
Weight gain is kind of part of the disability if you have a mobility problem, or, you know, actual paralysis. This is a ridiculous transfer of responsibility from those who design and maintain the environment, to those who experience disabilities caused by the failures of that environment's design and maintenance. I want to be polite but also clearly express how angry this idea makes me. Also I disagree on how much the physics of a power chair would be affected by this. Yes, maybe it would be marginally easier if heavier wheelchair users were less heavy... In fact, it would be even better if they could walk. That's about as practical an idea. We cannot control the person's physical size or abilities. We can broaden the range of humans for whom we design things by doing better work. That's all we can do. That's what we should do.