The Traveling Wheelchair

Middleboro Gazette
148 West Grove Street
Middleboro, MA 02346
Phone: (508) 947-1760
Email: editor@gazettenewsonline.com
Web Site: www.middleborogazette.com

I give FIVE STARS ‘PLUS’ to The Middleboro Gazette and to Cindy Dow, Associate Editor for publishing and writing this wonderful, thoughtful and insightful column, ‘Accessibility – a bigger issue than it might appear’ on April 17, 2008. I THANK the editor of the Gazette and Cindy for allowing me to publish it on ‘The Traveling Wheelchair’ web site. Please read Cindy’s column below.

Accessibility – a bigger issue than it might appear

By Cindy Dow – Middleboro Gazette – April 17, 2008

I had the opportunity this week to meet a warm and friendly man named Kenny Cieplik – one of the definite perks of this job. Kenny and his friends raised an important issue, that of handicapped accessibility in our communities. If you are able-bodied and primarily associate with other able-bodied people, you may not think it’s a big deal or that it is even an issue at all. Like any other form of discrimination, people have a hard time accepting that it impacts people until they are directly affected by it.

I got my first taste of what it might feel like to be hampered by inaccessibility in high school, when I was on crutches and had to use the elevator to get to classes on different floors. Travel was tiring and gave me blisters, and I was fully ready to turn in the crutches by the time my ankle had healed. However, while the crutches chafed my sides and I couldn’t carry my books, I did get out of class early to have extra travel time – not exactly an accurate depiction of what disability really means.

My second experience was a little more insightful. During college, I took a class that investigated urban social problems and the programs that were in place to address them. One day we took a field trip into the city to see how accessible it was. Half of the class was in wheelchairs – halfway through the day we swapped places. I was amazed at the things that turned out to be an issue that would never have occurred to me, like the little bit of space between a curb cut and the roadway – the front wheels of the chair would get caught in there.

In addition to the access issues, though, there were even more difficult issues to overcome. One of my friends was taking her turn in the wheelchair, being pushed by another classmate. A woman not associated with our class turned to her friend and commented that it was a shame my friend was in the wheelchair, as she was very pretty – all as though my friend were deaf or otherwise unable to comprehend what she was saying. I don’t believe that the woman gave a thought to how rude and inconsiderate she was being, but that didn’t take the sting of her comment or attitude away. 

My truest experience with the inadvertent discrimination that handicapped people face has not been through my own eyes, though, it has been through my brother’s experiences. Mike was a passenger in a vehicle involved in an accident 11 years ago. The accident claimed one girl’s life, and put two men in intensive care. The other man recovered; Mike is now a quadriplegic.

The inability to find a parking space, even a handicapped reserved space, that allows enough room for him to use the lift on his van is now a regular part of his life. So is the difficulty in finding room to maneuver in restaurants, or finding tables at the right height to fit his chair under. Stores with aisles too crowded to allow for easy passing, or sometimes, any passage at all, are too common. Having other people watch as he is fed because he cannot use his hands has been something he’s had to get used to.

Handicapped accessibility is a big deal. It may be tempting to believe that small attempts are adequate – that signs designating parking spaces are enough, whether they are placed in plain view or not, whether they are enforced or not. Some things may seem frivolous or unnecessary, like automatic opening doors, until you think about trying to open a door and balance it while you maneuver inside with a walker or wheelchair. Requiring equal access for all publicly accessible buildings may seem like a big hurdle, and for some buildings it might be too difficult, although we shouldn’t stop trying to figure out ways to create that access.

Handicapped accessibility requires thoughtfulness – careful thought on what is needed, and the best ways to meet those needs. I believe the lack of courtesy and respect shown to those in wheelchairs is often simply a lack of thoughtfulness, rather than a deliberate move to offend.

Kenny’s web  site offers valuable reviews for those who need to know whether they will be able to get into a building or not, but it also offers a treasure of insight for those who want to gain some understanding of disabilities.