The scooter
I needed a new scooter to go to the US. The one I'd taken to France was a bit old and worn out, it had done a lot of miles and had become unrepairable.
I had given my scooter to a government agency (who came to visit after I'd been in hospital in '97) who said they'd let me use it but repair and replace it when the time came, all I had to do was sign it over to them.. They were as good as their word on the repair side, but now it was time to replace on the advice of the repair man who said my scooter was beyond further repair.
I started looking in May, tried a few out and opted for the Action Cat. Then the wheels of government started to grind. In short, it was delivered a week before I was due to leave for the US. This was cutting things a bit fine! The supplier also threw in a transformer to charge the batteries in the US (i.e. different voltage to Australia).
I would have simply bought the same scooter again, but that make is not manufactured any more. What I've now got is bigger than what I had, and 50% heavier, but it's also faster, easier to drive and quieter. The seat is padded better and it has pneumatic tyres (more comfortable). It has a rather loud electronic horn, much too loud for the supermarket but just right for the streets of New York.
The airlines transported my scooter free. Because I need it to get around, they will take it for no charge. I suppose the rationale is: there is no point flying somewhere if you can't move once you get there. And it does not discriminate because you have a disability. Although they carry it, that does not mean they will carry it carefully. While I was able to fly to and from the US, and fly from coast to coast, my brand new scooter was a little worse for wear at the end.
Because of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (thank you Democrat government), all public facilities in the US have to be accessible by people with disabilities. This meant that it was easier to get around Manhattan than Adelaide! Every bus is a 'kneely' bus, with a lift to make wheelchair entry possible. (See the MTA website.) I bought a Metroticket for the bus, but ended up giving it away to another bus rider because I discovered there is no charge. I could travel the length of Manhattan Island without any difficulty (and did). Okay, the subway is not always accessible (except in Washington) but while you might not get there as quickly on the bus, you get to see more.
The Cloisters were the only difficult bit, with a lot of European-style cobble-stones, but there was an elevator.
And so it was wherever I went: Philadelphia, Washington, Portland OR, San Francisco, Los Angeles (I only used the bus in NY and can't vouch for other places).
Why a scooter rather than a wheelchair? I find an electric wheelchair hard to drive (with the joystick as a combined left-right-front-back-slow-fast control) and more difficult to get into. My original concern was that it really telegraphed "disabled" rather than the scooter "has difficulty walking". That still applied but I don't really care any more.
This
is the aeroplane which flew us from Washington to Buffalo (picture taken by Faye from the terminal window - is
that the scooter being unloaded?). When I saw the itinerary and the aircraft type,
alarm bells rang. I rang the local travel agent, I rang the Sydney travel agent,
and they both assured me it would be okay to transport my scooter on a Gulfstream.
It's a strange sensation, getting comfortable in your plane seat, the have one of the ground-crew come on board and say "we can't take your scooter." After a few tense moments, they did take my scooter. We just dismantled it into about as many small bits as you can, and it was tucked into various small corners of what is laughingly called "the baggage compartment".
But then the pane took off into very stormy skies, probably the last plane to leave Dulles that day with a hurricane looming. And we had about the worst flight I have ever been on. But the scooter was okay!
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