In the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, Goldilocks attempts to eat three bowls of porridge, one is too hot, one is too cold and one is just right. The metaphor has been used for many purposes – most recently in looking for earth-like planets that are neither too cold and thus ice balls or too hot sustain life. In the context of this essay we are looking for cars that are just the right size, not too large and especially not to tall, not too short, not too large and especially not too small.
When you are in a wheelchair there are many limitations on the card you want to buy. First, the car must be of the right height to make it easy to move from the wheelchair into the driver seat. If the driver seat is too high, it will be very difficult to make this move. The same problem applies if the driver seat is too low, although very few cars fit into this category. Secondly, there must be enough room with the driver seat set as far as the reader as possible to allow the wheelchair to be disassembled and placed in the passenger seat. This process must happen any time a driver in a wheelchair asked to enter a car by himself and drive off.
There are other features which are nice to have. When there is a passenger, instead of disassembling the wheelchair and placing it in the passenger seat, the driver will ask the passenger to put the wheelchair somewhere in the back of the car. If there is a large enough space in the back that the passenger can put the wheelchair there with minimal disassembly, the situation is ideal.
The next thing we considered was the possibility that at some time we would want carry more than two people in one of our cars. My wife drives a Honda Civic which lacks room to take the wheelchair in the trunk. This means that when I am a passenger in her car most of the backseat is occupied by the wheelchair and a third passenger may be accommodated only with great difficulty. Ideally, if there are four passengers it would be nice if the wheelchair were completely outside of the passenger compartment. It might live in the trunk if there were sufficient space or if the car were a hatchback or had other space in the rear the wheelchair could be disassembled and placed in that space.
We went four car dealers and looked at various cars. Most cars were either too high or had other reasons not to be considered. So far the car that we like the most is the Honda Fit. The car is low enough and has enough space to place the wheelchair in a back area without disassembly. We have not gone back and tested to see if there is enough space when the rear seats raised to allow the wheelchair be placed in the back area.
Within the next week or so we will look at other cars, things like the Toyota Scion and maybe be PT cruiser for other candidates for a car we might buy. In the meantime I am taking training in driving cars with hand controls. I did this once before when I was in a cast and rented a car with such controls but I suspect the permanently installed controls may be more serious and perhaps easy to use.
