walking . is . overrated

I’m sure many of you have seen the latest ad from Land Transport New Zealand, promoting cars with side airbags as helping to prevent brain injury during a crash. What you might not have realised, however, is that the woman in the advertisement is actually an Australian actress. Admittedly, she is very convincing, but is […]

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Well mark this down in the ‘never-thought-it’d-happen’ file, but a bloke over in the UK has built the world’s first motorbike designed specifically for wheelchair users, and boy is it impressive. The bike is actually being shipped over here and donated to the CatWalk Trust, to be auctioned off to raise funds for spinal cord […]

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Hahaha… Steep much? And just in case you weren’t sure what/who it was intended for, they’ve made it unmistakably clear

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So I’m sure you’ve all heard of how PM Helen Clark’s security entourage blocked all the mobility parking spaces outside Christchurch’s Town Hall last week.
What that did, interestingly, is bring this debate over the misuse of mobility parking spots into the mainstream, and the NZ Herald has a really fascinating debate going on over […]

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I’m sure it’s nothing new to any of you that petrol prices are on this inexorable rise to, well, unaffordability, but do you think as disabled New Zealanders, this is having more of a severe impact than on the rest of the population?
Many of us are on a benefit of some description, and some […]

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Well I’ll be, have all my Christmases come at once? If I had a spare $50,000, maybe. Researchers in Pennsylvania, USA, have developed a new laser-guided robotic wheelchair which - all by itself - attaches itself to your vehicle’s hoist after transferring into your car. That’s right, it’ll attach itself. That is, you hop in […]

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Should we paint mobility parks blue? Apparently it deters those who shouldn’t be parking there… What do you think?
Research undertaken by the disability support service found that 55 per cent of people using mobility parking spaces with the existing yellow markings were doing so illegally.
After being painted blue with yellow markings, the misuse dropped to […]

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Having had a very pleasant, and surprisingly successful journey on the Interislander ferry myself early last year, I was intrigued as to what the folks over at NZ On Wheels had to say about it all. Thankfully, our individual trips seem to have at least one thing in common - the overriding enjoyment factor! It […]

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Following on from discussion surrounding the raising of the fine for parking in a mobility space from $40 to $150, it was suggested by a reader that a different kind of parking abuse goes on every day, a type of abuse which is arguably a bigger problem than mobility parking misuse. It surrounds the use […]

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It’s a common pastime of mine to watch those with mobility permits exiting their cars, watching for the slightest signal of mobility impairment, ready to pounce on those failing to show any such signs. However deep down, I know there are impairments which are ‘invisible’, and no doubt result in many unkind stares from naive […]

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