People with disabilities worry about the future of HandyDART
Posted April 12, 2012 9:49 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Safety is a concern, as the disabled look to a future which may not include HandyDART service. They are worried about a proposal that would see users rely more on taxi services.
While Jane Dyson with the BC Coalition of People with Disabilities agrees taxis would likely save TransLink money, she says taxi drivers don’t have the same training as HandyDART drivers.
She knows of deaths that have occurred when wheelchair-bound customers haven’t been properly secured.
“In Manitoba in 1997, a woman died as a result of an accident because she wasn’t tied down appropriately in a cab.”
She says people who use wheelchairs need to feel safe in cabs, if that were their means of getting around.
“People with disabilities need transport so that they can go about their lives and live with as much independence and dignity as possible. If they’re going to feel unsafe, they are less likely to participate in their communities.”
Taxi drivers used to get training, which they paid for out of their own pockets, at the Justice Institute, but that was stopped just before the 2010 Olympics. Dyson wants mandatory training for cab drivers and for the province to pay it.
