Certainly one of the frustrations of traveling with a wheelchair is
when you have to put the thing somewhere other than under your body in
a vehicle. Like on a plane or a cab or in a car or on a train. Even the
most collapsible of wheelchairs still don't collapse all that much for
two big reasons -- the main wheels.
But
a former art student in the UK has invented a wheel that if applied to
wheelchairs would really cut down on the space needed to stow a
wheelchair.
Duncan Fitzsimons originally created his folding wheel
for use on bicycles while a student at the Royal College of Arts.
Somewhere along the line he started looking into its application for
wheelchairs too. (For a photo of how it might work with a wheelchair,
see a photo at his Web site).
I can think of a lot of applications
where this would come in handy. Could more wheelchairs be stowed in
passenger compartments of planes if they folded more compactly? When we
travel by van for family road trips of extended length, we have our
son, a wheelchair user, transfer to one of the van's seats. His
wheelchair goes along side, fully assembled and taking up a lot of
space because after all breaking it down wouldn't really help. But if
we could quickly and conveniently fold down the wheels, knowing we
could flip them back in a snap, we would definitely gain some storage
space -- which with five of us is at a premium right now.
Apparently
the wheel is not being actively sold by manufacturer for wheelchair use
yet. if it does come to market sometime, I think there will be buyers
out there.
Would this invention help you? Leave a comment.
