On Monday 03 Jun 2002 9:21 pm, Trisha Cummings wrote:
> Hi Deri,
>
>   Thanks for the information - this was exactly what I needed to
> know and why I had rejoined the list. Mainly Amber's concern is her
> right foot and the brake. How does Lin handle that or is her right
> leg maybe stronger than Amber's?
>
>  I bought a standard transmission becasue an automatic costs more
> and it doesn't matter what my car is - or to put it mildly I
> stupidly didn't think ahead - that 5 years in the future Amber
> would be driving. Bad planning!
>
>  So she gets a new car every three years.... How does the lease
> thing work? I thought leasing a car meant it was never really paid
> for and you had - what amounts to a car payment forever? Or do they
> give special rates?
>
>                                  Trisha
>

The brake is servo-assisted (standard feature) so strength is not a
big factor. Switching from gas to brake quickly was just a case of a
lot of practise to get the movement 'ingrained'. It took Lin 5 years
of lessons (with an adapted dual control car) before passing her
test. The biggest problem (like Mags) was developing "depth
perception".

The lease works as follows:- one element of Linda's disability pension
(250 a month) is for her lack of mobility, it can be used to pay for
taxis, paratransit, etc. or it can be commuted into a car lease
(which includes insurance, servicing, breakdown coverage as well).
The cars are "owned" by the govt, and after 3 years are sold off and
the Govt get the proceeds. Its the largest "car fleet" in the world,
so of course each car maker is v. keen to be included. The details
are on http://www.motability.co.uk, it seems to work quite well,
definitely something you Americans should be pushing for, think what
sort of deal Ford would give to have a guaranteed pool of several
million cars a year.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Deri