Private Vehicle Access for Canadians with Disabilities: Policies and Practices to Increase Transportation Options for Disabled Canadians

Author

Paul Coninx

Organization

Automobile Consumer Coalition (ACC)

Published

2007

Summary

In most parts of Canada today, persons with disabilities caused by disease or injury are faced with multiple challenges. Their lack of full mobility restricts the types of transportation they can use, thereby making the availability of a motor vehicle relatively more important to them. The types of jobs they can accept are limited, thereby reducing their employment options and restricting their income potential. They are usually limited in the type of vehicle that they can use, and necessary modifications - solely to conform to the driver and not to increase performance - can raise the vehicle price by tens of thousands of dollars. So, unless they can benefit from an insurance claim, disabled drivers in most of Canada must pay more, for a product that they need more, and with fewer available resources than the average Canadian.

Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms provides equal benefit of the law without discrimination while expressly allowing efforts meant to ameliorate the conditions of disadvantaged individuals, including those with physical disabilities. The only province that is making full use of Section 15 as it applies to disabled motorists (including passengers) is Quebec.

This project reviewed all aspects of the process of providing disabled motorists with appropriately modified vehicles. Of particular interest was the identification of bottlenecks in the system that would result in the market not being fully served.

The findings include:

• There is a strong network of trained and experienced driver rehabilitation and evaluation experts throughout Canada.
• There are numerous well-regarded companies that perform vehicle modifications.
• There are strong safety standards (e.g. CMVSS) in effect.
• Conforming to safety standards does raise the cost of a modified vehicle, but not unreasonably.
• Provincial financial assistance programs range from virtually full funding of vehicle modifications (Quebec) to no available funding.
• Several non-profit organisations provide funding toward vehicle modifications, usually relating to children.
• The rules for funding eligibility can be complicated and vary widely between different governments and non-profit organisations.
• The disabled community is not being property served as a result of the general lack of consistent information regarding government and non-profit programs.
• The major impedances to obtaining an appropriately modified vehicle are lack of funding and lack of information.

Recommendations:

• Provinces should re-evaluate their modified vehicle financial assistance programs (or lack of one) to determine whether it is consistent with the society they want and the image they want to project.
• A thorough Canada-wide economic cost-benefit analysis should be carried out to determine the net economic costs and benefits to the province of various forms of financial assist programs for modified vehicle.
• Change the federal non-refundable tax credit to a refundable tax credit that better reflects the economic reality of many disabled Canadians.
• There is a dire need for a Canada-wide information clearing house regarding modified vehicles, vehicle modification, driver rehabilitation, and funding availability.

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OCA Funded Research
This research received funding support through the Office of Consumer Affairs' Contributions Program.

Contact information

Source: Consumer Policy Research Database