So, do some perfectly mobile and healthy people ever use electric wheelchairs when they can’t be bothered walking? I know that rich mobile people like to use those SegWay electric vehicles, but what about just a standard 4-wheel electric vehicle that can be legally used in shops and footpaths?
I know some elderly and obese people who are “technically” not disabled who use the carts that are available in some stores. But, I believe that the stores intend them for this use; an actually disabled person would probably have her own transportation.
mc
I mean a properly healthy and 100% mobile person with no physical disabilities or severe illnesses at all. Just like one of those “hipster hoverboards”, but more comfortable, “elite” and practical.
I thought I heard that there was some some entitled “queen for a day” afternoon shock-jock in NYC who liked to tool around in one because he thought his Texas Feet were too good to walk in NYC.
I heard they finally fired his lazy useless ass a decade ago, so maybe he actually walks now.
The problem is that they are bulky and heavy. You don’t really want to be carting one around unless you really need it. You also have the problem of getting it in and out of the car. I imagine the nearest thing would be golf carts - most golfers using them don’t seem to be disabled, just lazy.
FWIW, my dad is “technically” disabled, but he doesn’t own a wheelchair. He can walk, but Parkinson disease leaves him so fatigued that he can’t walk very far. He has a handicapped placard for when we drive him somewhere; if we’re going to Walmart or Home Depot or something, we’ll park up front, walk in the door, and then he’ll use one of their electric carts to go shopping so that he can conserve his energy.
I think there are probably plenty of people like this, i.e. for whom walking (or walking for a long time/distance) is a great burden, but transporting a wheelchair would be an even greater burden.
You brought up Segways and footpaths, so I assume you’re not just talking about the courtesy scooters that some stores have for their customers, but rather about privately owned scooters purchased by individuals for their own personal use in public places. It’s a big world out there, so it’s impossible to say it never happens, but I would bet there are not many “perfectly mobile and healthy people” who would opt to spend $500 or more on an electric scooter (insurance won’t cover a scooter for a healthy person). add to that the inconvenience of schlepping it in/out of your car (or the cost of a hitch rack) if you want to take it somewhere, and the number of such people probably gets really small.
There are lots and lots of perfectly healthy 15-25 year old type of people that went nuts about those “hoverboard” things that were basically just inferior Segways (so I heard) and then suddenly died out in a few months, and those were about $500 per unit…
A van could easily transport a golf cart, though. But I’m pretty sure most normal golf carts aren’t legal to be used on most footpaths, though, unlike wheelchairs, so there’s that.
Sure, but hoverboards were more about fun/novelty than “I’m perfectly mobile and healthy but too lazy to walk.” If hoverboards had never come to market, I doubt any of those people would be riding on Rascal scooters.
And there was Donald Trump, at a G7 meeting in Taormina, Sicily, riding in a chauffeured golf cart while the other six of the G7 guys walked . . .
G7 leaders took a stroll in Sicily — and Trump followed them in a golf cart (This doesn’t mention that his golf cart was chauffeured, but I saw that in some other tellings of the story.)
There was recently a thread about this, that I can’t find. But there are teenagers who will take an electric scooter at the store for “joy riding” just because they’re bored and feeling mischievous. I see them at my local Wal Mart and others have seen kids do this too.
Not exactly the same as a lazy adult who doesn’t want to walk, though.
Yeah, I see lots of extremely wealthy people driving their vans to parks, unloading their golf carts from the back of the them and driving them through the park, honking passerbys out of the way like they are in the airport. Rumors are that on Sundays Central Park is normally overrun by these people from the upper west side.
Yes. I meant to say what you more ably said. I apologize if my use of the term “technically” offended you. My father, at 78, while have no official ailment (other than working his entire life to support 2 ungrateful children, to hear him tell it) also finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to walk for long distances and avails himself of the carts. I agree that there are many people in varying states of able-bodiedness who find these carts to be a godsend.
mc
The Rich are different.
Yes.
They have more money than we do.
The only people I’ve ever heard of using wheelchairs without a physical disability are a sub-set of the “Devotee” population known as “Pretenders”. They feel as though they are a disabled person in an non-disabled persons body. So they live as though they are disabled, down to the very last tiny detail. A more severe form of this mental illness is found in the group of people known as “Wannabes”. They actually take steps to physically disable themselves in order to be the person they identify as.
In this crazy, mixed-up world in which we live, I can’t tell if either of these posts are genuine or sarcastic:
I hope they are both sarcastic, and I am missing the joke.
The former is sarcasm, the latter is reality.
To be fair, that was probably their choice rather than his.
You’ve kind of described bicycling, where while not electric (except when they are electric) are amazing and efficient and only need a few watts of human power to move them.