Fuck Your Accessible Invention

Fuck your stupid twenty‐five thousand dollar, tiny accessible car. Fuck your sixteen‐thousand dollar not‐a‐wheelchair. Fuck your thirty‐seven thousand dollar stair‐climbing tank.

Fuck your “accessible” invention.

I will never cease to be amazed at the number of people and companies that are willing to pour millions of dollars into developing a mobility device that no one can fucking afford instead of putting that time and money into expanding public transportation or improving the availability of ramps and automated doors. They would rather invent some mind‐bogglingly expensive doo‐dad then do anything remotely resembling civic duty or activism. And why is that? Why spend so much energy creating something for such a small target audience? Because it pushes the requirement of accessibility back onto the disabled. Why should a city expand its public transportation when there’s a tiny electric car you can buy? Why add a ramp when there’s a wheelchair that can climb stairs?

Never mind the fact that, more often than not, the companies providing these “solutions” go under due to a lack of demand for their products, leaving buyers with large, complicated mechanical devices that can neither repair or replace. Never mind the fact that these devices cost many times more than either a standard manual or power chair. Never mind that these devices never seem to take into account the fact that wheelchair users are normal people with jobs and families. Show me the video where someone gets into that tiny‐ass car and does a grocery run or takes the kids to soccer practice. Show me someone trying to fly using a “wheelchair” that’s not classified as a medical device.

If you really cared about making the world a more accessible place, you’d step away from the drawing board and into a voting booth. You would fund and support organizations that are fighting for accessibility. You would demand that every part of your city be accessible via public transportation. You would lobby for insurance companies and health services to approve and pay for the already proven technologies meant to help disabled people.