College sets speed limit for wheelchairs

[Max]

College sets speed limit for wheelchairs
Associated Press
December 16, 2002

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LOS ANGELES -- Wheelchairs users beware: You could be ticketed -- or worse, expelled -- for speeding at Valley College.

Campus officials recently set a speed limit of 4 mph for wheelchairs, hoping to keep pedestrians from being hurt.

"It's a safety issue, pure and simple," said Tom Jacobsmeyer, vice president of administration, who proposed the regulation after seeing a student nearly hit by a woman "going very fast'" in a wheelchair.

Some students find the regulation absurd.

"It's like a bad joke," said Lynn Eller, one of several students who use a wheelchair or electric cart on campus. "People who aren't disabled should be warned to be considerate of wheelchair users."

Campus officials said last week they will warn offenders at first, but chronic violators could be cited, suspended or expelled.


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Copyright 2002 Associated Press.

[Emi2]

There is a sidewalk speed limit here of 8 kph!

"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow"
~ Anon

[Vike]

I laughed my ass off when I heard this. All I could picture was a guy in a chair mowing people over on campus.

[cowboyquad]

maybe I should rig my chair up with a heavy duty grill (leg) guard and go flying across campus http://sci.rutgers.edu/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

[Steven Edwards]

...more than you think. There are four or five wheelchair/scooter users where I attend school and one girl soars down the sidewalks, pedestrians or no. It looks like an accident waiting to happen.

-Steven

[cowboyquad]

One person flies around. One person! And this justifies making a "rule", which by the way is virtualy impossible to enforce because chairs lack speedometers and which would never withstand the appeals process, that targets EVERYONE who uses a power chair. Maybe next we could ban running by able bodied people especial "fat" people because when they run into you it hurts worse. Hey you ran after that frisbee too fast that's a $10 fine and if we catch you again you'll be expelled. Can you say bullsh__....sorry I sneezed. What about bicyclists riding through campus?

There is a girl on our campus that uses a power chair and expects everyone to move out of her way too. Yes she does piss me off. The way I see it, and there is a good discussion on this topic going on in the life forum web page (http://carecure.org/forum/showthread.php?t=31576), is that we are all pedestrians. Whether you walk, use a manual or power chair, or need crutches, we are all pedestrians and we should have as much consideration for the next person as they may have, or at least they should have, for us. However, this one girl in no way justifies the university to impose a "rule" that says everyone in a power chair must abide by.

I could type much more but I am sick of typing so I will end here for now.