Children and adults who must remain seated in their wheelchairs while traveling are often at a disadvantage in terms of crash safety. The new voluntary wheelchair industry standard WC19 (short for Section 19 of the ANSI/RESNA wheelchair standards) works to close the safety gap by providing design and performance criteria and test methods to assess…

Over the past year, a team of transportation engineers, product designers, and therapists has been writing a series of articles about wheelchair transportation safety in partnership with "EP." These experts understand the importance of transportation for social inclusion, maintaining health, and being able to get to school and work. Previous…

The centerpiece of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) Sled Lab is "the impact sled," as it is called in the business. It's the business of conducting sled impact tests, perhaps better known as crash tests, on all types of wheelchairs and wheelchair seating systems as well as wheelchair tiedowns and…

Riding on a school bus is one of the safest forms of transportation in the U.S. Every year 450,000 public school buses travel more than 4.3 billion miles to transport 23.5 million children to and from school and school related activities. Students are reportedly eight times safer on the school bus than they are in cars. However, the percentage of…

This is the first of a series of six articles on the topic of transportation safety for wheelchair-seated travelers and will highlight some of the basic issues and principles that have been considered in the development of voluntary standards for wheelchair tiedown and occupant restraints systems (WTORS) as well as for wheelchairs that are used as…

The responsibility for providing safe transportation for travelers seated in wheelchairs is shared by many stakeholders, including wheelchair and tiedown/restraint manufacturers, vehicle modifiers and equipment installers, transit providers, rehabilitation technology suppliers, wheelchair/seating clinicians, and even informed and responsible…

This article provides information and a product listing concerning the special automobile seating needs of children with disabilities. The products listed meet the needs of children who weigh less than 20 pounds, must be transported lying down, need help with trunk control and/or head control, wear hip spica casts, are ventilator-dependent, and…