Limited Mobility and Luxury Limousine Hire

If you have limited mobility, including perhaps being confined to a wheel chair, do you feel that certain forms of vehicle hire are closed off to you?

What are your options?

Definitions

The term ‘limited mobility’ isn’t always understood the same way by vehicle rental companies.

Some people may use it to simply indicate that they’re unable, by reasons of age or other medical condition, to walk more than a short distance. Others use it to indicate situations where the individual is bed-ridden or confined to a wheelchair in terms of moving from ‘A’ to ‘B’.

Obviously, your transport requirements may vary hugely depending upon your own particular situation on what is a wide spectrum of possibilities. However, assuming that your transport needs are not necessarily highly specialised, such as an ambulance providing in-transport medical care, you may be surprised to know that luxury limousine hire might be a real option.

Specialist vehicles

Some luxury vehicles have been specially adapted with ramps to permit wheelchair access and clamping once in place. So, that might be an ideal solution if you are permanently confined to a wheelchair once out and about.

Some luxury limousine hire companies may be able to offer assistance in helping you from a wheelchair into their vehicle. The wheelchair itself can then be folded and transported in the boot.

Of course, some vehicles may have insufficient space to carry a large chair in the boot and even those that can, may require that your chair is of the lightweight ‘pushed’ variety and not the typically far larger motorised type with heavy batteries.

The bottom line is simple – call a local provider of luxury limousine hire services and discuss your unique position with them. Most will be extremely eager to help where they possibly can because there is no reason why most forms of mobility restriction should automatically exclude you from using luxury vehicles for special events.

Points to note

There may be some points worth keeping in mind though, as they may influence your choice of vehicle or the ability of the limo hire company to provide one.

Some vehicles may not be suitable, from a safety viewpoint, for people with significantly limited mobility. An example might be two-door coupés where access to the rear of the vehicle is potentially difficult and perhaps impractical. As touched on above, such cars might also not be able to accommodate larger wheelchairs in their boot.

In other circumstances, insurance may specify particular requirements for certain vehicles and that might exclude their use for passengers with limited mobility. That is again primarily a safety issue and relates to the speed and practicality of an evacuation of the vehicle should there be an accident.

However, these might typically be a relatively small percentage of the available luxury limos for hire – so it’s well worth making that initial fact-finding call.

Summary

If you have some form of limited mobility, don’t just give up in terms of thinking about luxury limo hire. There will be options out there and people willing to do whatever it takes to help.