I walked through a local park today. Having climbed a very steep and long flight of stairs without my Sherpa guide and no hand rails I came across a (wheelchair) ramp that over a length of around two metres rose by 5cm. This dangerously steep slope did have substantial handrail :) – but nothing stopping a wheelchair user from rolling down the slope and straight down the flight of stairs!
TOT safety
Jun 28, 2022
Last reply: 4 years ago
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Information here may be outdated?
The maximum permitted rise for a 2m wheelchair ramp is 16.6cm –
Was there a flat landing of at least 1.2m at the end of the ramp? If so, it meets the regulations.
Yes noticed these ad hoc adoptions myself. They often are put on the side of a listed building for entrance, but at the end of the slope you get a brick wall, and need to do a right angled turn to get to the footway. Its like the disabled ready toilets in a building where there is not enough room to turn around to get into the actual doors.
The term hlf baked comes to mind. I don't know if they have fixed it but there used to be wheelchair ramps and stairs like this on the way down to the river at Windsor. Brian
No that's a slipway for boats (and one bus).
There is a web page full of egregiously bad accessibility additions.
"30 Times People Tried Installing Wheelchair Ramps But Failed Miserably"
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Some of those have ridiculous slopes on them.
They should tie the designers to a wheel chair and "just let them go", to gauge how safe their invention is :-)
Our downhill skiers get better protection than wheelchair users. At least they get hay bails and foam pads on collision objects.
Paul
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