Are you looking for new wheelchair restraints?
Every driver needs to understand the importance of road safety and know how to drive carefully and in compliance with traffic regulations. While it's common to think that road safety is all about how the driver and the vehicle interact with the road and the other road users, it is also important to think about both the inside and outside of your vehicle. Your vehicle must be roadworthy before you begin your journey, but it is also essential that all of the occupants of your vehicle can be transported securely. For vehicle users who will be sitting in conventional seats then, you will need to check that the seats aren't going to move and that seatbelts are available for everyone who needs them. It is when you need to transport wheelchair users that the situation can become more complex.
The value of wheelchair restraints
Wheelchairs move. By definition, a wheelchair is a chair on wheels and wheels are designed to move freely, which is great for travelling down the street but not so good when you are travelling in another vehicle and turn the corner sharply. The safest way to secure a wheelchair in place so that it can't move about and cause an injury while the vehicle is in motion is to use wheelchair restraints.
How do wheelchair restraints work?
If left to itself, a wheelchair will roll freely around in your vehicle every time you change speed, brake or turn a corner. Such a situation is clearly unacceptable, but what's the solution? Applying the wheelchair brakes will help a little, but the chair will still be too unstable to be safe. The chief advantage of using wheelchair restraints is that they fix the wheels of the chair firmly to the floor of the vehicle so that it cannot move at all and the wheelchair user can be confident that they will reach the end of their journey without injury.
Choosing the right wheelchair restraints
When you visit your local supplier, you will soon learn that there are plenty of different wheelchair restraints you could fit and each of them will work slightly differently, so it's important to think carefully about your choice before you make a purchase. Your most important consideration will obviously be ensuring that the wheelchair restraints are the right size and strength for the wheelchair you want to carry. Other concerns you will want to think about include the locking mechanism and how quickly the restraints can be locked and unlocked.
Contact a local wheelchair restraints supplier to learn more about your options.