500 signatures reached
To: Stephen Crabb
Stop Taking Away Motability Cars
Stop cuts to Motability Vehicles. People are losing their motability vehicles through poorly administrated and inexpert personal independence payments. For many people, these vehicles allow access to a full social life, work, and the community. Disabled people are entitled to live a full and equal life and without this you are taking away a lifeline to a full and active life
Why is this important?
Without my car, I'm not safe.
I use my vehicle to get to work, the supermarket, the shops, the cleaners, the hairdressers, to visit family, to volunteer, to do everything I need to do. Without my car, I cannot get about. I cannot safely walk to the bus stop, and should I use public transport I have no guarantee that my mobility will remain long enough for me to get to my destination or even get home.
I've been stranded in city centres and other places because I used public transport and then wasn't strong enough to return to a bus stop and get home.
Many people with motability vehicles rely on these to get by. Without my car, I couldn't work. If I can't work, I can't pay my rent. If I can't pay my rent, I don't have anywhere to live - disabled people are facing these choices today. Many disabled people have 'mild-moderate' support needs. That means, social services cannot afford to help them in this climate of cuts and their only way forward is disability benefits or a motability vehicle. Without the motability vehicle, we become vulnerable. We can exert ourselves, get weaker, get to a place where we become more reliant on the state, cannot work, cannot socialise and collectively cost more in healthcare. That argument doesn't matter though.
What matters is that collectively we have a right and a need to access a full and equivalent life and bit by bit rights are being stripped away. Re-evaluate and stop removing people's motability cars.
