301–310 of 456 posts
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A decent bike for a child costs more than that these days in North America. You either bought this bike used, stolen, in 1989 or are trolling.
A good Kids bike is easily 300-400. If you want one that weighs less than your kid that’s what you have to pay.
And what look like slightly fancier ones for between 300 and 500 GBP: https://www.millercare.co.uk/collections/self-propel-wheelch...
A magnesium alloy framed one is only 450 GBP: https://www.mobilitysmart.co.uk/magnelite-self-propelled-whe...
So what am I missing?
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A manual wheelchair is less complex than a bicycle, and I can get a decent bicycle for a few hundred bucks. The fact that basic wheelchairs are crazy expensive has little to do with the chairs and a lot to do with insane bureaucracy.
And also economy of scale, there are 1 billion bikes in the world VS 65 million wheelchairs.
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My mum recently had a curbside crash while she was riding an e-bike. This resulted in her breaking bones in both her hands, which resulted in a surgery in her left hand and various problems (tcl fracture related) with her right hand. This makes me actually appreciate reliability in e-vehicles motor cutoffs etc. I keep thinking if this could have been avoided with a better quality e-bike or if actually it would be eve…
A friend has an e-unicycle (I think the category devices has some other name as well..) and he wanted to try out how it behaves in a track. He sort of knew, but didn't expect it, that when the roll of the device exceeds a certain threshold, the device will shutdown. Even if you're on a curve going with some speed. Broke his wrist. Since then he's also wearing wrist protectors that keep the hand straight. Actually it…
That actually feels like overengineering based on well-intentioned, but wrong specs. You probably want to just use sideways acceleration for "falling over" detection, instead of roll.
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$1000 is not cheap for an off the shelf wheelchair such as hospitals make available for patients (in the UK, at least). That was my first thought on reading the article - "$1000 for a wheelchair, really?" - and a quick Google shows that you can buy what looks like reasonable quality wheelchairs for less than that. But the ones on the article are custom-made for each buyer, which is clearly a vastly more expensive opt…
No, you can't buy a reasonable quality wheelchair for less. You can buy what a person who doesn't need a wheelchair consider reasonable. If you had to use those cheap chairs for 16 hours a day, and pushing yourself even just for a mile of well paved roads, not even uphill, you would never consider those reasonable.
Custom fit lightweight wheelchairs are expensive. My Ti-Lite (one of the most popular lightweight chair brands) Aero Z starts at $3k and goes up quickly with wheels and backrest and casters and various other options that I need for sitting 16 hours a day without creating more problems. Insurance covers this for me every 5 years, but of course that's not a luxury every one has. Most plans don't cover DME 100%. What Za…
A manual wheelchair is less complex than a bicycle, and I can get a decent bicycle for a few hundred bucks. The fact that basic wheelchairs are crazy expensive has little to do with the chairs and a lot to do with insane bureaucracy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A manual wheelchair is less complex than a bicycle, and I can get a decent bicycle for a few hundred bucks. The fact that basic wheelchairs are crazy expensive has little to do with the chairs and a lot to do with insane bureaucracy.
Well, bicycles have more demand and volume (presumably), so that would play in to it. But yes, bicycles are a good point of reference.
In the UK you can buy a simple wheelchair for 132 GBP: https://www.uk-wheelchairs.co.uk/ugo-essential-self-propelle... And what look like slightly fancier ones for between 300 and 500 GBP: https://www.millercare.co.uk/collections/self-propel-wheelch... A magnesium alloy framed one is only 450 GBP: https://www.mobilitysmart.co.uk/magnelite-self-propelled-whe... So what am I missing?
I'm guessing this is either a non-problem, i.e. the expenses are being exaggerated by competitors; or it's some kind of private healthcare thing where everything is insanely expensive because the government doesn't negotiate prices centrally