Accessibility is a big factor for older drivers
Choice of vehicle depends almost entirely on how easy it is to climb in and out
Katherine Croxson has a love-hate relationship with cars.
She has been a fan since childhood, the result of growing up with a “car freak” for a father, she says.
But she’s also 80 years old, with an artificial knee and an arthritic shoulder. Like most people with limited mobility, Croxson’s choice of vehicle depends almost entirely on whether she can easily get into it or not.
“I’m a representative of the people who are getting older,” she says. “We’re as sharp as we ever were, but we want to walk into the vehicle. You can’t trip yourself up over the (door) sill, which I have done a couple of times.”
Croxson lives in Elliot Lake, Ont., and drives a Dodge Journey, which replaces the Grand Caravan minivan she had owned.
“We bought it when older people were definitely going to vans from cars, because they were easier to get in and out. If I get into a friend’s car, which I rarely do, I need a cushion that’s eight inches high because I’m so low in the car, and then getting out is a problem. The sill in the car is four to 41⁄ inches (wide). Add that to the
2 height of the car above the road and that becomes a real problem if you have issues with your knees.”
Automakers have to consider a huge number of factors when designing a vehicle and ease of entry and exit is just one item on the list. Seats and door openings must accommodate a wide variety of body shapes and sizes and controls must be easy to reach.
The cabin design may have to work around vehicle components, such as a wider transmission tunnel and resulting narrower foot wells on some all-wheel-drive vehicles. And safety features such as airbags and seatbelts also need to be factored in, along with any updated federal requirements for crash protection.
Generally, car companies don’t design vehicles specifically for the needs of older occupants, but for the widest range of users, including those with limited mobility.
“It’s a marriage of engineering and art,” says Nadia Preston, an ergonomic engineer at Ford. “We want it to be esthetically pleasing, but make sure that the ergonomics behind it are met. We try to put ourselves in the shoes of the customers and all the scenarios they would be in.”
One of the tools is the Third Age Suit, developed for Ford and exclusive to it. Once an engineer puts it on, he or she experiences some of the body changes that can occur with aging. Its weights and braces reduce the range of motion, making it more difficult to walk and to get into the vehicle. Users can also wear goggles that create vision changes such as degenerative eye disease and a wrist strap that mimics the tremors of Parkinson’s disease.
“An engineer who wants to design sleek and small buttons will realize that this causes potential issues for someone with limited mobility,” Preston says. “We also put on gloves which give you limited tactile feel. It gets you into the mindset of what it’s like to be an older driver when we’re designing vehicles, so you have that experience in mind.”
The suit isn’t used for testing vehicles, but as a teaching aid for engineers.
“We haven’t had to use the suit as much as we did in the past, because we’ve come a long way in understanding the limitations,” Preston says. “It by no means takes the place of interacting with the consumer, and we have various forums where we speak to consumers.
“But if someone’s coming out of school in their 20s and we explain why we need to make these considerations, it’s easier to get that point across if they experience firsthand how much more difficult it is to reach for the liftgate with the suit.”
While she realizes that some vehicles will be easier for her than others, Croxson is also limited by the number of dealers close to her.
As a result, she would like to see more specifications when she’s researching a vehicle purchase, so she knows more about each one before she makes any long trips to start testdriving anything.
“None of the information I can get, either to view or to read, tells about the sill, whether there is one when you’re getting in and out of the van,” she says.
“I need it flat to the edge of the door, and (the opening) should be high enough that you don’t have to bend down to get in. It would be a big help, and I’m not the only one who feels this way.”