Sophie: Hi, I’m Sophie-Marie Odum Lifestyle Magazine’s Editor.
Sam: And I’m Samantha Renke, broadcaster and disability rights campaigner. And welcome to The Motability Lifestyle Pod. In this podcast, we invite our friends from the disability community into the studio for a conversation about, well, how we can all live our best life, particularly when navigating a disabling world.
Sophie: Before we get started on yet another brilliant episode of the podcast, just a reminder that if you’re listening to us in your car, you can also watch the full episode on YouTube, complete with captions and British Sign Language. Also make sure to click Subscribe or Follow wherever you’re listening so you’ll know when each episode is released. Today we’re talking accessible adventures from a first of its kind, accessible playground to flying a plane. Plus, Motability Foundation’s Director Of Charitable Operations, Lisa Jones, joins us in the studio to discuss how the foundation’s new grant programmes are enabling more accessible travel and closing the transport accessibility gap.
Sam: Who would be stupid enough to let me fly a plane? That’s all- That’s all I’m gonna say on that matter.
Sophie: How have you been Sam?
Sam: I’ve been very, very well! How are you?
Sophie: I’m good. Thank you. I’m good. I’ve got some really exciting reasons to be cheerful today!
Sam: This is my positive motivation of the week, so come on, hit me with them.
Sophie: The first one is about flying a plane. Even though you said Who would let you-
Sam: I mean, I should be able to but who would be stupid enough to allow me to do it I think that’s more of the question.
Sophie: Well, there are experiences available. Based at Lydd Airport in Kent. It’s a collaboration between Lydd Airport and disability flying charity Air Ability. Not sure if you’ve heard of them?
Sam: I haven’t, but it all sounds very, very fantastical. I keep making up words on this podcast. I’m just going to roll with it. Fantastical! Do you know what? I used to be petrified of flying, but I actually quite- That’s quite a cool thing to do, isn’t it? Fun fact, do you remember Myspace?
Sophie: Yes!
Sam: Myspace, for all of those listening who are much, much younger, Myspace was essentially the first Facebook and yeah, social media platform.
Sophie: Tom was everyone’s first friend.
Sam: Yes! Tom yeah, Tom was. Yeah, exactly. Well, I may have had a little bit of a love interest with a pilot on Myspace. We never met, but, you know, we were partners online. Because that’s what you did back then, didn’t you? I had about 20 partners online hen Myspace came about, but he was a pilot and I found that very exotic coming from Leyland in Lancashire. And, I thought, oh, I really wanted to meet up with him. And then I found out his last name was Tea Tree and I – Because I’d already married him in my head because that’s what most of us women do!
Sophie: Of course…
Sam: You know after chatting for two weeks. And I was like, oh, I think I’m just gonna have to cut this off because I just don’t want to be Samantha Tea Tree. So that’s my little flying story. Completely irrelevant to the actual story but I thought I’d just titillate you with a-
Sophie: Fun fact no less.
Sam: A fun fact indeed.
Sophie: For those who are listening or watching and are interested in trying out Air Ability, you can visit their website airability.com/inquire-now for more information. So our next story is about an accessible playground. It’s called the Fair Play Barnet playground in North London, and it’s been heralded as the first of its kind. It sets a new standard for inclusivity and empowers disabled and non-disabled people of all ages, not just kids, to play together. without exclusion or bias. And it sort of comes after research from the disability charity Scope revealed that half of families with disabled children say that their local playground isn’t inaccessible. It was- The idea came from Deborah Gundle and Natalie Esfandi who led the campaign, to create the inclusive playground in collaboration with their local council, Barnet Council. They raised funding and received donations to create the park, which cost £500,000. And from all the research that I’ve done reading about it, it’s been really well received because it was very much needed.
Sam: Of course, and I’m obviously a Scope ambassador so I’ve been following their own campaign to, you know, highlight the need for better spaces for children ultimately.
You know, just little things we don’t even think about, these grids that are on the ground to maybe prevent either dogs or bikes going into these spaces, but they actually were detrimental for wheelchair users. I think ultimately we have a shortage across the UK of facilities for young people as it is. So to hear that we are also thinking, you know, about all children and being more inclusive. You know, inclusive design should and does benefit all of society. We call it the Cut-Curb theory. We would refer to them as a drop Curb in the UK, essentially after the ADA in America, the American’s rights for disabled people. You know, they implemented drop curbs or cut curbs And what we found is they benefit everyone in society. If you’re elderly, if you’re pushing a pushchair, you know, if you’re- Got a lot of groceries, you know, you’ve got a small shop. So I think this is something that is wonderful, beautiful. I just hope that this is the way forward and not just one- Not just one example.
Let’s hope. Let’s think positively. And, yeah, it’s always great. And I love to hear this.
Sophie: Yes, I think that is the hope but for those who are listening or watching and are interested in finding out more it’s called the Fair Play Barnet Playground. And it’s located in Victoria Recreation Ground, which is next to the New Barnet Leisure Centre and it has a car park with blue badge spaces.
Sam: Fab-Tastic!
Sophie: So let’s talk about our guest today. Today we’re joined by Lisa Jones. She’s Director Of Charitable Operations at Motability Foundation. Her team manages a number of grant programmes, both to individuals and to other charities and organisations. Welcome to the pod, Lisa.
-Break-
Sophie: Hi Lisa!
Lisa: Hello!
Sophie: How are you?
Lisa: I’m good. Thank you.
Sophie: Should we get stuck in then?
Sam: Lisa, the Motability Foundation’s grant-making has grown a lot in the last few years. Is that correct? With a number of new grant programmes that have- They’ve come to fruition, which cover a lot more ways in which disabled people can access them. So would you mind telling us a little bit more about the grant- making at Motability Foundation and how that, you know, how that has over the years, evolved?
Lisa: Yeah, we’ve been busy, I guess is the short answer. So I think for the Mobility Foundation, grant-making is really central to what we do. It’s a really big way in which we can achieve our mission of our vision of making sure that disabled people are able to make the journeys that they choose. And I guess grant- making for me is kind of split into two areas. Firstly, we award grants to individuals, so individual disabled people, and we focus quite heavily there on the Motability scheme and supporting people joining the scheme because we know the difference it can make. But in recent years we’ve also differentiated our grant-making and now offer grants to other charities and other organisations who are trying to achieve the same kind of things that we are and really try to make that kind of immediate impact so that we can have- We can support more disabled people but also look at different modes of transport not just cars.
Sam: That really does sound interesting. I’m actually embarking on my own Motability grant-
Lisa: Are you?!
Sam: Yeah but we’ll talk about that maybe a little bit later down the line. Tell us more about the extension of grant-making in G2O.
Lisa: Yes, of course. So, grants to organisations as we kind of shorten it to due to G2O is a new venture.
Sam: There we go! I was like- Not gonna tell you what that is.
Lisa: And as I say, it’s about making sure that we as a foundation can just widen our remit because the scheme is really useful and it supports lots of people. But as a foundation, our remit is to support the 16 million disabled people across the UK. And that’s a huge remit and it’s, as I say, it’s about all different modes of transport. So the portfolio of grant programmes we built up, we call them our impact programmes, are really trying to help in kind of widening that remit and I guess what’s really important to note is that they’ve all been evidence-led. So we didn’t just sit in a room one day and think “Oh, this would be a bright idea, wouldn’t it?” We went out and we spoke to disabled people. We asked them to tell us about the challenges they faced with transport and some of the kind of results that you get when you go out and talk and understand are really quite shocking.
Sam: Yeah.
Lisa: I’m sure you’ve probably already spoken about the fact that, you know, there’s this transport accessibility gap where disabled people are making 38% fewer journeys than those without disabilities. And for me, that’s really quite shocking and what we’re also told is that when they do make a journey, it’s still predominantly by car because it is really easy.
They can get from from A to B and public transport for a range of different reasons can just be really problematic. So our research helped us to identify some of the areas where we could use our grant-making to support in a different way. And as I say, we launched six new grant programmes for organisations and other charities so that we can expand that remit.
And we’re kind of, as I say, listening to the feedback that we’ve had from disabled people in how we can do more.
Sam: That’s so important, isn’t it, because we often forget the importance of equity, you know, when in policy setting. We always strive for the equality because that is the utopian benchmark, isn’t it? But disabled people, we’re not a monolith. Our needs and our experiences, when we access our community, that looks and feels very, very different. So that’s what I really like about this. You really honed in on the fact that, you know, we have to recognise importance of equity. When we’re supporting the disabled community.
Lisa: And I think, I mean, certainly one of the kind of pieces of feedback I heard loud and clear was this idea that actually making a journey is a bit like a house of cards.
Sam: Yes!
Lisa: And actually it’s only if one thing goes wrong, that escalator’s broken, if the signage isn’t correct, if you come across someone who’s just really grumpy and unhelpful, then the whole house of cards collapses. So the programmes that we’ve developed, that kind of focus in these areas, we hope are going to support disabled people in that transport challenge and close that accessibility gap. I’m really lucky, I get to go out and see some of these places, which for me is just brilliant. So one of the programmes that we’ve launched is around community transport because, again, the research showed us that actually, as you say, kind of being able to travel around in my community is really important. And community transport therefore can be a lifeline for a lot of people. And we funded some really big projects across the UK. I went over to Northern Ireland actually to visit one of them and- So I’m not the kind of person to put in a meeting room all the time. So instead I went out in the community transport bus for the day, which was fantastic. What they didn’t warn me was that Northern Ireland is incredibly hilly, so I quite quickly got travel sick in the back of this bus. But I met some fantastic people who, you know, were really honest when they were saying that if it wasn’t for that community transport service, they really wouldn’t be leaving the house. And one chap I met whilst I was visiting an organisation actually down in Croydon was a guy called Ian. And actually what struck me with Ian wasn’t him, it was actually his wife, Sheila. Brilliant lady. Brilliant, loved her. Ian had- Had a couple of heart attacks and, as a result of some of the medication, it impacted his sight. He was really active guy. Reminded very much of my dad. And he therefore had been in the car one day, was driving along and then realised that he literally couldn’t see what was going on around him. It’s that quick, that terrifying and that quick. This wasn’t something that had built up over time. He pulled over, called a friend, friend came to get him, and that was the last time he ever drove because his eyesight had been- Had been impaired and that meant he couldn’t drive. And as I say, what struck me more was meeting his wife Sheila. And she was really honest. Said this is not the life she expected because she’s now Ian’s carer and she herself doesn’t drive. So he was the man of the house and doing all the driving. And now she’s kind of got that responsibility. And, because of one of the organisations that we’d funded, it meant in their local area they had a community transport organisation which was supporting Ian and other people with disabilities. And it meant that he was going out on this service two or three times a week. And, as Sheila put it, just means he’s out of under my feet.
Sam: Get him out. Get out of the house.
Lisa: Exactly. And I think for me, that just really reiterates the fact that, yes, we are here to support disabled people, but the impact is far wider.
Sam: And it’s a much more holistic approach. I guess, you know, you understand the nuances of people’s lives, you know, day-to-day. And although, you know, having an adaptive vehicle is magical and it- But it is still a privilege, you know, for a lot of people, even if you have a wonderful WAV vehicle, you can’t control external barriers. You know, we’ve recently talked about the fact that, you know, people are parking too close so you can’t get your wheelchair in and out. You can’t- You can’t control these factors. So it’s wonderful what you’re doing, I’m actually quite excited about projects like this. You can see my- I’m getting already – My cogs in my brain are turning.
Lisa: So one of the other programmes we’ve set up is a research programme actually, which again, is really important because if you can provide good quality evidence then you can make a difference. And one of the ones I’ve really liked recently is now I’m going to get all the terminology wrong, but you know, when you can go out sometimes and they can be barriers on the pavements, there can be barriers to stop cars going down or scooters getting into footpaths etc. That’s all been put there probably for really good reason.
But they haven’t thought about the impact on the disabled person.
Sam: Bike lanes. I mean, I know that the barriers that came unfortunately, due to, you know, the rise in terrorist attacks on major cities and like you said, they’re there for good reasons. But a lot of the time, you know, disabled people aren’t brought to the table when we are planning these new spaces. And I think that’s where the missing link can sometimes be. So, you know, going out into the community, speaking to, you know, the people who are accessing the community and just following them day-to-day, that’s the only way that you’re actually going to make positive change.
Lisa: And I think for us, if we can grant funds and research into those kind of challenges, then we’re helping another charity or another organisation to really, kind of, have a robust argument for the work that they’re doing. And if we can support that in the background, that means it has then a direct impact onto a group of disabled people, then I think we’ve- We’ve kind of done a good thing. Can I just tell you about another organisation?
Sam & Sophie: Yeah!
Lisa: I did warn you. I could talk a lot didn’t I?
Sam: I’ve met my match with you Lisa.
Lisa: Oh my God. Yeah. So I also went recently down to Cardiff and I was always a bit skeptical about this one. So last year, in memory of a friend of mine who passed away, I did the London to Brighton bike ride. Oh my God, that was hard work. Anyway, so I was really keen to go on this particular visit because it was an adapted cycling organisation that we had grant funded and I was really intrigued to see how this was going to work and again, for me,
I’m not going to sit in a meeting room doing that stuff. I was out on the bike ride and I had this amazing three-wheeled trike that they kind of gave me but you’re sitting in it, so there’s no handlebars. You’re steering from, kind of, you know, a lower- Your arms are in a lower position by the wheels. So it was a fascinating experience firstly and actually I met another lady there called Jackie. Jackie was a bit like me. She’s a bit of a rule breaker. And I think it was about 18 years ago Jackie told me that she’d got diagnosed with MS. She was out on a dog walk and she noticed that she had started to find her leg had become really heavy and then actually started having to drag her leg and she she said to me really clearly, she sat down by this tree and the dog sat next to her, and she just cried because she didn’t know what had happened. Anyway, she she got diagnosed with MS which- She’s a similar age to me. And that had really impacted her life. And, she had then found this adapted cycling organisation that we had grant funded and she’d started off by going out on a Friday morning on the ladies only ride. And I said to her “Why ladies only?” She’s like “I’m of a certain age. I don’t want to be seen in my lycra.” I mean we all feel a bit like that sometimes, don’t we? Let’s be honest. And she started off on this Friday morning ride and she’d said that, you know, she’d made so many more connections. She’d met new people. It had really actually helped her MS because she was now doing some exercise and she’d enjoyed it so much that she had then gone out and bought her own adapted cycle. So she’s now learned a different way of getting around which is helping her in many ways. And I said that she was a bit of a rule breaker and there was this hill. And she said “If we go down this hill, you have to promise me to take your hand off the brakes.” Now-
Sam does shocked face
Lisa: Exactly!
Sam: I’m terrified thinking about it.
Lisa: Exactly! Well so I’m cycling on this adapted cycle that I’ve never been in before. I’m really nervous. I’m really low to the ground as well. It’s a bit like a go kart in some ways.
And we get to this hill. She’s like “Go faster! Go faster!” Then we get to this hill and she makes me take my hands off the brakes and keep up with her. So we’re going down this hill, no brakes, thinking what’s going to happen. And it was lovely. I mean, I know that I had a massive smile on my face and we got to the bottom. And I was like “Oh my God, that was amazing. Thank you for making me do that.” And she’s like “But doesn’t it just make you feel alive?” And that for her was- It just stayed with me that idea that actually she just felt alive and the adapted cycle meant that her- She’d lost some of her core strength. So that was all supported. She uses a walking aid otherwise, so the kind of three-wheeled trike that she was using actually meant that she had stability. She felt safe and she was able to go on bike rides. You know the small things, when you finally think, oh, I’m so pleased with that.
Sophie: And it fosters community, like, you know, confidence and community.
Sam: We speak a lot about tribe, finding your tribe like 80% – So 16 million disabled people, give or take in the UK, and 83% of that community will acquire their disability much later on.
Lisa: Like Ian and Jackie.
Sam: Those two examples that it was exactly the same. Well, we speak about, you know, how can you, you know, find that positivity in maybe some of the most darkest times of your life. And it is about getting back out there and finding like- minded people with, you know, similar experiences. So this is why it is so important to. I found that really fascinating, because I’ve learned something new today. I genuinely didn’t think that that- This was available.
Lisa: The other thing that they ran which again struck me, I’ve got two children and they had a young child whose mum was trying to arrange a birthday party like all mums have to do. It’s like kind of a challenging time. And her son had a physical disability which meant that actually some of the options open to her were a bit more limited. Anyway, she arranged the kid’s birthday party at this adapted cycle place which meant all of the class were able to go on a bike ride together and it meant that her son was fully included. I love that.
I loved it. As a mum, I love that. As a grant maker and knowing that that was something that the Motability Foundation had funded, I can – It just makes me smile.
Sam: But it means a lot, doesn’t it? Like, I rememberone of my fondest memories of primary school and literally, I couldn’t do sports, really. I’ve got brittle bones,I really struggle with P.E.
They tried their hardest to, you know, kind of include me, but I used to bum shuffle, bottom shuffle, and we included into our PE lessons, bum shuffling races so all the primary school kids would have to line up like in a conga line, but on their bottoms, and we’d have to do like bum shuffle. And all the kids loved it. And that just made me feel like creme de la creme.
Like you’re doing something that I do all the time. Sorry Sophie I got carried away there but I just- It just goes to show that making those positive changes, they stay with you. I remember that vividly. What- How old was I in primary school? Infant school? It’s so impactful, isn’t it?
Lisa: Yes. Exactly.
Sophie: It’s great that you actually get to go and see the impact that it’s having and speak to people on the ground and, you know, what kind of feedback do you get?
Lisa: Well, always really positive, to be honest. I mean, I think kind of- Most of the organisations that we fund really struggle with funding. And we are a really positive grant-maker in that we’ll do something called core funding, which means we don’t just fund the kind of, yeah, the sexier part of what they’re trying to do. We will actually help them with their core costs of actually just keeping the lights on in the buildings and likewise, we won’t just fund projects. We might just keep them doing what they’ve been doing really well for another period of time. And so we always get really great comments about the type of grant-maker we are from those organisations, but we also get really fantastic feedback on how easy it was to apply for a grant, how accessible it was. And that’s just as important for me, because, you know, they’re one of our customers if you like and we need to make sure they’re getting a great service.
Sam: What’s your favourite part of your job? What’s your highlight? I mean, I feel like we’ve touched upon a lot of your highlights. Reaching out to the community. But come on give us some a bit of an inside scoop.
Lisa: So I’ve been at the Motability Foundation for 11 or 12 years now. And I truly mean this when I say I absolutely love my job. I love every part of it. But yeah, some parts less than others. You know, who likes to do risk assessments and budgets, but the rest of it is fantastic.
And, and I think for me, if you speak to anyone that works in grant-making, you’ll probably get the same answer because what you’re really doing is you’re listening to people, you’re understanding their views and their challenges and then you are spending money to try to support and make things different. Yeah. And make things happen. And there are very few days when I don’t leave the office with a smile on my face.
Sophie: That’s so positive. I know that obviously you’ve been very busy. With the six new grant programmes but what else is happening with Motability Foundation? Anything else exciting happening?
Lisa: So, yeah, actually we are just looking at our review of our strategy. So, we have a five year strategy which we review really frequently and we’re just looking at what does that next chapter look like? We’ve got a new Chief Executive who’s just joined us a few weeks ago. So actually it’s really exciting times. It’s- Yeah, great stuff.
Sophie: Fantastic. They’re all of our questions Lisa! It’s amazing. Thank you.
Sam: I would listen to you all day long.
Lisa: I could talk all day long as well.
Sam: You know I do- I have just been gifted, very kindly gifted a Batec which will clip onto the front of my manual wheelchair. To essentially turn it into, like, a three and they dropped it off and because the weather has been really rubbish, I have not kind of properly test drived it. But I remember that the gentleman that dropped it off, he went “Just go very slow round corners.” And I was looking at him going “How fast is this thing go?!” I’m slightly petrified but that’s going to be my kind of aim over this summer, once the weather gets a little bit nicer to master a Batec. So yeah. Watch- Watch this space.
Sophie: Exciting.
Sam: I’ll be zooming around everywhere.
Sophie: Thanks, Lisa. Thank you.
- Break –
Sophie: Sam, what time is it?
Sam: It is my favourite time. It is Car Chat With Matt!
I don’t know- Was that better or the other one was better, wasn’t it? I don’t know.
Matt: It was good, though. I appreciate the effort.
Sam: Yeah, yeah, always for you Matt. Always for you.
Matt: Well, it’s much appreciated.
Sophie: What are we talking about today, Matt?
Matt: Today. Right. Okay. Today we’re talking about advanced safety features. Now I know, safety. It’s not super exciting. Sorry! There’s lots of cool safety features that you can get on cars now that aren’t just good for helping you avoid accidents in the first place. But they can also mitigate, you know, the effect of an accident as well and that’s obviously- It’s important because it’s important that we’re all safe. None of us wants to be injured in an accident. But not only that, if you do have a minor accident in your car, even a bump in the car park, and your car then has to be repaired. There’s a bit of a vehicle technician shortage at the moment, so there’s quite long wait times of vehicle repairs and things. You don’t want to be without your car for six weeks, two months or whatever because you’ve had a ding in a car park or wherever, you know. So some of these feature will help you avoid anything like that.
And it just means you can keep your car on the road and be comfortable and not have to worry about trying to get hold of a, you know, courtesy car and all that kind of thing. So some of these people might not be aware of if they haven’t had a new car recently and something they just might not be aware of, that they exist and might be very useful.
So the first one, which is my favourite, is called cross-traffic alert. Different manufacturers might have slightly different names for it but generally cross-traffic comes into it. So I can see you- I can see you trying to work them out.
Sam: Yeah.
Matt: So what that means is, imagine you’re trying to reverse out of a space in a busy car park. Often you can’t see anything because you’ve got cars parked either side of you so you can’t see what’s coming from the side.
Sam: They’ll hear me first though. There’s a good chance they might. They will.
Matt: Maybe because they’re listening to the podcast in their car.
Sophie: Of course!
Sam: Well, I like that. There we go.
Matt: Available. Available now.
Sophie: On Spotify. Apple Music.
Matt: So often you can’t see whether cars are coming from either side, crossing the path you’re trying to reverse into. So, particularly people like me, like I struggle to turn my- I don’t have much movement in my neck, so I struggle to turn my head and look behind me anyway.
And even if you can, often you just can’t see anyway. So what this does is it monitors when cars are coming from either side. So if you start reversing, it will suddenly start- First of all it will start beeping, warning you that there’s actually something coming that you can’t see, which is great and most set-ups will actually stop and break the car if you’re going to have an accident, if you’re about to reverse out and someone is coming, it’ll actually hit the brakes for you. So you don’t crash.
Sam: I need that for my mum. Sorry, mum, but it’s true, anyway.
Matt: But it’s- Yeah, it’s a very, very useful feature. It actually helped me avoid an accident once. I’m generally- That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me. But I was- I’d finished charging a car and I was reversing out. It was a really long road. I could actually see down it because it was a really big car park, I was like there’s no one coming. And it would take them about a minute to drive down that long thing anyway and just as I began to reverse and look the other way a car came through a gap and was going stupidly fast, and the car slammed its brakes I was like “Oh my God, what’s happened?” And then I saw this Mini like belt pass at 40mph in this car park, and I would have absolutely reversed into it. If- You know, the car hadn’t stopped me from doing so it does work. It’s- It’s a useful system to have.
Sophie: Does it leave a big gap between when it stops and when the car goes behind if that makes sense?
Matt: Yeah. It doesn’t- It doesn’t cut it super fine. It is like- It’s pretty you know- If it thinks you’re about to reverse out into other car’s path and it’s like, whoa, just- Just hold fire there.
So yeah, it’s pretty- It’s pretty useful. On that similar vein of finding it difficult to look behind me, one of my other personal favourites is Blind Spot Technology. So there’s a few different variations of this but there’s lots of things now to help people out with their blind spot.
So for me, I find it quite difficult if I’m, you know, looking to pull out, I can’t easily look that far behind me. It’s quite difficult and there’ll be lots of people that are in the same situation.
So there’s some quite basic versions of this where cars will just have a light in the wing mirror that lights up when a car is in your blind spot, so you just know there’s someone there, even if you can’t see them. So that’s useful in itself. There’s slightl more advanced versions where it will actively stop you from- If it knows someone’s in your blind spot and you still go to indicate and turn into them, it will actively stop you from doing that.
I just go, woah, and just sort of steer the car back so that you don’t cause an accident. But there’s some other slightly more creative solutions that are popping up. There’s one with Kia where they have- When you indicate it actually shows a video feed of your blind spot on the dashboard. So you can actually sort of indicate and just look down and see exactly what’s in your blind spot without actually having to look behind you at all. I think one of the other ones that- That’s- That’s also quite helpful, depending on where you live, some places you can park off street and there’s loads of space and it’s fine. But there are a lot of places now where you park and you’re essentially parked on the road. And if you’re trying to get out the car, trying to see if there’s traffic coming can be really difficult and knowing when it’s safe to open your door. So, a few manufacturers have introduced something. Again, there’s often slightly different names for it, but generally it’s something like safe exit assist or something to do with safe exit. And basically it just warns you if there’s anything coming in and tells you when it’s safe to open your door when you want to get out of the car. Just to stop you opening into a cyclist or an oncoming car or anything like that. So that’s particularly helpful.
Again, if you’ve got issues with mobility and trying to sort of see what’s coming behind you so that’s just a nice- A nice, simple one that avoids a silly, silly accident.
Sam: I did hear a while back when I was doing some research, like, obviously, the more features you have, the more tech that a car has and if like you had a fire. Internal fire. I saw one system where basically it would put out -Internal- Did I just make that up?
Matt: I haven’t seen that.
Sophie: Yeah. So, like, if there was, like, a fire that because of the tech inside the vehicle.
Obviously, if you’re a wheelchair user, you can’t just jump out of your car. So I’m sure like it was like this technology, maybe you can go research that-
Matt: I was going to say-
Sam: I’m sure I haven’t just made this up or dreamt about it. But one thing that is concerning for me from a safety point of view as a, hopefully, to be a driver – Airbags. Airbags when you have a disability like mine brittle bones, I’m terrified of like an airbag going off and causing potentially more damage than- We’ve not rehearsed this so I’ve completely thrown you under the bus, but, But yeah. Is there anything out there for airbags?
Matt: This is a good question, because they always look-Whenever you see airbags in slow motion, it looks like someone’s leaning into a pillow. And it’s really- But it’s absolutely not like that. It’s, like baffed in the face with air, like.
Sam: Don’t wear glasses.
Matt: Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, I imagine if you have an accident, the airbags don’t generally deploy unless, you know, the accident is a certain severity, in which case you’re probably going to want the airbag rather than hitting the steering wheel or going through the windscreen.
Sam: I hear you.
Matt: So I think, generally speaking, that’s the best option. There are- I don’t think you can with the driver’s- On the driver’s side. On the passenger- On the passenger side and cars you can usually deactivate the airbags for the passenger side.
Sam: That’s a terrifying prospect.
Sophie: You’ve got car seats.
Sam: “I don’t really like that person so do you know what I’m going to do.”
Sophie: Not always for that, if you’ve got car seats for kids.
Sam: Oh look at me sinster. Now you say it. “Come, we’ll go for a nice trip together this weekend. Out in Loch Ness.”
Sophie: No, there’s nothing sinister. It’s for car seats. I think it’s illegal actually to have the-
Matt: Yeah. You can’t have the passenger air bags on if you’ve got a car seat in the front. Yeah.
Sam: I feel like we’ve gone totally off topic. My fault. As per usual.
Matt: But yeah generally, generally, you know, the airbags if you, if you’re just doing a small bump that’s not going to cause you any harm. The airbags won’t go off. Because if airbags go off in a car, it’s a real faff to have that all fixed and new ones installed. So, yeah, they generally don’t go off unless they need to. Outside that, what else have we got? 360 degree cameras. They’re really handy for parking. It’s a real basic one but it just helps you avoid, like, silly bumps and scrapes in a car park. So we’ve all seen reversing cameras and more and more cars are coming with those now, which is really handy. Most cars have- Well an awful lot of cars have a reversing camera as standard but a 360 camera kind of gives you a top down view. So if you imagine you can see all around the car as if you was looking from above it,which is quite nice. But it’s quite good because you can see everything around the car and, you know, you can look in one place and you should still probably look behind you if you’re reversing in a space.
Sam: You probably should.
Matt: It is helpful to be able to see everything. It also gives you a good idea of how centred you are in the space as well as so you don’t park awfully. So that’s a nice feature.And a lot of people have- A lot of people have sort of suggested in various Facebook groups that that’s really helped them out with parking and whatnot. And then lastly this is a small one, but it depends- It won’t be necessary for everyone, but there’s a lot of cars now are being fitted with something called high beam assist and, again, the application of this can vary.
But generally what happens is, if you- It’s particularly helpful if you live near rural roads where there’s not a lot of lighting and they’re really dark at night, and what happens is it leaves your beam on. But as soon as the car detectsanyone coming the other way, it dips it. Yeah. Amazing. So you can leave your beams on and not worry about constantly blinding people.
Sam: I live near country roads, those like little like country lanes. At night time, you need it.
It is terrifying at night because a lot of them don’t have any street lights. There’s no street lights. There’s nothing, you know, so you’re pretty much going in and, you know, just hoping for the best.
Matt: Yeah. So this is really great. Yeah. Yeah. There’s some- There’s often there’s sometimes a slightly more advanced version of that whereby the car kind of detects where the oncoming car is and what it can do at- These are often called matrix lights but it can basically disable the area that would be blinding the car. So it keeps the beam on either side and just dips the bit and follows the car through.So it actually does keep the beam on. And even when there is a car coming, but just dips the part of the beam that would be blinding the oncoming drivers.
Sophie and Matt: Very clever.
Sam: Lights on the continent are different because I remember always travelling in Europe and we would have to put stickers. Oh yeah. Over our lights. And everyone would always flash us going “Your lights are too bright!” And we’re like “Hey, we’re from the UK. It’s just how we roll.”
Matt: Yeah. So I mean, that’s- Those are the ones that really stick out to me as particularly at the moment. There’s loads of other safety stuff in cars now. There’s things like hill hold assist, which stops you rolling backwards when you’re on a hill. For most people, that won’t be a factor because an awful lot of people want an automatic car but it also exists in automatic cars as well. But they’re a lot harder- You’ve got to worry about balancing the clutch and all that sort of thing. And the other one that is useful but is pretty much fitted now to every car, so it’s not something you need to look out for is autonomous emergency braking. So most cars now have sensors in the front. If it thinks you’re getting a bit close or you’re gonna have an accident generally they’ll warn you through flashing light or a noise or a vibrating steering wheel, there’s a few different- There’s a lot going on there. There’s a few different ways that they’ll warn you. And then more noise.
Sam: Abusive slurs.
Matt: Yeah. “What you doing!?”
Sam: “What you doing?!”
Matt: And then if you don’t take any action that it will slam on the brakes. Which is, you know, it’s a really obvious one. It’s useful, but even if it doesn’t stop you from actually hitting the car, it will at least reduce the severity of the accident which is useful. But yeah, that’s pretty much fitted to every car as standard now anyway, I can’t imagine there’s- There’s the- The Euro NCAP safety test which is cars get graded out of five stars on on how safe they are.
The Euro NCAP has started really heavily penalising cars that don’t have that as standard.
And you effectively get like a one star rating or something silly like that.
Sophie: You include that in all your reviews.
Matt: Yeah, yeah.
Sophie: So that’s worth noting.
Matt: Yes, yes. So that’s yeah. Yeah. So that’s the ones that I think are worth looking out for. Just if you think that that might apply to might help you out in terms of your driving and just help you stay a bit safer on the road and avoid having your car damaged.
Sophie: Thank you as always, Matt.
Matt: You are welcome.
Sam: A joy, a joy you are to be here.
Sophie: Yeah, it’s a joy to be here with you. Thanks Matt!
-Break-
Sophie: And that’s it for this episode of The Motability Lifestyle Pod. Thanks to our producer Charlotte Mason at Insanity Studios and her team, including Saffron Mirza and Abi Sandler and our Editorial Assistant Lucie Rhodes at Wonderly.
Sam: If you like this episode, click Follow or Subscribe. Tell all your friends and please leave a review and rating if you’re listening or a Like and Comment if you’re watching. If you want to tell us what you thought or if there’s something you’d like to hear, come say hello on Instagram @Motability_lifestyle_mag and for some behind the scenes content, follow us on TikTok @MLTLifestyleMag. You can also watch the full video on YouTube with captions and BSL. You can find us on @Motability Lifestyle magazine. Finally, if you want more information about the Motability scheme, go to motability.co.uk or if you want to learn more about the Motability Foundation, visit motabilityfoundation.org.uk Well, that is another one in the bag Soph! That has been me, Samantha Renke.
Sophine: And I’m Sophie-Marie Odum.
Sam: See you next time.
Sophie: Bye.
