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Mobility activity Planning and following journeys
just had a horrid thought in terms of people driving, after reading billy’s post
would it be taken that a satnav is an aid or adaptation?
Judge Rowley must have seen your post Claire - in obiter comments she says a normal satnav is not an orientation aid in CPIP/239/2016… because it is generally available and not ‘a specialist aid designed to assist disabled people to follow a route safely.’
[ Edited: 3 Aug 2016 at 09:14 am by Stuart ]11… In contrast to the general definition of ‘aid or appliance’ in regulation 2, the definition of ‘orientation aid’ is expressly limited to a ‘specialist aid’ which is ‘designed to assist disabled people to follow a route safely’ (my emphasis).
12. Thus, if a claimant’s SatNav is one which is in fact commonly available, without a particular modification or specially designed feature as envisaged by the definition, it will not, in my judgment, constitute an “orientation aid” under mobility descriptors 1d or 1f.
Getting ever closer to my hoped for test case on smartphones.
Not sure I see what general or common availability has to do with it though. A stoma bag is generally available.
Getting ever closer to my hoped for test case on smartphones.
Not sure I see what general or common availability has to do with it though. A stoma bag is generally available.
The difference is in the regs and their definition surely? A stoma bag only has to be an aid or appliance, whereas the definition of ‘orientation aid’ requires that it is “a specialist aid designed to assist disabled people to follow a route safely”. Whilst a SatNav might enable a disabled person to follow a route safely, it clearly isn’t a specialist aid in the sense of having been designed to meet the needs of disabled people.
The above doesn’t mean that I agree with the policy intent of the legislation - I have clients who are able to complete journeys with the use of a SatNav or with google maps on their phone that would otherwise be impossible, but given the wording of the regs and schedule I can understand why both Judges Rowley and may have decided the issue the way they have.
Best make sure our clients are up to speed with the ones designed specifically for them then.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7870543.stm
http://www.disabledinfo.co.uk/dis/1629-blue-badge-sat-nav.asp
The line again blurs when you get into smartphones and satnav or GPS apps as many users then use the accessibility features built into either the app or the device.
The line again blurs when you get into smartphones and satnav or GPS apps as many users then use the accessibility features built into either the app or the device.
I’d argue it doesn’t.
If an app is generally available but has accessibility features built in to meet the needs of disabled people - and those features are not commonly used by the general user (I don’t use them on my phone) but are used by a particular claimant in order to meet their specific disability needs, then I’d say the criteria for orientation aid is met.
And I’m going to argue that the term specialist orientation aid is meaningless, as I have on a previous thread in far too much detail.
In brief, there is little to nothing nowadays to make a specialist orientation aid specialist at all. It’s just choosing whether to activate bits of data or not. Choosing to not carry round several devices with single, specialist functions and use a single device, possibly with multiple apps (but possibly not) is not something that should render the same functionality specialist or not specialist.