Accessibility

We want everyone to be able to access our website and our business as much as possible regardless of ability. We have staff trained in British Sign Language and deaf awareness.

We offer several means of contacting us, which will soon include SMS text messaging and "Minicom" for people with hearing impairments.

We have experimented with hand controls on our vehicles and will soon have vehicles available with hand controls after appraisal by an independent mobility centre.

» Website accessibility

Mobility users

An electric vehicle can offer many advantages over a conventional vehicle, especially for a driver with a physical impairment or disability who uses their vehicle primarily for local journeys...

• Most electric vehicles are classed as "automatic" having only a brake pedal and accelerator pedal. There is no clutch, either operated by a pedal or automatically. There is no conventional gearbox, manual or automatic...
• Reverse can be selected using a simple dashboard-mounted switch, or a Park-Reverse-Neutral-Drive style lever...
• Fine control over vehicle speed is possible using just the accelerator: hill descents and slowing down is controlled by how much the driver releases the accelerator, the brake pedal is rarely used. This is less demanding than even a "normal" automatic car...
• Brakes are usually only used at low speeds and braking has extra assistance when touching the brake pedal - the electric motor is used to slow the vehicle, requiring much less effort on the brake pedal than normal...
• "Refuelling" the car is mostly done at home on a driveway, in a garage, or even on the street, simply by plugging it in. No heavy petrol pumps to manhandle on cold garage forecourts, especially a nuisance if getting in and out of a car is difficult...
• Winter pre-heating vehicle interiors to comfortable temperatures before setting off means that restrictive, heavy clothing need not be worn without suffering discomfort or exascerbating conditions which are affected by cold weather...
• Fewer mechanical parts reduces the likelihood of breakdown and inconvenient, unscheduled repairs. There is no exhaust, clutch, spark plugs, air filter, oil filter, engine oil to check...
• The simplicity of the controls on an electric vehicle means that adaptions, where necessary, can be easier (and cheaper) than on a conventional vehicle...

Features depend on exact vehicle and optional equipment

Working with local specialist partners in mobility vehicle conversions we can tailor a vehicle to your exact requirements.

Website accessibility

Our website pages use "access keys" so you can use the keyboard to access links if this is easier than using a mouse, trackball etc. to move the pointer. The highlighted letter or number in a link (shown by an underline or in bold or italics) is pressed to access that link, after holding down the ALT key (PC) or the Control or CTRL key (Apple Mac). Due to the limit of the number of unique access keys, not all links may be available, particularly on sub-menus: in this case, go up one level to access the link.

We use "stylesheets" on our website which "suggest" the background colour, fonts, text colour, the colour of links to other pages (which can be different when clicked on, hovered over etc.)

You may find the pages easier to read without these suggestions. Most recent "web browsers" (the program or application that you are using to read this page, such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, Safari or Mozilla) will allow you to turn off the use of style sheets - web pages will then look more plain and will adopt your choice of font (face and size), background colour, etc.

The File or Edit menu at the top of this window or screen will have a "Preferences" option; this will allow control of the various options: whether or not style-sheets should be used or whether to use our suggested colours and/or fonts.

If you are dyslexic you may find an alternative colour background makes it easier to read text; often a pink colour works well. You may choose a different font - either a "sans serif" font such as Arial, Helvetica or Verdana or a "serif" font such as Times, Times New Roman or Palatino (as available on your computer)

We evaluate our web pages against the best practice for making them as accessible as possible.

Contact us regarding accessibility on access@eco-drive.co.uk