Fancy cars for disabled people

[LemaxObsessive]

Motability.

I am sick to absolute death of seeing people saying on various threads, that Motability vehicles are “given” to us disabled people “for free”.

PIP is awarded in 2 separate elements.

1. Daily Living (day to day care needs etc)
2. Mobility

Each element is paid at different rates depending on how affected by your disability you are (and yes, medical evidence is required). However, to be eligible for Motability, you need to be getting the highest rate of the Mobility element. This is currently £77.05 per week (which works out at £308.20 per 4 weeks or £333.88 per month).

When you join Motability you agree for the DWP to give Motability that £77.05 per week instead of it being paid to your bank. If you also receive the Daily Living element of PIP then you will still receive that directly.

You ALSO, in most cases, have to pay an advance payment (AP) for the vehicle. The better the vehicle, the higher the AP. You do not get the AP back.
The £77.05 per week pays for the lease of the car, insurance, roadside assistance, tyres & windshield cover. Disabled people in receipt of the highest rate of the PIP mobility element are already exempt from road tax.

With regards to the ‘fancy’ cars such as BMW, Audi & Mercedes, as you can imagine all of these have a whopping great AP in the multiple thousands of pounds; Which as I said, you don’t get back.
The taxpayer is not paying a penny towards these vehicles besides the fact that Motability don’t currently pay VAT which I believe is up for discussion.

I think a really important point to make here is that PIP is categorically not means tested (even millionaires can claim it, provided their health meets the criteria) and is not paid to replace a disabled person’s income! In other words, people do not live off PIP instead of working, it is paid to cover the added costs associated with being disabled. Costs non-disabled people likely have never even considered, such as cleaners when we can’t do it, basic gardening when we can’t do it, extra electricity for when medical equipment is used at home, ready meals when we’re bed-bound, delivery charges for every single thing we buy because click & collect isn't possible, taxis to work because the bus always already has a wheelchair user on it, along with lots of other small but mounting costs we have zero choice but to pay because the alternative isn’t an option for us. The lowest rate of PIP is just £29.20 per week so we’re not talking big money!

Millions of PIP claimants work full time but crucially, couldn’t do so without PIP and in many cases, without Motability!

As I said above, even wealthy people are eligible to claim PIP to cover the added costs associated with their disability and they can, if they receive the highest rate of the Mobility Component of PIP choose to use Motability. If they want to spend £7,999 plus £77.05 per week to lease an Audi Q4 for 3 years then they can but not many do because it’s a lot of money to have nothing to show for it after 3 years.

So no, nobody is being ‘given free BMWs, Audis or Mercedes’ regardless of what’s being said by anyone!

Im so sorry for your loss. People will never get it.

No, I absolutely didn’t.

Go back and read my posts. I never mentioned PIP.

I said she claimed DLA back in the day and you said “Dla has nothing to do with pip”.

I had to google because I know nothing about benefits.

Google told me that DLA changed over to PIP. I posted that.

You told me that wasn’t the case.

I googled again and found out that actually, you are eligible for Motability if you are recieving DLA. It doesn’t have to be PIP.

Apologies, I am clearly not a benefit expert like you. But you were the first one of us to mention PIP and you totally sidetracked me because I know nothing about benefits.

I said she received DLA and only DLA.

Your brought up PIP.

Also, I never said she had lifetime DLA for knee pain.

I said she claimed DLA. I said that she categorically isn’t disabled. I said the only condition I am aware she currently has is knee pain.

Please quote me where I said any of things you say I did.

You are so desperate for me to be making this up that you’ve resorted to lying.

Disabled people would love to swap places with those resentful people and lose both the subsidised car and the disability. Not so sure that the resentful people would like to take on the disability with the car, though.

So shes not disabled but she has a life time dla award and a mobility car and shes in her 80s sounds believable.

There was nothing wrong with the little blue 3 wheelers they used to be given. Everyone knew they were disabled so gave them consideration, and it got them everywhere they wanted to go.

Also you can’t go on PIP after state pension age so the gran must have been claiming for many years. I doubt she would be on higher rate mobility for painful knees but able to walk everywhere. Sounds like the pp is missing some info or her gran has been committing benefit fraud for decades.

I really hope that your joking.

Are you joking? They were death traps!

People in uproar because they know 110% x person is definitely on the fiddle, complain about how outrageous it is the country is being done over by all these fraudsters and it must be stopped, but yet they never report them

But I haven’t done any of that.

I am certainly not in uproar about it.

As I said, I grew up in a very deprived area and benefit fraud was rife. My own grandmother has been “on the fiddle” for years.

I wouldn’t report anyone for benefit fraud. Most people will look to advantage themselves if they can. It’s the welfare system itself that is the issue.

I take issue with people being completely in denial that this sort of thing goes on. The naivety is almost unbelievable.

She has been on DLA.

Most likely she has been committing benefit fraud.

As I’ve said many times, it was absolutely rife where I grew up.

How do people with Adhd get mobility funding?
My sister has pulmonary fibrosis and rheumatoid arthritis, she cannot walk more than a few steps at a time.
Yet she was awarded lower rate mobility so no chance of motability (she has no energy to appeal).

You can ONLY get the higher rate of the mobility component of PIP if you
A. struggle to walk 20 metres unaided without severe, debilitating pain
or B. Cannot go out alone without getting into danger. That’s it. There’s no other physical way to get that Enhanced Rate of the Mobility Component. Fact.

No, you get it if you can persuade the assessors that you can't walk 20m without pain or can't go out alone. That's the only "Fact". Whether you actually can or not is debatable. I have a relative who qualifies. I can assure you she's fine going out alone and can happily walk when she wants to. And no I don't work for or read the DM.
Also if you can't go out alone why or earth give someone a car! Can they only drive it if someone accompanies them?!

I've just put a complaint in to my local council. It is 435 metres to our village centre from our home. There are 6 distinct routes to the village from our house (3 in one direction, 3 in the other) but only one of them is usable with a manual wheelchair. That one route has 22 dropped kerbs and only 7 of them are of a height that DD1 can traverse. All the others require a wheelchair user to 'pop' their chair:

• lean forward
• rock the wheels forwards to lift the castors and find the 'bite point', much like clutch control in a car, to do a 'wheelie'
• move the wheelchair forwards in the wheelie until the castors are over the dropped kerb
• drop the chair back on to the castors
• push with strength to propel the back wheels over the dropped kerb.

Popping a wheelchair takes strength, stamina, control, core muscles, good judgement of distances, timing, and co-ordination. DD1 doesn't have those things, so she can't do it.

You are naive to an unbelievable degree if you can’t fathom a situation like this.

My grandmother is incredibly fit and active for her age though, so perhaps it’s more common to see this kind of situation with claimants being in their 50s and 60s.

Op I’m not going in to the ins and outs of mobility eligibility but when you say, and in bold, that the tax payer is not paying a penny towards these vehicles, where do you think benefits are funded from?

Absolutely agree with this and all of @MidnightPatrol ’s posts. I used to work in an area in which benefits were the usual form of income. It was an extremely poor area, and still is. As it went into decline with the death of manufacturing in this country there weren’t many jobs. Working out ways to maximise benefit entitlement was just what you did to get by, and reporting someone for exaggerating disability or pain was absolutely taboo. I don’t even think people would consider it fraudulent, they would just consider that they had done well to succeed in their claim.

None of the above means that I don’t think disability benefits or Motability should exist (I strongly support the welfare system as a part of any civilised society) but I think it’s the height of naïveté to refuse to accept that there are people out there who are gaming the system.

I think you're more Naive for thinking people are believing what you are saying

I’m not on UC. Too much savings.

they’re still paying me so I assume contributions based esa is continuing. I was assessed totally unfit for work (forget the actual phrase)

This is the message people who depend on PIP should read. If the system expands at the current rate, it will have to cease as you cannot get blood from a stone.

The situation has to be discussed in order for those in need to be secure.

The country is failing the vulnerable because it is too weak to address hard subjects.

I am sure my son would rather be alive and not claiming PIP.

He was automatically awarded the higher rate due to his terminal diagnosis. But do you know what...even with a terminal diagnosis, 2 craniotomies, radiotherapy and lots of chemo, he managed to go back to work part-time for nearly all of the three years he was ill. PIP made up his wages so he could still enjoy what little time he had.

My gorgeous son (28) passed away on the 29th June.

You make me sick 😡

At this point, I don’t even care.

It’s the truth and if you don’t believe this kind of fraud is happening, more fool you.

Thank you

My daughter has DS. She has severe learning disability and all that comes with that. She can walk, though, not very fast but is mobile. We don't qualify for a car, so those saying you can get it for all sorts are full of shit.

As for the APs. I have to save some of my PIP towards that for the next time. Mine was £3000 last time and I used some inheritance I received. I have a Ford Kuga. I need a car that fits my mobility scooter in the boot and also one that’s not too low for me to get into.

I’d much rather go back to my life before I became ill and be able to work and not have to claim anything. (Obviously I know some people work and claim PIP).

The payment yes, but how would they get the car? A wheelchair adapted car, depending on adaptions needed, may have to be quite large. The down payment in the car, non refundable, has to be paid by the PIP recipient out of their own money. Spending extra to get a big enough car to for the adaptions is therefore required. If they then spend a couple of thousand more to make it a car that they also really like, are disabled people not allowed to do that? Must they have the cheapest of EVERYTHING, with no choices, in order to qualify for government assistance? Should that be all benefit recipients? How crazy would that sound - “this woman bought nice bread for her child, not the cheapest UPF available, so she now gets no child benefit”