To be sick of all the newspaper articles saying lies about DLA and PIP

[elliejjtiny]

To get any DLA or PIP you have to be significantly disabled. To get the higher rate of either part you have to be severely disabled.

A motability car is not free, it's rented. To get one you need to either be unable to walk 50 metres or have a severe learning disability, which is very difficult to get.

It's always happened but since the stuff in the news about changes to PIP it's got worse.

Articles in the newspapers claiming you can get a free car for bed wetting, which just doesn't happen. There will be children like my ds who get DLA because they have a number of problems including bedwetting but nobody gets high rate mobility for bed wetting on its own.

There are other articles about people claiming PIP and DLA for various minor sounding conditions and I am so fed up with it. I know from experience that the newspapers will have talked to people claiming PIP/DLA and twist everything they say to make them sound like a scrounger.

All these articles are giving off the message that anyone with any minor disability can claim loads of benefits.

I'd have no issue with having a second hand car as my Motability car, especially if it meant more money was there for those who need new because they need adapted cars/WAVs.

You don't buy cars on Motability. You lease them. You never actually own them.

Oh ok. Maybe they could introduce an approved second hand arrangement, to keep costs lower for families.

I don't get mobility component and don't know much about the Motability scheme but from what others have written on this thread it sounds like that might be more expensive due to insurance issues - the higher risk of breakdown etc and the greater risks to a disabled person were they to break down. For an individual to take those on on their own outside the scheme is an option but for the scheme as a whole it sounds like there are reasons why they don't do that. Although maybe that will change in the future.

Seriously? Because otherwise they could not go anywhere at all because they can’t use public transport.

Surely you realise that it’s more sensible for a disabled person to have a car if they cannot use public transport so a car is a necessity to be able to get to hospital appointments, dental appointments, work, or leave the house at all? Particularly as them not being able to attend medical appointments or work would increase taxpayer costs (aside from the issue of basic decency and not advocating for making disabled people housebound who needn’t be).

And you have an issue with this because you think it’s not “fair”, because some non-disabled people who would simply prefer to travel by car instead of public transport can’t afford to run a car??

Wow.

Not to mention that disabled people, because of their disabilities, usually have very limited options if any to increase their earnings. Whereas a non-disabled person, if they really want a car, can seek a new job with higher pay or work more hours, which many disabled people obviously cannot do because of all of the practical limitations and the vanishingly few appropriate roles or accommodating employers.

I think you’ve just answered my questions, above, as it’s clear your motivation for these posts isn’t about the efficient use of taxpayer money - quite the opposite in fact since you’ve repeatedly advocated for things that would increase taxpayer costs - but rather you being resentful that disabled people get a small amount of help to enable to participate in society rather than being completely housebound.

You should look up the levels of poverty among households which include a disabled person, the disability employment gap, and really think about what it would be like to live in a world where most of society is inaccessible to you and you struggle with basic parts of everyday life like eating, washing yourself, dressing yourself, walking (the criteria for being awarded PIP).

I am often quite shocked at just how callous many people seem to have become.

Your post is also inaccurate though op. We have a family member who has a mobility car when they are nowhere near as disabled as you suggest.

Exactly. For example, if someone is a wheelchair user and their car breaks down on a SMART motorway (with no hard shoulders), the advice is to leave the car immediately due to the risks of the car being hit from behind by oncoming traffic (this has resulted in multiple deaths of people who did not exit their vehicle after a breakdown). How is the wheelchair user meant to get out of the vehicle safely into the middle lane of motorway traffic and exit onto the verge past the crash barrier?

This type of thing wouldn’t even occur to most people, but this is just one example of how it is absolutely essential for safety purposes that disabled people have reliable vehicles.

I wonder how many pip claiming millionaires/ billionaires there are in the UK. Specious comment 🙄

I’m able bodied. I live somewhere with a rubbish public transport system but if I couldn’t drive I could cope, it wouldn’t be easy but I would cope. I could also manage with a much smaller cheaper car.

but I have a disabled child so not having a car isn’t an option and the car we need is a lot bigger than I would have liked! But it’s essential to get him around - he can’t walk the mile to school like his peers can, he has multiple appointments in places up to an hours drive away. No car isn’t an option.

he doesn’t get higher rate DLA so no motability car here. But he is due to transfer to PIP next year and looking at the criteria we may be in with a chance of higher rate for mobility and if we can I will be changing for a car that better suits his needs (and mine for getting the wheelchair in and out!) and will hopefully be much more reliable as a lot newer.

when you are able bodied you have so many more options than those who aren’t!

Me too OP me too . My oldest is a young adult severe autism , non verbal etc . We got a motability car simply because my insurance went up after a accident that while technically was my fault but in really was not .( I didn’t stop at a junction because the other car was not visible no headlights on at 7 pm in winter ) . oi must had my previous private car was much nicer than my new motability one too so I’m not choosing to pick a flashy car because my previous car was already flashy
My child despite severely disabled was made to go to a face to face appointment 50 miles away , meaning I had to take time of work , then the assessor lied with every bone in her body . When I appealed he was awarded high on both daily care and mobility . It was a stressful process took 7 months and it’s anything but easy as the newspapers and the gullible idi*ts who believe them think .

So very true.

My son has a hospital appointment every month but it isn't our local hospital, it's a specialist hospital in a city where he used to be an inpatient.

He has weekly hydrotherapy in a nearby town because no hydrotherapy pools are in my town.

He has physio in two different locations.

A car is definitely essential to get him to his appointments, especially as a wheelchair user.

There are no amazingly expensive cars on the scheme at all ! And the reason why people need bigger cars as ourselves is because we need 7 seats that are suv as a example , I live rural , snow is a issue , off road drive is another . Many need bigger cars because they need wheelchairs or scooters . There are no range rovers or. Anything like that . Many people want to keep their cars longer than the allowed 3 years and are not allowed so people don’t actually want new cars at all , it’s just we are not given a choice .

My other two DC used to walk to the bus stop to catch a bus to a neighbouring town for work.

DD1 will never be able to work. She needs 1:1 care all her waking hours, and it’s too stressful for one person to take her into the community on their own. It takes two people to be with her. She could not reliably walk to the bus stop, and even if she could, she cannot travel on public transport. She does need to get to hospitals most of all, but also parks, cinemas, shops, etc. It is not preferential for her to have a car, when there is no alternative she can use.

How do you suggest people like her with carers get about, if not by car?

My son recieved PIP at the higher rate with mobility for nearly five years. He wasn’t severely disabled, but his conditions and situation meant the assessor awarded him the highest amount at that time. His situation latterly changed, and he was no longer entitled. He could have quite easily said his condition had continued at the previous level and would likely have been awarded again, but we aren’t dishonest. It’s not hard to game the system, from people I’ve known.

What I always find fascinating about these threads is that the people who bleat on the most about the costs to taxpayers usually seem to be predominantly people who make very little tax contribution themselves, usually far below the level required for them to be a net contributor. They seem oblivious to the fact that they aren’t funding anything for anyone else, in fact they’re not even paying their own way and are being subsidised by some of the rest of us. It’s usually people paying a few hundred pounds a month in tax at most having a moan about these types of things. 😆

Simply by using state education, the NHS, expecting to claim a state pension one day, using public transport and other infrastructure, expecting there to be police and fire services to call if they require them etc… even if they never claim a penny in benefits, the vast majority of the UK population are not net contributors to the tax system over their lifetimes. In fact, that’s the main reason that the UK is in so much debt; people’s expectations of services don’t match up at all to what the vast majority pay in tax and they would need to pay far, far more to adequately fund even their own costs.

Yet it almost always seems to be these types of people who aren’t even covering their own costs to the state who have the biggest bee in their bonnet 🐝 about any state assistance being provided to the most vulnerable people such as the disabled, who cannot do anything about their situation.

It does seem to be motivated entirely by grabbiness and a kind of rage at the idea that someone else might receive something from the state which they personally aren’t eligible for due to not having the disadvantages that the service is designed to address, and some weird perception that this isn’t “fair” despite these angry people not actually being the ones paying for it anyway!

I think this is why attempting to have a rational conversation with such people about facts never goes anywhere, because their behaviour is motivated by this deeply unpleasant irrational rage. Rather than trying to improve their own situation they’d rather lash out at those even worse off than them who cannot do so. Very much a case of a green-eyed monster punching down, and very distasteful.

Oh these “ newspaper “ articles / online articles are just inflammatory nonsense to stir up the readers 🙁
The process for claiming PIP / DLA isn’t easy at all and an assessor is sent out to visit the disabled person in many cases .
Lots of supporting evidence needs to accompany the application.
In the situation I know of , that evidence dated back to when the applicant was a child and assessments were made initially.
Further backed up by yet more assessments by professionals eg OT , Speech and language therapist, paediatrician and neurologist

I agree @elliejjtiny however there are so many people who lie about their medical condition. It's not possible to tell if someone really can walk more than 50 paces - many get caught and end up in the dock but not all of them.

Motability is apparently the most abused scheme - I know of a woman who had one who split with her ex and he still has the car. So yes fraud happens. (Maybe should have stayed with cars we all recognise as notability vehicles instead of putting lots of everyday cars on the list. As a tax payer I want these fraudsters ousted. As a tax payer Im happy to support those in need, but as I said, not those in greed.

Btw my knee arthritis was so bad at one stage I couldn't walk 50 steps. I did physio I can walk now and I have steroid injections. Had I chosen to not do either I too could have claimed and got a car - there see how easy it is...!!!

I can't speak for PIP but for DLA, you need evidence to back up what you write on the forms including if you state that your child can't walk.

For my son, it was backed up by physio & OT reports saying that he's unable to walk and why he's unable to walk.

Why has she not reported it to motability and had the car taken from him?

These descriptors also qualify someone for HRM and a Motability car, so the 50 metres issue isn't the full picture.

It isn’t funded by the tax payer though. Motability is a successful self funded charity. They are able to negotiate deals with car manufacturers and cars are then leased for three years only, to anyone receiving higher rate PIP mobility. The recipient also has to fund the fairly hefty up front deposit which is not refundable when the lease is up. The taxpayer contributes approx £300 per month of their PIP award & this is paid directly to Motability. The taxpayer is not funding thousands of luxury cars for disabled people. Incidentally why shouldn’t disabled people have access to so called luxury cars that can carry mobility scooters, passengers and are safe and reliable? Are disabled people expected to drive around in reliant robins just because they have unfortunately found themselves disabled.

Only F or a mixture of severe walking disabilities and one of the above entitles someone to high rate mobility

You need a minimum of 12 points to get higher rate

only descriptor F - you need 12 points for enhanced mobility.

The PIP award is funded by the taxpayer.

This PIP money is then used to fund the car.

I think many people would challenge the idea people should be funded to lease luxury cars, yes. That’s not ‘you should have a crap car because you’re disabled’ it’s ’if you can afford a car anyway, why is the government giving you £300 a month to get a nicer model’.

So? Do you want people to cut your hair, deliver your parcels, serve you in shops? This isn’t the ‘gotcha’ you think it is, because even though the majority of people are not net contributors, they are providing a service which props up people who are. Lucy who works in admin might not be a net contributor but her colleagues further up the managerial chain are. It’s infinitely better for somebody to work, even if they’re not a net contributor, than jus to say ‘fuck it, I’m not covering my costs so I’ll just jack it in altogether’.

I find the sneering, superior attitude toward those who work (particularly in lower paid work) on here from people who don’t work themselves to be breathtaking. I really do. The way they talk about NMW jobs like they’re far too superior for them so deserve benefits until something better comes up. The way they sneer at them ‘not being net contributors anyway’, like somehow they’re morally superior for not working at all.

The entitlement is off the scale!