Question

Hi. I wonder if you can help me. I have a Landlex Broadway S400x RS scooter (2008) with a wierd problem. When moving off the power suddenly goes completely – no lights, no status LED, nothing. If I leave it for a while, the power returns until I try to move off again. The batteries are fully charged. I’ve fitted new motor brushes, checked all visible wiring and plugs, including dismantling the 2 battery boxes to check internal wires.The cut-out on the
battery box stays on (i.e. doesn’t trip) and all anclilliaries work OK until I move off. Is there a safety breaker somewhere that could be causing this? I’ve contacted the manufacturer in Taiwan, but they have not replied. Any ideas? Thank you in advance for any help you can provide. (P.S. do you know where I may be able to get a wiring diagram?

Depending on where you live you might occasionally encounter the problem of parked vehicles on pavements, this can vary from a car or other vehicle being parked half on the pavement and half on the road but in some cases the whole car will be parked on the pavement, all four wheels leaving little to no space for people to pass.

This is a problem for anyone, even an individual with no disabilities will struggle to get past or be forced to walk into the road to get past, but it is even worse for people that are using a mobility aid, whether you are using a mobility scooter, wheelchair, crutches, walking stick, walking frame or holding onto a friend or relative who is providing support for you, it is an inconvenience for you to have to walk into the road in order to carry on your way.

Often there is no particularly obvious reason for a driver to do this, you will see this in streets where there is ample space on the road, it is inconsiderate as it doesn’t give people the choice other than to try and squeeze past or walk onto the road where they otherwise wouldn’t need to.

As there are complaints at times about some mobility scooter users not being considerate of others i feel that it is also important to point out how some drivers are inconsiderate by parking their vehicles in this way.

It is always important to mention that these types of problems are from a very small number of drivers, just in the same way that it’s a small number of mobility scooter users who dont operate theirs as safely as they should.

Sometimes im suprised at drivers parking their cars fully on the pavement when the road is wide enough for them to park it on the road without narrowing the road enough to cause problems, i feel that there is more risk of a car actually getting the paint work scratched and scuffed by people trying to squeeze by.

Without a lack of respect for using the roads, pavements and anywhere else in a safe manner i feel that avoidable problems will continue to occur, pedestrians, mobility scooter users, cyclists, motorcyclists, car, van and truck drivers, even bus drivers, joggers and all others that use public pavements, roads, paths, tracks etc need to be as responsible as possible, everyone needs to think about how their actions and their behaviour affects other people, in ways that are not always obvious or immediate because understandably people dont always see straight away how something may be problematic.

While there are regular articles online and comments about some mobility scooter users not being very responsible or considerate of other people when operating one, there are less comments about people that may cause problems for mobility scooter users and are inconsiderate, maybe when a mobility scooter user is trying to pass safely.

At times a pedestrian wont attempt to move over to one side to allow a mobility scooter to pass easily and safely, this is understandable if a pedestrian is not aware of a mobility scooter approaching, for example if the mobility scooter is approaching a pedestrian from behind or if both people are approaching a corner with no way of knowing if anyone is coming around the corner in the opposite direction.

Some people will see you approaching though and make little or no attempt to make way for you, it might be true that a person who wont make any effort to let you pass safely reacts the same with all people, whether its a group of people walking together, a mother with a pushchair or someone carrying bags of shopping home from the supermarket. So i think that it shouldn’t be taken personally, there is probably no particular reason that another person will do that other than lacking general courtesy in public situations.

Theres also the possiblity of a person simply not being alert to what is going on around them, some people can be walking along thinking about something, they may have a lot on their mind and not be as aware of their surroundings as they normally would be, at least once in your life you have probably witnessed someone stepping straight out into a road and almost getting run over then suddenly seeing them kind of wake up out of the daydream that they were probably in and get sharply snapped back into the physical ,very real and at times quite dangerous world that we live in.

I think it is important to point this out that there are pedestrians that lack consideration for mobility scooter users that are using the pavement in the same sense that some mobility scooter users on the pavement lack consideration for the pedestrians.

More can be done to educate users and non users of mobility scooters on safety so that it doesn’t cause further upset and lead to more serious problems in the future, after all some of the people complaining about mobility scooter users now might need to use one themselves in the future.

Most users are using a mobility scooter because of a disability, it would be ironic if we see a future generation of mobility scooter users that included some people that end up with a disability because they were hit by a mobility scooter years before and those not needing them now but maybe in the future should be able to look towards the use of a mobility scooter as a positive thing, not as a menace of the pavements.