Would be interested to hear peoples thoughts on the changes to the motability scheme announced yesterday by Lord Sterling, the Chairman of Motability. Details of the changes can be found on the news section of motabiliy website.
Key points:
A streamlined selection of cars available, up to a maximum Advance Payment of £2,000 (this limit does not apply to wheelchair accessible vehicles)
Nominated drivers under 21 will only be permitted where they live with the disabled customer
All nominated drivers need to live within five miles of the customer’s home
So if you fancy for example an automatic Ford Mondeo with a petrol engine, bad luck.
So if your Son/Daugher lives a little further than 5 miles away (lives with their Mum following divorce) from you and happens to be 20 they won’t be insured to drive your car when you are having a bad day and need some help getting to hospital/GPs (quite a common for me recently!), bad luck will have to get a taxi or find someone else to help.
I fully appreciated what they are trying to do in order to ensure the scheme can operate moving forwards but I personally think that the changes will cause more issues than they think.
Hiya Charlie, its a shame that the changes will cause you problems but I think its part of a bigger problem and thats the abuse of the current system, I know of people who dont have any mobility needs, should not be driving a mobility car but someone they know or are related to have let them do this ( often in return for a cash payment!)
Thanks for highlighting this, I had no idea they were implementing these changes.
I can see what they are trying to achieve & understand why they are doing it as there is a lot of abuse of the scheme, but it might leave some of their clients in a sticky situation e.g. I live on my own & my family all live over ten miles away, my closest friend lives the same distance so that means I wouldn’t be able to nominate another driver. So say, for instance, I drove somewhere but got wobbly leg syndrome and was unable to drive home then I would be stranded. If I go away for a weekend and want to share the driving then I can’t.
I wonder if they might make exceptions if a person’s personal circumstances allow? I’m going to contact them to find out.
Why can’t you have a petrol engine mondeo? :S Or am I missing something?? And it’s perfectly easy to say that a child lives with you after a divorce… Just have them put it on the form…
…because a automatic petrol mondeo is over the £2k advance payment limit that will be imposed on Jan 1st.
and I agree I could put my daughter down as living at my address, but you and I both know that any insurance company will do their best to get out of paying anything if something happens, also her driving licence certainly won’t have my address on it and that is what you need to show the dealer when you sign up for the scheme which might be a little tricky to explain.
My daughter lives 7 miles away from me and is the only driver of my mobility car. I can no longer drive.
She takes me everywhere - drs, shopping, physio etc etc etc.
Without her as my chauffeur I would be in a right old mess - doing it this way is my choice, it’s not an abuse of the system. I’m entitled to a car, I can’t drive it and it’s used for my convenience. I give up my benefit to pay for the damn thing and I resent being told that I might not be able to do this.
Thank heavens I changed my car a few months ago! I live in a rural area where the roads are horrendous, especially in the winter. I have a 4x4 for a variety of reasons; it suits my needs and enables me to get to work. ‘Normal’ cars just can’t cope here and I find anything low impossible to get in and out of. I can still work, so can afford a bit more advance payment and have been able to keep mobile thanks to Motability up to now. The recent news about the changes is very concerning as virtually all the suitable vehicles for me have been wiped off the list. If anyone has looked at the price list that started on 1st October, it has already slashed off most of the bigger vehicles. Call me cynical, but I think they are just getting ready for large numbers of people to have their DLA stopped when the dreaded Atos reassessments start…