[gmhossain]

Today's Telegraph has carried out a valiant story of a Kolkata traffic cop whose right leg was amputated after a road accident on duty. He has now retrofitted his car with hand levers to operate brake and accelerator pedals and has joined back for duty!

Roy, 37, a sergeant with the south traffic guard, was patrolling on his bike on June 7 last year when a minibus on the Howrah-Batanagar route hit him on Dufferin Road.

The accident left him with multiple fractures on his right leg and pelvic joint. The right leg had to be amputated.

Roy has fixed hand levers to the brake and accelerator pedals so that he wouldn't need to use his right leg.

Roy drove to his office on Wednesday and manned traffic at the Park Street-Chowringhee crossing for some time before stepping into the office for file work.

Here is a picture of the modification to aid his driving (Pic courtesy: The Telegraph)



Here is full story in The Telegraph

[Mr.Boss]

Did I see 2 levers?

It's difficult to manure in B2B traffic with 2 different levers.

I don't know how this was approved by RTO (if at all) as their job is to validate the vehicle and the operation by the user before certifying the modification to be "safe & Road worthy" and register the car as "Invalid Carriage"

I know such car where it has a single lever to operate the brake & 2 wheeler throttle mechanism for accelerator. It is more easier to use than with 2 different levers.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by gmhossain

Today's Telegraph has carried out a valiant story of a Kolkata traffic cop whose right leg was amputated after a road accident on duty. He has now retrofitted his car with hand levers to operate brake and accelerator pedals and has joined back for duty!



Here is a picture of the modification to aid his driving (Pic courtesy: The Telegraph)
Attachment 1773845


Here is full story in The Telegraph

Professor Gopinath from Canara PU College, Mangaluru, Karnataka has been driving such a car from many years. He was paraplegic at 42 and retired at 60 in 2014. I guess he still drives himself. That's more that 2 decades. His story is in the below link
http://www.daijiworld.com/chan/exclu...asp?ex_id=1821

Image Source: Dajjiworld

Originally Posted by Mr.Boss

Did I see 2 levers?

It's difficult to manure in B2B traffic with 2 different levers.

I don't know how this was approved by RTO (if at all) as their job is to validate the vehicle and the operation by the user before certifying the modification to be "safe & Road worthy" and register the car as "Invalid Carriage"

I know such car where it has a single lever to operate the brake & 2 wheeler throttle mechanism for accelerato
r. It is more easier to use than with 2 different levers.

Why do you feel so? in the case of Kolkata cop, his right leg is amputed and his right hand replaces it. just like how there are 2 pedals for the leg, there are 2 levers for the hand to operate the same 2 pedals. Had it been one lever for clutch and another lever for Accelerator/Brake, then it would've nee difficult.

Even the car of the professor from Mangaluru (in the above link) which is a WagonR has 2 levers for A and B pedals.

[Soumyajit9]

Sometimes I wonder what are the benefits of choosing a car with 2 levers when you have two hands.
I mean, your one hand should be on steering at all times. And the other can manage the accelerator or brake lever. How does it help in B2B traffic, or on sloppy roads ?

Evaluating options, wont a prosthetic leg be more realistic ?
I know it must be expensive than modifying the car, but a prosthetic leg can help riding a bike even.

I don't mean to demean the efforts of any differently-abled person, but just trying to understand the reasoning behind modifying a car, over a prosthetic leg.

[Mr.Boss]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Why do you feel so?

That's the voice of a RTO official who evaluated my friend's car.

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

right leg is amputed and his right hand replaces it.

Right leg never had the duty to hold the steering wheel but the hand had / has.

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

just like how there are 2 pedals for the leg, there are 2 levers for the hand to operate the same 2 pedals.

Comparatively it is easier in a AT car than MT car (Gradient or slow moving traffic + necessity to steer situation to be specific)
Wagon-R in above post is AT

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Mr.Boss

Right leg never had the duty to hold the steering wheel but the hand had / has.

Originally Posted by Soumyajit9

Sometimes I wonder what are the benefits of choosing a car with 2 levers when you have two hands.
I mean, your one hand should be on steering at all times. And the other can manage the accelerator or brake lever. How does it help in B2B traffic, or on sloppy roads ?

Yes AT will definitely be easy. I do not know exactly what modification is done on the car in the opening post of this thread, but Below website has an answer I guess.
http://www.handicappedcar.in/services.html
I've quoted from that website and the bold part is very important. One lever operates both the A and B pedals. The other lever we see in the car of the opening post may be the hill hold lever.

Hand Control Modifiers that moves the accelerator and brake pedals to an intuitive hand control; pull for gas and push to brake. Each Hand Control Modifier comes fitted with a hill holder to hold the brake pedal down. In this way hands are freed at traffic lights to change gears or tune the radio. Cruise control is an optional extra and its set function is activated using the same button as the hill-holder.

I got the link to this website from a thread in Team-BHP itself which has further useful information on this topic
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian...need-know.html

[dileepcm]

Originally Posted by hemanth.anand

Professor Gopinath from Canara PU College, Mangaluru, Karnataka has been driving such a car from many years. He was paraplegic at 42 and retired at 60 in 2014. I guess he still drives himself. That's more that 2 decades.

Thanks a ton for the note about Professor Gopinath. I did not attending any of his lectures. But I did my PU at Canara college and used to see him driving his car every single day. It was a bit of curious sight as I had never seen any car like that until then.
He was driving a Zen with hand held controls back then [2000 - 2002], looks like its a Wagon R now?