For paralyzed or impaired drivers or riders, Freedom Motors offers numerous vehicles to ensure mobility is still an option. Last Friday, the company announced General Motors trucks and SUVs are now part of the company’s family.
The Chevrolet Silverado, Chevrolet Suburban, Cadillac Escalade and GMC Sierra can now be fitted with Freedom Motors’ wheelchair accessible packages. According to the company, the package features a hydraulic lift system that handles up to 750 pounds and can withstand even the harshest weather.
Compared to most wheelchair-accessible minivans, the GM SUVs and trucks can deploy the access system in 15 fewer seconds. The system still includes room for five passengers in pickup trucks and seven passengers in SUV models.
The company will perform the necessary work to 4WD and RWD vehicles, and the system can be installed for the driver or passenger side of the truck or SUV. For those interested, order books are now open.
Comments
Kind of cool both doors move out together…
We do all we can to cater to to handicap people so where does it stop?
You call a $30,000 cost of conversion on top of the price of a new truck catering to the handicapped?
The person pays for this not the government. So you are an ass. Try being disabled. You would whine.
No I would except the situation I was in and make the best out of it without making other people cater to my needs.
It’s called taking responsibility for yourself, we shouldn’t be setting aside parking places, seats, and special cars and trucks just for handicapped people. Remember we all are supposed to be treated equally!
So why do handicapped people get special treatment?
Karma
Easy Les S,this dude is some kinda Stupid… ?
The 30k will probably be paid by some govt program that is supported by tax payers dollars!
Let’s spend more money on handy capable people!
The govt should be spending its money on the biggest, smartest, brightest people with the most abilities not handicap people!
30k invested into a new truck could bring a LT5 from the ZR1!
Please enlighten me of these programs. The manufacturer rebates $1000, that is it. Oh, Stephen Hawking was one of the smartest people ever, does he get money spent on him in your world?
I bet you wouldn’t say the same if that handicapped individual was a war veteran.
Lets see where your loyalties are, considering you make such a big inflated deal about it.
Do you stand up for yourself, or would you let a wounded veteran have a mobility aid?
Is it you or America that you have more loyalty to?
Do you really want this answer
Do it, you wimp. Your little loyalty mantra has holes in it, and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny when you inevitably start to make special exceptions for special cases.
So stop stalling and step up.
You do realize handicapped people get wheelchairs, mobile scooters, hot tubs, knee braces, back braces, ect, ect, ect!
All free to the person by either a tax credit or charged to the insurance company. Either way us norm folk end up paying for it!
There are buses or transports that take wheelchair people around. Use that 30k to build more of those! It would be much more useful if the funds!
What I have a bigger problem is with this idea that you have to be sympathetic to people with disabilities. People feel the need to do so to keep like yourself from shaming people who dont bend over backwards to support people with disabilities!
Try having a backbone! Stop acting like a sheep just following the herd so you can stay with the popular crowd!
Cuz that’s what you do! Me not so much! I dont have a problem having my own different opinions!
I agree with your sentiment 1000 percent. BUT, I am and will continue to be deferential to the handicap and others less capable in society.
Why, because we are civilized and one of the cornerstones of any civilized society is to do our best to ensure everyone has equal access to opportunity – NOT equal outcome – there is a difference. The first is a noble and worthy goal, the second is always a path of exploitation and totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, naive compassion also brings out the worst in human nature. As a civilized society we must also be just as diligent at identifying and eliminating that side of human nature which seeks to exploit and manipulate the system while taking advantage of the compassion of their fellow man and society at large.
Having been a wheelchair user for over 30 years I am well aware of what funding and aid exists. You make it sound like everything is free for the asking. Try looking into it, it is not.
Ok let’s say it’s not! Don’t you think that using the 30k to help build handicap vans that can carry 10 handicap people is a better use of money than spending 30k to help aid one person at a time?
The 30k is the cost for an individual to have their own vehicle and some increased independence. It generally is paid by the individual. They aren’t giving them away.
Brian, you moron, people pay their own way. Van conversions are extremely expensive. A vehicle manufacturer may provide a nominal allowance for an accommodation on a new vehicle. Max is usually $1500.00.
GM is just cashing in on an existing market. Local companies do conversions for less in many instances.
You are really amazing. I am now beginning to understand your weird affection for Cadillac that stops at your personal checkbook.
Your attack on people with physical challenges should ban you from GMA if there is any integrity here.
Les S, I apologize to you for comments you may read on this thread and GMA. Some posters who consider themselves “normal” are greatly misinformed. Apologies.
You are the most ignorant person!!! My daughter has cerebral Palsy and I pray to god you have a child with a disability one day or you get hit by a bus and become paralyzed and you realize that you actually NEED help from the government by using other people’s tax paying dollars to function in society like everyone else that you wish more than anything you could be like (normal) again. You have no CLUE how difficult it is to get funding for medical equipment or wheelchair accessible vehicles and vehicle alterations. It’s takes months and even years!!! It’s not easy. You have so much freedom and you take it for granted and sound completely arrogant and ignorant. I would give anything for you daughter to walk and talk one day and to not have to NEED funding from the government for her wheelchair and other medical equipment. But thank god the government helps mom like myself because it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars that I do not have and I want to give my daughter a Normal life just like you have the right to live.
I’ve been in a wheelchair for 23 years. In these years I’ve encountered many misinformed people but few as misinformed as this man. He’s upset that insurance coverage may cover some of a persons needs. Although what he thinks is covered is wrong.
I’d love to ask him if he would have any trouble with insurance covering his $100,000 treatment for a heart attack or cancer. Because of the cost of equipment I need to get in & drive I drive a 20 year old van that cost close to $15,0000 3 years ago. I’m not complaining about our van, I’m thrilled to have it. Most people in wheelchairs cant afford any kind of van.
These vans & trucks are so expensive because they come from the manufacturer without the equipment wheelchair users need. Most of the time to remanufacture a vehicle for a wheelchair user the frame must be cut and put back together. If the vehicle manufacturers would work with the accessibility manufacturers to save the $30,000 it costs to cut the floor. They do that in Europe.
Nice thread! I’ve worked in he medical field 40 years. The last 17 have been in a Veterans Hospital working with the Spinal Cord Injured and disabled. All this is considered a “Medical Prescription” to fit the veteran’s condition. Some require a lift for a scooter, a ramp equipped modification just for transport or a transport and driver controls. The mobility devices (wheelchair/scooter) are another subject here as well. All designed to the specific needs of the person. Long list of things to the short here, if you add up the cost of these things we “give” to our handi-capable folks vs. what it costs to warehouse them in a nursing facility for the remainder of their lives, the Taxpayer has a bargain! Seriously talk to someone who is paralyzed. You might be amazed and it might inspire you to do more with your life.
@AlexLuft, please review this thread. Brian has really gone off the rails this time. Thank you much.
People wanting people to get banded because they have a opinion is ridiculous! If you have the same opinion as all the others we will except you but if you have a different mindset they show you the door!
In the mean time you have members calling people stupid, moron, dumbass which is ok because they are not getting banded.
To clarify I dont like this type of conversion because it’s a waste of money, this money could be used to build service vehicles for the handicapped.
Would you like my email so we can discuss this in private?
Brain, thank you for the offer of your email addy. I prefer to remain on list. As to conversions the vehicle owner pays for this with their own funds. No reason to get too upset about how others spend their money.
We had a real Cadillac and a Rolls-Royce retrofitted to carry a mobility scooter for a family member. That work is not as costly as the item in this article. We used our money just as anyone else who has any type of work done on their vehicle.
I pray you never need this modification for your personal vehicle.
I respect your opinion I wish other people would respect different ideas that other people have!
We just disagree on catering to the handicapped population.
Just searching for available options as a new wheelchair user. Life long fighter of muscular dystrophy. Worked my whole life. Raised a child. Now discovered very little aI need to be independent is covered by any program or insurance or Medicare/Medicaid. Feeling like I’m between being a burden and my awesome attitude if independence I’ve typically been. Reading this man’s comments just brought me to tears. Obviously ignorant of disability access ADA shortcomings and how much it costs extra to be independent and trust me nobody desires dependency that I know. Accepting a disease means accepting you gotta ask for help too or you make your disease worse. Please consider the value of GM & customers having toxic comments here. Why? Options are for your own FB page maybe but this just ruined my vibe to shop for antything. In stores you allow customers to be talked to this way? Online is no different. I have a 08 Tahoe Z71 in great condition. Looking to modify or switch but I’m nit sure as it’s new to me. Doing reasearch online. Didn’t plan on being insulted by grouchy here. Why is this insulting even allowed? Don’t need a ramp or a lift then hush up and move on? It’s not your issue then. Very disappointing. Btw- if born disabled, coste go up and never get an opportunity to enlist or do much of what we might wish to do. We must adapt recalibrate grieve our losses and save -if we can work. Value of a human is not what the produce anyway.
Maybe y’all can do better by not having negativity here. Otherwise you’re def turning your customers away.