Britain's little blue disability car

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2020

⏱️ 11 minutes

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Summary

For decades disabled people in the UK were offered tiny, three-wheeled, turquoise cars as their main form of transport. They were known as Invacars and they were provided, free of charge, to people who couldn't use ordinary vehicles. They were phased out in the 1970s because they were accident-prone and people were given grants to adapt conventional cars instead. Daniel Gordon has been hearing from Colin Powell, who was issued with his first Invacar at the age of 16.

Photo: an Invacar. Credit: BBC

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:45.0	November 2020 marks 25 years since the passing of the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK,
0:51.0	which made it illegal for employers and service providers to
0:55.8	discriminate against someone because they were disabled. All this week
0:59.9	we're looking back at milestones in the history of disabled people around the world.
1:04.8	Today Daniel Gordon takes us back to 1948 when the British government first
1:10.7	started issuing free vehicles to
1:13.0	disable people.
1:14.0	Good news for the disabled.
1:16.0	On order by the Ministry of Pensions are 2,000
1:19.0	luxury in-believe carriages, the last word in comfort and
1:21.6	convenience, designed to make shopping and visiting easier.
1:24.0	Once full-scale production is reached,
1:26.0	the carriages will be issued free.
1:28.0	Launching Britain's invalid vehicle service was a bold progressive move.
1:33.7	It was the world's first state-run scheme
1:36.2	to give individual transport to disabled citizens.
	...

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