I think it’s around £230 a month my mother currently loses for the car as opposed to £270? I’ll have to have a look.
Regardless I find it highly unlikely I would be able to find a car anywhere close to that cost when considering all of the expenses it would incur. I’ve actually been looking and I’d imagine before potential breakdown and repair costs it will be more likely almost double the amount. This wont be happening as I can’t afford that extra amount and my mum certainly can’t.
The main issue really is the idea that each journey must be of benefit to my mother. Motability obviously wouldn’t see me going to university to be of benefit to her and on the face of it thwt would appear completely understandable and correct. My point though and why I feel this is unjust is that every journey I undertake in that car is of benefit to her because me having the car with me, as her sole primary carer, enables me to get to her in a speedy manner which a train or public transport certainly wouldn’t allow. The whole point of the car for her is to make life easier and lessen her concerns about being unable to do the things she needs to and feeling there is no one there to help her if she needs the support and/or assistance.
As an example, a side effect of Parkinsons can be something called dystonia. This involves the body kind of locking up. When my mum first started to get this would ring me up in tears, clearly in need of help both physically and emotionally. She needed someone there with her to help her sit down and sort herself out and calm down. Naturally I would go and check if she was ok. If I was at Uni I’d have to say alright mum just stay on the phone for 2 hours+ whilst I work my way through town and all of the public transport systems and then walk from the station.
My biggest concern is if she has a fall which does also happen. One of these one day could be very serious. There is certainly no one else she could ring and when it’s getting to the point my mum is going to have to potentially call an ambulance because I’m stuck at uni that’s when this just feels very wrong to me. God forbid something worse happened and I couldn’t get there in time because the car was taken away. I don’t even want to think about it.
I highly doubt motability will see it from this point of view though and even if they did they might consider the potential ’emergency situations’ as something that couldn’t be considered enough for me to drive the car elsewhere.
My plan at the moment is to cancel the current new car and get my deposit back as I’m certainly not risking paying it and then a month later having them take it away.
They’ve informed me that if I extend the lease on the car I currently drive a tracker will be fitted later in to next month.
I’m just going to have to go back and forth with them over the next month and take all of the advice on board here and hope that motability can come to some kind of agreement and conclusion. I’m certainly not hopeful.
I don’t want to be driving a new car, or indeed the current one, if what I’m doing is wrong but the way we are defining the guidelines would appear to be different currently.
Thank you everyone for all of the help and I’ll have a look at the magazine article. I’d thank you all one by one but I’m struggling to quote individual posts. Perhaps as I’m using my phone.