Memorandum - NHTSA

V. BENEFITS
v-1
Serious injuries and fatalities have occurred due to the improper operation of wheelchair lifts.
Some manufacturers have already analyzed these injuries and improved their current lift
equipment with new designs. VRTC laboratory tests revealed that the outer barriers on many
lifts manufactured today are insufficiently high to prevent WC climbing. The required WC lift
dynamic tests will significantly reduce the potential for accidents or injuries resulting from a
wheelchair inadvertently driving over the outer barrier. It is known that operator error, and thc
independent functioning of the outer barrier and inner roll stop, has contributed to wheelchair
occupant injuries. Although it is believed that most lift equipment has been modified to prevent
this from happening, the Final Rule assures that all lifts are as fail-safe as possible with respect to
inner and outer barrier operation. It is also known that independent, rather than sequential,
Function switch operation contributed to the accidental stowage of a lift with a wheelchair
occupant on the lift. Again, the agency believes that lift equipment, in general, has been
modified to prevent this from happening, but the requirements of the Final Rule assures that a 1
equipment will be built to the same minimum level of safety.
From a review of the 1986-1990 non-fatal crash data from CPSC's, National Electronic
Surveillance System (NEISS), the agency estimates that malfunctioning hydraulic lift acciden s
account for 14 (521/3,774) percent of projected wheelchair accidents during that 5 year perioc.
For these accidents there were no serious injuries requiring hospitalization. The NEISS Deatkl
Certificate file indicated the occurrence of two wheelchair fatalities related to hydraulic lifts f om
1973 to 1991. It was not possible to extrapolate from these two cases to the national level. Ir