Resources Special Needs Related Articles New, Revised Wheelchair Standards Expected Later this Year
New, Revised Wheelchair Standards Expected Later this Year PDF Print E-mail
Written by Ryan Gray   
Monday, 28 March 2011 10:00

The Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America is developing Volume 4 of its Wheelchairs and Transportation standards, which, when completed, will contain all U.S. voluntary industry standards for the equipment as seats in motor vehicles.

Dr. Larry Schneider, chair of Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Wheelchair Transportation Safety (RERC/WTS) and head of the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, said pupil transporters will soon need to learn the acronyms WC18 and WC 20 to go along with WC19, which was first completed in 2002.

wtors-symbol
Per the new RESNA standards, this symbol must also be included on permanent labels affixed to primary sub-assemblies of wheelchair tie-down and occupant restraint devices.
The biggest changes come to Section 19 of the RESNA standards, or WC19. Limitations on size and mass of wheelchairs will be removed, but manufacturers will also be required to warn customers that not all sizes and masses of wheelchairs are compatible with travel in public vehicles. WC19 is also being expanded to include wheelchairs designed for children under 50 pounds. These wheelchairs must provide a "sufficiently high back support/headrest to provide rearward support for the child's head" and provide "a crashworthy wheelchair-integrated five-point harness comparable to that used in child safety seats."

The WC19 update changes the test for properly positioning belt restraints with vehicle-anchored pelvic belts to a strictly pass/fail criteria from the previous ratings of poor to excellent in pre-sale literature. Also required is a rating for ease of properly positioning a lap/shoulder belt on the wheelchair occupant and another rating for the degree to which proper belt fit is maintained.

WC19 will also include a provision for keeping the zones near the paths of typical vehicle-anchored pelvic belts free of sharp edges and stronger emphasis on the current requirement to provide pin-bushing anchorages for attaching the lower end of the shoulder belt on both halves of the pelvic belt. In addition, the size of the crash-test dummy will be specified based on user weight capacity of the wheelchair and design specifications, and dimensions for universal docking interface geometry (UDIG) will be established that, if established on wheelchairs and wheelchair securement adaptors, will allow for auto-docking securement in public transportation.

WC18 centers on lap/shoulder belts that have vehicle-anchored pelvic/lap belts and how they must disconnect the diagonal shoulder portion of the belt restraint from the pelvic portion of the belt by using the standard connector-to-pin-bushing anchorage. Or, the belts must include anchorage ends of the pelvic belt that can be easily inserted through openings in the wheelchairs. WC 18 also will require the shoulder portion of the belt restraint to connect to the standard pin-cushing anchorage on either half of the wheelchair-anchored pelvic belt required by WC19.

WC 20 will include two primary seating-system performance requirements and associated test methods, namely a frontal-impact crashworthiness of seating systems independent of production wheelchair frames via the 30-mph sled test in WC 19 with the seating system installed on a surrogate wheelchair frame (SWCF). The new standard also evaluates a seating system's accommodation of vehicle-anchored lap/shoulder belts similar to WC19 for complete wheelchairs, including a rating for the ease of achieving proper belt positioning and a second for the degree to which proper belt positioning can be achieved.

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