Speaker: The company KADOMO converts vehicles so that people with physical disabilities can be mobile. The team provides advice on adaptive driving licenses, customizes the technology of each automobile and thus helps people to drive safely. Christoph Toups is a long-standing customer and is now driving the seventh car that has been specially converted for him.
Christoph Toups: I have been using a wheelchair since 1994 due to an accident, so I am paraplegic but have been driving independently again since 1997. That's how it is: Driving a car is completely normal for me – just like for anyone else who can walk. The accelerator and brake systems in my car have been modified. That means I have a special conversion that I got from the company KADOMO. I have a throttle ring, so, a 1/4 throttle ring, behind the steering wheel, and I brake by using a brake lever. The design is not important to me. What I don't want, for example, is to have the throttle ring attached to the tunnel so that I only have one hand on the steering wheel. The decisive factor for me was that I can drive my car with both hands on the steering wheel.
Speaker: Udo Späker has been advising customers for 30 years and is familiar with the many adaptation options for a wide range of physical disabilities – from hemiplegia and amputations to age-related limitations.
Udo Späker: For us, it makes no difference what the disability is. In fact, we can convert everything from joystick conversions to simple rotary knobs. One of our main focuses is also on older people. To make it easier for them to get into the car, the seat can be turned out of the vehicle and the person can sit on it more easily.
We actually convert many, many vehicles for transportation services – from simple transportation services, where a VW Caddy or a Citroen or a Mercedes is used to transport a passenger in a wheelchair in the rear, to transportation services with stretcher transport.
Speaker: The team is not only on hand to provide advice and assistance with conversions, but also to help with an essential requirement for driving with a physical disability: an adapted driver's license.
Udo Späker: Many people still believe that they can continue to use their driver's license unhindered even if they have a disability. This is not the case. The driver's license remains valid. But it must be adapted to the impairment. It's like the glasses you have to have on your driver's license if you need glasses permanently.
We have a strength measuring station where we can test strength and reaction times. And once a month, we offer the service of having the TÜV expert carry out driving tests. This means that you can take 1, 2, 3 hours on our driving school vehicles with a driving instructor and then take your driving test and then have the car converted by us.
Speaker: The conversion usually takes three to five days. A lot has happened in terms of craftsmanship in recent years.
Udo Späker: Conversions have become more difficult from the mechanical point of view because we can no longer just put a hole in and screw something together, but usually must check more intensively how we fasten something. What has become easier, however, is what we were totally horrified by 25 years ago, namely the fact that vehicles are becoming more and more electronic and are developing more and more into computers.
Then, of course, we now can make many things even more beautiful using 3D printing. Simply because we can design a cover much, much more intricately in 3D printing than we could with metal and other means.
People have higher expectations. Especially customers who return to us, who know what we expect from the aesthetics of such a conversion.
It's so much fun because it's always something different. So, it's rare that the same customer comes twice, and you do exactly the same thing. It's always different.
Speaker: Financial support in Germany is available for necessary vehicle conversions – for those in employment through pension insurance.
Christoph Toups: FIt's important for me to be able to drive to work in my own car, to be mobile so that I can earn a living. In other words, it is of course difficult without a car as a wheelchair user. Nowadays, public transport is already relatively advanced and has been converted. But basically, a car is absolutely nonplus ultra for a person with a disability, if they can drive.
