La Estrellada said...
I read the article and told my mom about it. She said, "wait... doesn't Ian have a car? Why would he drive it on the sidewalk?.... Oh! You mean driving with a wheelchair..."

Yeah, it's all about awareness, heh. These things just don't occur to you! On a semi-related note, I just had a conversation last week with someone who wasn't sure if it was okay to say "so this morning when you walked to class" (note: yes. People in wheelchairs talk about going for a walk, just like deaf people talk about hearing the latest rumors, just like blind people express understanding by saying, "Oh, I see"). Always entertaining, especially if (didn't happen this time, but ...) they get that deer in the headlights look, you can see 'em going through the mental thesaurus, and they suddenly realize: "Oh! I know! Go should be a safe word, right?"

This being Boston, though, people actually do drive on the sidewalk ... or at least, they park there. I live right next to the ROTC building, and their bus is occasionally parked halfway on the sidewalk. Makes for a very funny scene when you're wondering how to squeeze between the bus and the fence with all these students milling around loading drill rifles and such into the bus, and all of a sudden you hear a student leader yell: "EVERYBODY FLAT AGAINST THE BUS, AT ATTENTION, NOW! NOW, PEOPLE!" and suddenly there's all these folks in uniform standing with a ramrod straight spine at attention for you as you walk (or drive, I suppose :-P ) by. A bit unnerving, actually, heh.