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Comment by Yizahi | Hacker News Reader

This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I

PS: every time I visit Europe I often wonder that there are so many wheelchairs. In Eastern Europe you may go around capital city center for weeks without seeing one. It is that bad, even in 2017.

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I always thought that these ramps are not for one-person climbing (that should be obvious by simply looking at it). Supposedly, someone has to hold a chair from behind. Otoh, I can't remember that I've seen these were actually used, and in the winter such tracks are dangerous place even for able people. In our '90 childhood's winters we used these as sort of extreme attractions.

The problem is that there are usually zero ramps usable for single person, while in Europe there are many of them.

> This is how we do wheelchair ramps in ex-USSR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pUfeLWyv1I

Even though your wheelchair ramps are shitty, you are still, in a way, ahead of America because you at least made an effort to build those ramps, whereas America mostly doesn't have them at all.

I would say that no ramp is better than a dangerous ramp. And I've seen many wheelchair ramps in the US.

Watch the video and see how many times a disabled person not wearing full protective gear would have been wounded or killed by the ramp and you'll probably change your mind.

I am not defending the quality of those ramps, but in some cases, a ramp can be useful so that an assisting people could move a person in a wheelchair up the stairs, even if the ramp is not usable for a person in a wheelchair alone with no assistance.

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