Burgerman wrote:Because they can get away with it.
The competition is al but non existent.
The US medical insurances and UK NHS generally pay for it.
Etc...
That's what I gather from the reading I've done here and on other mobility sites.
It doesn't help that the US Social Security Administration (which funds the vast majority of wheelchair purchases here, and guides the policies of private insurers) is adamant that it will only pay for chairs that improve mobility inside the home. I guess once you're disabled, you're supposed to retire from the world so as not to upset the "normals." Presumably, the NHS operates on similarly Victorian principles.
The result seems to be an almost total stifling of research and development. Throughout my life, I've kept an eye on the power chair market, optimistic that, by the time I needed to use one, chairs would be light as racing bikes, run for 500 miles on a watch battery, climb mountains like a goat and, possibly, hover. Roll on 30 years and, though the world is unrecognizable in so many ways due to the march of technology, the mobility market is stuck in a time warp. Everything is clunky, heavy and borderline industrial. Seemingly simple problems (like getting up standard curbs or running on uneven surfaces) either haven't been solved or have been solved in the least elegant, most brute-force manner possible.
I can see why you ended up building your own chair. I'm very strongly considering following in your footsteps, so let me just take this opportunity to thank you for posting your build process so clearly and completely.