Tuesday, April 12, 2005

NY Sun Publishes Broadside Against the ADA

See the article here. The author begins with a story about how she was riding a bus to the ferry when, 20 minutes before the ferry was supposed to leave, a wheelchair user tried to get on the bus. But the lift jammed, and everyone had to get off and wait for another bus. The author missed her ferry and had to wait half an hour for the next one. From this, she asks why the wheelchair user couldn't have taken paratransit and saved nice nondisabled folks like her the trouble. One could, of course, ask why buses can't have lifts that are kept in good repair, or why paratransit is so unreliable, or any number of other questions.

But the author really isn't interested in those questions, as she makes clear in her closing couple of paragraphs:

Waiting in the ferry terminal for the 12:30 boat, it occurred to me that maybe our laws are written so poorly for a reason. Among members of state legislatures and Congress, there are more lawyers than practitioners of any other profession. The American Bar Association and the Association of Trial Lawyers spend tens of millions of dollars to influence elections. The Americans with Disabilities Act has been more of a boon to lawyers than to the disabled.

Tort reform, anyone?

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