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In 1988 I had a car accident. After several surgeries to try to correct damage around my spinal cord, I finally lost the use of my legs. When you use a wheelchair to get around the world, people ask some of the strangest questions.

One question I was constantly asked was whether I drive. This was strange, I thought, because anyone familiar with the area in which I live knows that there is little public transportation available. As everyone knows, availability of transportation is an important factor in self-reliance. Finding and holding onto a job, for instance, requires reliable transportation. The lack of it is one of the factors associated with the low employment levels of people with disabilities.

The question got me thinking about how other people with disabilities deal with the problems surrounding driving. The first hurdle, of course, is getting into a vehicle. Though I use a manual wheelchair, for someone who uses a power chair this could be a major problem.

The Automatic Transport and Retrieval System (ATRS) may be the solution you're looking for. ATRS is the collaborative brainchild of Freedom Sciences LLC, Lehigh and Carnegie-Mellon universities. It is a modular, three-part system: an articulated power seat, a power lift platform that brings the user into the vehicle, and a computer-controlled laser guidance system to bring a wheelchair into a vehicle once the user is secured into the car seat.

A wheelchair seat is not designed to protect an occupant in the same way a car seat is. A crash could propel the occupant out of his chair, causing significant injury. It is far better to drive from a crash-tested car seat. But, many power wheelchair users have difficulty transferring out of their chairs. ATRS helps get you into that seat. Then it does something no other transfer system has ever done before: it stores your chair for you.

Open the driver's door, press a button, and the articulated car seat turns outward and lowers to allow easier transfer. That technology has been around for a long time, but here comes the cool part. Press another button, and a platform is lowered at the rear of the vehicle. Using a device attached inconspicuously to the chair, the user maneuvers his empty wheelchair to the rear of the van. Like magic, the chair is detected by a laser guidance system and drives itself onto the lift platform, which stores it inside the vehicle.

Like everything in life, there are problems with the system. The driver needs to be able to use upper body strength and have significant flexibility in order to get onto the vehicle's driver seat. Freedom Sciences is, however, looking into that shortcoming. They are planning to develop an advanced ATRS for wheelchair users who have difficulty sliding themselves from the wheelchair to the car seat.

The ATRS came onto the market in 2007 at a cost of $15,000-$20,000, a significant reduction from the cash outlay associated with the kind of vehicle modifications (lowered floor, raised roof, chair lock) necessary to allow driving from a wheelchair.