We hope you are enjoying our new website, we’d like to start our Life blog off with some good news – The Freedom One Life Series 5 powerchair has now passed the crash test!

It’s officially called a dynamic sled test, and it determines the powerchair’s ability to withstand a sudden stop at 50km/h. The main criteria for passing the test is that the person in the powerchair remains as safe as possible during the impact.

It involves securing the powerchair to a platform using the 4 tie-down points, strapping in a brave test dummy we called Max, and accelerating the platform to 50km/h before an almost immediate stop.

The test sounds as terrifying as it is to watch. A tense day for the team, three hours of setting up for a test that lasts three seconds.

After quadruple-checking everything, we all crowded into the safety booth and the test engineer started the five-second countdown, the pneumatic cylinder unloaded which fired poor Max all the way to full speed followed by a very abrupt stop.

It was over in a blink of an eye, things were looking very good, and Max was seated well. Even though everyone was smiling and giving us nods, We had to wait for the high-speed videos to be analysed and for the numbers to be crunched.

About 30 minutes later we got the thumbs up, and we passed! We passed every criteria according to ISO 7176-19 – Wheeled mobility devices for use as seats in motor vehicles.

This means that the Freedom One Life Series 5 can now be secured using the 4 tie-down points and used as a seat in a vehicle.

As a small design team of three, without the huge resources of some of our competitors, we are very proud of this, we were told it was one of the best-performing tests they have ever seen, we say this not to brag, we see it as a reflection of how seriously we take safety at Freedom One Life, and how safe we want you to feel in your Series 5.

If you would like to find out more or give Series 5 a test drive – Please head over to Book a test drive or Get in touch