be encouraged to play a more active role.

That was the message from lawyer and Bermuda Physically Handicapped Association volunteer, Ms Clare Hatcher in a speech to Hamilton Lions this week.

Almost 2,000 Bermuda residents, including AIDS and stroke victims, amputees and the elderly are confined to wheelchairs, representing three percent of the population. And as many as 40 wheelchair users a day visit the Island by air and sea.

"Forty million Americans are physically challenged in some way. That represents a huge market,'' Ms Hatcher said.

And as the physically disabled tend to travel with friends and families, shops and restaurants that are not easily accessible lose out on their business as well.

"Disability and accidents do not discriminate on grounds of economics,'' Ms Hatcher said. "It is still a large market to be tapped.'' The cost of installing wheelchair access would be repaid with interest as disabled people move about more freely in the community as employees, employers and consumers.

"Ramps are not after all, a new concept,'' she said. "They have been built without regard to cost for cars to go up sidewalks and into driveways, for deliveries, for supermarket shopping trolleys and for mopeds to go onto ferries.'' Since an amendment was made to the building code, more buildings are wheelchair accessible. But the majority of these are new buildings, Ms Hatcher said.

Until all beaches, restaurants, bars, buses and courts are made accessible to everyone, they are not "public'' places, she claimed.

She praised the Docklands Light Railway in London with elevator equipped stations as an example of a "fully automatic fully accessible railway''.

Technological breakthroughs have also dismantled some barriers facing the disabled.

A machine that assimilates printed matter and reads it back can be converted for use as a personal computer and is fully portable. And a telephone for the deaf means they can communicate more easily.

But to create a more inclusive society, general attitudes toward the physically disabled must also change, she added.

Negative words, such as cripple and handicapped are to be discouraged as well as "wheelchair bound''.

"Wheelchairs empower rather than confine. They are a mobility aid just like a pair of shoes,'' she said.