But for wheelchair-bound S Jeyaraj, this seemingly simple task takes a full three-minutes and is a methodical, labour-intensive effort.

It involves lifting himself off the wheelchair and into the driver’s seat, disassembling parts of his wheelchair and reclining his car seat to place the wheelchair behind. And he has to do this all on his own.

This is just one of the many challenges Jeyaraj faces on a daily basis. Yet, the 43-year-old takes most things in stride.

To fully grasp the struggle faced by the disabled, Jeyaraj, who authored a book titled “Guidance for the Wheelchair Bound”, invited FMT to experience with him the difficulties of getting around in a wheelchair when out in public.

Jeyaraj, who became paralysed from the waist down after a workplace accident in Singapore 16 years ago, took FMT to Taipan, USJ, where he occasionally runs errands.

On the way to Taipan from his home in Rawang, Jeyaraj told FMT that the physiotherapy and rehabilitation he underwent at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore after the accident gave him the confidence to live an independent life as a paraplegic.

“But the real challenges began once I left the hospital,” he said.

One challenge Jeyaraj said he faces is parking his car. While there are gazetted parking lots for disabled drivers, most are blocked by thoughtless motorists who park their cars in front of these lots.

Lamenting that this was a common occurrence, Jeyaraj said he sometimes has to drive around the block of buildings five times before he is finally able to park in a disabled-friendly parking spot.

Once the arduous task of heaving himself out of the car seat and onto his wheelchair is taken care of, he said the next challenge was finding the closest ramp off the busy street.

Most often, the ramps are too steep, leaving him with no choice but to grab the railings to haul himself with all his might, forward and upward. And that’s hardly the end of it.

The most disheartening, he said, was encountering a short flight of stairs at the end of the path, rendering the “battle” to scale the ramp totally meaningless.

Exhausted and exasperated at facing the stairs, Jeyaraj told FMT that this exemplified the lack of foresight of local councils which often designed facilities based on a checklist that did not accurately observe universal disabled-friendly specifications.

“All the places we access should be accessible. Not just one ramp at the end of the block,” he said, as he looked for an alternative route.

He added that the government must engage with the disabled society to audit these facilities to ensure they were up to standard and constantly maintained.

The unevenly tarred main roads, with the occasional ugly pothole, posed even greater obstacles to those who are wheelchair-bound.

Add to this frightful mix, the many indiscriminately parked cars that the disabled have to weave in and out of just to get to their destination that leave them feeling vulnerable to traffic and the risk of getting hit by a motorist.

The curbs along the roads are also built rather high, and even if someone in a wheelchair succeeded in surmounting these, they could severely damage their wheelchairs.

Jeyaraj pointed out that while some members of the public were empathetic and willing to assist him in situations like these, they often did not know how to.

So, he said, when he rejected their help for fear of being mishandled, he was often dubbed as arrogant.

“We don’t choose to be disabled. None of us wants this life. But due to situations beyond our control, we are like this,” he said pensively.

“We have tasks to accomplish and challenges to overcome and we need everyone’s support to encourage us (through more inclusive infrastructure and awareness).”

Much work is needed to create a more disabled-friendly environment and Jeyaraj said it was his hope that the public will try and walk a mile in the shoes of the disabled to better understand their plight.