Many lift operators who are responsible for passenger safety have not yet taken suitable measures to prevent such accidents from happening or have even failed to recognise the problem.

The pictures below show the scene of an accident that occurred in a senior citizen residence in 2010, when a 68-year-old woman on a mobility scooter fell 5 meters down an empty lift shaft. Fortunately, the fire brigade was able to rescue her, although she did suffer some serious injuries. 

Electric mobility scooters are becoming more and more popular among elderly people and others with limited mobility. The demand for such mobility scooters is constantly increasing as the average age of people in Europe continues to rise. Scooters are extremely agile and thus are very good at entering and exiting lifts in retirement homes, etc.

In recent times, a number of accidents involving mobility scooters entering lifts have occurred due to operator error, even resulting in fatal accidents. Most of the accidents happened when the scooter’s user inadvertently passed through closed landing doors, thus falling into the lift shaft.

All of these measures have been incorporated into the ScooterGuard® system, thus preventing door panels from becoming knocked out of the bottom guide in the event that a scooter crashes into them and ultimately preventing the scooter from entering the lift shaft as well.

As a proven manufacturer of high-quality lift doors, MEILLER has long been committed to lift door safety. For instance, MEILLER has installed many vandalism-proof door systems with reinforced components over the years in many European countries.

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In order to prevent any other accidents of this kind, the manufacturers of electric mobility scooters and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) joined together to prepare the MSR Guideline for Mobility Scooters for horizontally actuated lift doors by defining safety requirements that need to be satisfied when electric mobility scooters may be used in or near lifts. This guideline requires lift doors to be equipped with additional components that would allow the doors to withstand the impact of any type of scooter. 

That means in particular that the door panels, sills and door panel guides are to be reinforced and equipped with doubled door hangers, sturdy eyebolts and collared kicking rollers.