Support HB 487, right to repair bill in Florida!
Time to Read: 3 min
Let's gooo, we have a right to repair bill to support!
Florida House Representative Dr. Anna V. Eskamani has proposed HB 487, the Right to Repair Act for Mobility Devices. The goal of this legislation is to make it easier for people with wheelchairs or other mobility equipment to be able to get repairs when needed.
According to Thomas Quiter, president of the the Mobility Independence Foundation, getting parts or support from manufacturers can take months or even years because of the hold the industry has on the market. With no legislation to force fairness, these companies can take as long as they want, decide what repairs or modifications are or are not eligible, charge high prices, and choose to drop support of equipment at any time, leaving users high and dry.
Mind you, these people are not trying to repair something like a phone or a laptop, which is a shame if it's ever broken. We are talking about their ability to move. These are folks who cannot move with out the help of mobility devices; people who would lose their independence if some aspect of their chair failed. To have to wait months for something as basic as moving from point A to point B is ridiculous, and yet that's the reality of many Floridians today without consumer protections. HB 487 addresses that head on.
If passed, this bill will:
- Require OEMs to make documentation, software, parts, and tools available for fixing mobility devices.
- Require OEMs to provide anything necessary[1] for accessing and resetting electronic security locks.
Another aspect of this bill is that it enables independent repair providers to have access to parts, software, and whatever else is needed in order to do the job, rather than forcing them to become authorized providers that have to agree to anti-consumer terms. This bill will help users get their own mobility devices fixed, whether it's by themselves or with help.
You may be thinking to yourself, "this sounds like a great idea, but I'm not really familiar with wheelchairs and this sort of thing." I am there as well. If you're like me, your familiarity with right to repair is usually regarding techy stuff. It took a bit of research just to make sure I understood the nature of this bill and the problem it's addressing.
At the end of the day, it's a right to repair bill, just for another need than computers. We want the right to fix our own things just the same. Quiter himself gave a presentation that Louis Rossmann attended and you can see clear as day that their pain points are the same as many may express over a broken screen, only 100 times worse. Supporting this bill will mean relief and ownership for disabled Floridians in 2025, and maybe a broader right to repair bill to pass in 2026!
To support HB 487, you can:
- Call your elected representatives in the Florida House and Senate and tell them you support HB 487, the Right to Repair Act for Mobility Devices. You can even expand on that and share why right to repair is so important for these folks. Find your Florida rep here and your Florida senator here.
- Share the news with friends and family. Anyone who knows what right to repair is and lives in Florida should be taking action to get this passed.
- Follow us on social media as we follow news about this bill. Be ready to take more action!
The Florida legislative session starts in January 2026 and only lasts 60 days, so we have a small window to get this bill over the line and onto the governor's desk. Let's make some calls and apply pressure for right to repair!
Learn more: Wheelchairs have paywalls and digital locks now
Written by Joseph, Organizer for MTEC
Wants to see the world get better.
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Footnotes:
[1] Require original equipment manufacturers of mobility devices with electronic security locks to make available any special documentation, embedded software, firmware, parts, & tools required to access & reset locks when disabled in course of service;