Media reports that there will be an increase in toll fares come next year, has naturally got many a Malaysian worried. However, none are quite as alarmed and anxious over the news as the few hundred drivers with disabilities in the country.

Although little attention is given to them when our society thinks about motorists, theirs is a story that is truly worth considering when toll rates go up. Most handicapped Malaysians stay at home; not because they want to but because they have no choice in the matter.

Despite everything that's been said about how successful Malaysia, public transportation is virtually out of bounds to the disabled with no buses that are wheelchair-friendly and taxis services being too expensive for the handicapped.

The lucky ones borrow or beg from kind souls and use all their savings to buy cars in a desperate attempt to get out of their homes and be mobile. Ridiculously, they have to buy their own cars first before they can enter driving schools because the latter does not provide disabled-friendly vehicles for their courses..

Modified cars for disabled drivers cost not only an arm and a leg but these models haven't been upgraded for donkeys' years. Drivers who use wheelchairs still face a mountain of difficulties when they get out on the roads in their cars.

Able-bodied drivers still rudely honk or show the finger at them for not possessing lightning speed reflexes like them. Let's not even talk about parking slots for the disabled being pinched from them.

The recent petrol hikes practically grounded many disabled drivers. Although the prices spiralled, the little that they earned in wages didn't. Just before Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad left office, he scrapped the road tax requirement for disabled drivers in order to give them a little helping hand in life.

It seems to us that the government ought to come around once again for the disabled and give them another push in life, this time by exempting them from toll payments.

The writer is president, Malaysian Animal-Assisted Therapy for the Disabled and Elderly Association (PetPositive).