Disability Rights UK

Motability vehicles are often described as a benefit. That framing misses what they actually are in day-to-day life.

For many disabled people, a Motability vehicle is how you get to hospital appointments that can’t be moved, or school placements that exist miles away because local options don’t meet access needs. It’s how people work, care for family, and manage routines that don’t follow a neat schedule.

That context matters when looking at the changes coming in 2026.

From April, new customers will be placed onto a driving monitoring system called DriveSmart. From July, new leases will include a 10,000-mile annual cap, with higher charges for going over. On paper, those changes might look administrative. In practice, they intersect directly with how disabled people live.