To be annoyed at being told to be considerate of disabled people

lack of planning is unfortunately a huge problem everywhere. Small cafes can’t help it but even some department stores don’t provide adequate facilities. In my local. M&S, for example, I usually have to use the disabled loo. This is because the cubicles are tiny in the ladies. If I have my baby with me, I can’t bring the pram in. There is no way I am going to leave her outside the cubicle while I lock the door (in this particular marks it would prevent the main door from being opened anyway) so I use the disabled loo. I’ve no doubt that posters on here will scream bloody murder st me for it and say my child is a lifestyle choice or some other such nonsense but the fact is, I am left with no choice at all.

And that's what you picked up on from my post? Very sorry if I inadvertently misgendered the OP & made assumptions about it on this site with a majority of female posters.

Don't even get me started on the small service station we were in a few weeks ago that had two loos: one for men, and one for men, women, babychange and disabled. Guess which one had the massive queue.

OP hasn’t mentioned whether they are a he or a she
OP has mentioned having a wife though

If there is one benefit to being or caring for a disabled person, it is that people tend to make it very clear through how they treat us, what kind of people they are. Many members of the public do in fact go out of their way to be helpful; others display the oblivious selfishness described by posters on here.

There are two kinds of people; those who care about the vulnerable people around them, and those who don't give a toss. There is no gradation between them, it is really impossible to care 'a little bit but otoh not very much'. You care or you don't make a choice about who you are.

Unfortunately the OP, through her empathy-free post, has revealed more than she probably intended about the kind of person she is. On seeing that notice her first reaction, rather than wonder why it might be needed, is to feel affronted. And to post on MN about how indignant she is rather than maybe consider in the meantime the reasons why it might be necessary - or even (a novel idea I know) ask the restaurant management?

Not all wheelchair users have continence/urgency issues. I don't,

However, the problem arises that finding a 'free' accessible stall becomes difficult, and if they're occupied we have a choice, to wait and hope it becomes free, or to try to find another, which in places like the shopping mall often means wheeling the length of the place.. so what might have been a 'oh i need a wee' can become urgent.

We often don't HAVE the choice of just popping into another stall.

All we're asking for is a bit of fucking consideration.. if you have other options, please use them, because we don't HAVE other options.

The baby change being in the accessible toilet is one of my pet hates. I remember a mum being arsey with me because I was taking a while and she needed the space too. It wasn't her fault the baby change was there (it was her fault for being arsey, obviously).

I understand space can be limited but it makes things unnecessarily difficult!

The sign is a bit ridiculous. They've planned badly and was passing it onto individuals that need to use their facilities. Don't take a long time if you don't need to but sometimes you do need to.

It is an awful title. You have to be a special kind of ignoramus not to realise the difficulties faced by disabled people or to realise that many people are ignorant of e the difficulties faced by disabled people.

You're right there could be a whole queue of disabled people, but that queue is a lot shorter and goes down quicker when there aren't perfectly able bodied people also in the queue for their simple convenience when alternatives are available.

Maybe I've been fortunate but I've encountered more disabled toilets without queues than I have with them, but when I have had to queue I have had accidents. The latest being at the seaside when I had tried to access the single disabled toilet in comparison to the 12 ladies cubicles, only to find the reason I had to wait was because a small family were getting changed out of their swimming costumes. Then I needed support getting changed because I had an accident, which held up the next person and was completely avoidable had the facilities been used for their actual purpose. No idea if the person behind me also had urgency issues but they were in a wheelchair and many wheelchair users do have continence and urgency requirements. Many don't too, but many do.

The facilities that are provided are already inadequate for disabled people, there are proportionately less bathroom facilities in ratio to normal toilets.

Nobody is saying that disabled people are exempt from queuing, but it is just a fact that when the limited resources that are available are improperly used then it has a detrimental affect for those that rely on these resources.

I'm afraid that as a parent whose life and that of my disabled DS is repeatedly made difficult by other people's selfishness, I find the title of the OP's post very triggering. It says it all really; I have learned not to rely on any kindness or sense of decency from the public. I have concluded that facilities for the disabled have to be enforced, otherwise there is no point having them.

@Rosscameasdoody yes and so many women suffer from IBS, BAM. They may look fine but are suffering many days when out and about. You cannot judge by appearances.

Maybe ask the staff? There would have been some incident that led to them buying this sign.
And yes, YABU to be annoyed. What's so bad about being considerate of people with disabilities? You may have one yourself in the future.

Re your last sentence @Rosscameasdoody and anyone else that may have proof
Just to clear this matter up once and for all
Please can you identify the law that states this is the case.

I’ll start because there is no law but here’s an extract from the Met Police that makes reference to use

Disabaled toilets exist to allow wheelchair users to access a toilet. They don't exist to give queue jumping rights to people with continence issues.

Wheelchair users and other people with disabilities have very different needs. Needing to use an accessible toilet doesn't mean you need to use it immediately in most cases. Lots of disabled people will still be able to wait a few minutes. There could be a whole queue of disabled people for a toilet- who decides who goes first?

If you imagine that woman is a disabled person with incontinence issues who has had no choice in soiling herself because the accessible loo wasn’t available, you get an idea of the difficulties some people have to navigate every day.

I'm thinking she was very well aware and didn't have any/any more nappies with her and was desperate to get to her destination to look after her child. Trust me, you know when your kid has a poo diaper.

NO !! A catheter is for urine and is used for many reasons - incontinence is just one of them, but it doesn’t suit all situations. Bowel and bladder incontinence/urgency is mostly addressed with padding and specialist underwear, which needs to be changed when soiled/wet. And urgency means people can’t hold it for very long, so more likely to have an accident if they’re kept waiting.

I remember not too many years ago, disabled toilets were kept locked. You had to apply to the local authority for a radar key, and you had to prove disability in order to get one. Now you can just buy them - even Amazon sell them. Maybe we should return to the system of stand alone toilet rooms being kept locked and only accessible with a radar key. Other users have ambulant toilets they can access freely and shouldn’t be using these stand alone facilities if they are not disabled, as they are meant to accommodate disabled people and their carers.

Was on a train a couple of days ago, and a woman with a child got on.
Kid had a reeking nappy, so bad that the stench travelled down the length of the train ( Intershitty?)

People were moving away and the poor Guards said “ Why doesn’t she use the train lavatory to change that nappy? - mother seemed oblivious to the smell that was so strong it became a taste.

What does the 5 minute wait achieve? They’ll still need to use the disabled toilet afterwards. If there’s one available why are they waiting? Is it a test.

This thread is getting more and more ridiculous when people are adding conditions on the use of toilets by those with a genuine need.

You can have incontinence and urgency issues without needing a catheter FT. How ridiculous. There are varying shades of all disabilities.

If you're incontinent, you wear a catheter, no?

I have a stoma bag. You absolutely don’t know what you’re taking about and unless you have a stoma yourself why are you speaking for those who do ? You can’t plan for a stoma - you can prepare, and most people, including myself absolutely don’t go anywhere without emergency supplies, but you can’t plan when you’ll have a leak.

Do you know the various types of stoma and their functions ? Do you know how unpredictable they can be ? Do you know that the stoma activity can’t be controlled, or that a urostomy, for example, can spring a leak from the tiniest of breaches in skin adhesion and soak the wearer in pee if they don’t get to a loo quickly ? A colostomy can be a nightmare to control on occasion, as activity is variable and a leak can be disastrous and embarrassing. I’d class that as an urgent need. And self catheterisation is not the same as a stoma.

I would also class incontinence or urgency of either bowel or bladder as urgent need - many full time wheelchair users have spinal injuries which affect these bodily functions. A wide range of disabilities also render sufferers incontinent. So yes, there often is an urgent need, which can quickly turn into an embarrassing public accident if facilities can’t be accessed. This is what very many disabled people have to face every time they’re out in public. You might want to think on that for a while so that next time you’re queuing for the disabled loo you know what the priorities actually are.

Rather than this vague useless message that people will just ignore, it would be far better for the sign to give specific actions people should take:

when using this shared facility please show consideration to others:

• re-stow the changing table after use
• leave the facility neat and tidy for the next person
• be quick - others may be waiting to use the toilet

it doesn't need to be bespoke for either disabled or parents, users just need to take on board it's a shared facility and do what's applicable to them.

If your bag starts leaking you don’t let anyone go in front.

a leaking stoma is about as high up on the NEED list as you get! It’s also a prime example why people shouldn’t abuse the few disabled toilets that are available. Just because it is empty when you walk up to it doesn’t mean it’s not needed

Again, heh? Stoma bags are not so urgent that you can't wait 5 mins? Are you implying disbled people can't plan? So they wait until there is 30 seconds left to empty something before doiing it. All the people I know who self-catherise, do so more on a time schedule than through urgent need. SO again they plan.
My problem with you is implyiing that because they are disable they automatically have an URGENT need. DIsabled people aren't defunct in all areas of life. And I tried to explain above that assessing 'whose need is more urgent' is a bit degrading. Baby change and disabled toilets are better off separate than each mom having to ask a disabled person if he would prefer to go in front of her.
As for stoma bags, I haven't met a person with a stoma bag that didn;t want someone to quickly go in front of them before they changed their stoma bag in a public loo.