Priority for wheelchair when with a buggy

[Hshuznw]

I’m just wondering what the etiquette is when you’re queuing for something and someone in a wheelchair arrives.

I was queuing to use a lift at a train station earlier today and a man in a wheelchair arrived to join the queue, which is what got me thinking. Do I keep my place in the queue, or let the wheelchair user go ahead?

I remember another incident when DS was an infant. I had been using the baby changing table at a coffee shop, which was in the disabled toilets. Whilst I was in there, someone kept trying to get in even though I kept shouting out it’s in use. I leave and there’s an elderly lady waiting to use the loo, with who I assume was her daughter giving me evils, and continued to give me stares until we left.

I’m not talking about priority for the wheelchair space on the bus, but priority in a queue to use a service.

Why can't the wheelchair user wait for a few mins in line?

Not really understanding why they would want anyone to let them go to the front and push in.

@Vintagecreamandcottagepie

Why can't the wheelchair user wait for a few mins in line?

Not really understanding why they would want anyone to let them go to the front and push in.

they don't. no one has said they do. the op just wondered if they should.

@ohfook

Erm I sort of took the opinion that the wheelchair user was an adult so could be on their way to work or a work meeting whereas, when I was pushing a pram or buggy, I was on mat leave or on my day off and had nowhere important to be so I would let them ahead.

Presumably you let everyone go ahead of you then as everyone might be off to do something important. How did you every get anywhere?

@SleepingStandingUp I was talking about specific occasions when it may have been a choice between a buggy or a wheelchair for example getting on the bus when there was only one space left at the front

Granted I lived very centrally and walked almost everywhere anyway so I wasn't in that situation very often.

There’s no way I would give up my place in the queue for the disabled loo with my buggy. I look really fit and healthy but it would me as I’m in the not all disabilities are visible category. No wheelchair user should be judging anyone else using the disable loo even if they do look like a normal mum with a buggy.

I'm a wheelchair user with very serious medical problems and honestly, yes, I would expect to jump a lift queue. It's not really relevant in my current life (still shielding, CEV...), but before the pandemic, I think that's what I would have expected.

I know it's not the popular view on MN as I'm well acquainted with how much people on here dislike the idea of wheelchair users getting "special treatment". But the fact is, we do have unique needs, like it or not.

@amylou8

Things should be accessible for wheelchair users, but they shouldn't get priority over other people that need to use that facility just because they're not in a wheelchair.

@amylou8 Except that we actually don't have a choice, and other people do.

@Innocenta

I'm a wheelchair user with very serious medical problems and honestly, yes, I would expect to jump a lift queue. It's not really relevant in my current life (still shielding, CEV...), but before the pandemic, I think that's what I would have expected.

I know it's not the popular view on MN as I'm well acquainted with how much people on here dislike the idea of wheelchair users getting "special treatment". But the fact is, we do have unique needs, like it or not.

Over who? Over everyone? I try to get about on my crutches, but I am usually in agony within minutes. You would expect to go ahead? If I was in my chair I'd happily wait my turn as I wouldn't be in such discomfort

@AllThingsServeTheBeam I don't see it as a competition with any one, specific person. I'm not commenting (in my original post) on you as an individual or the validity of your circumstances; clearly you do very much need the lift too! In practice it would be very unusual for a public lift not to fit a wheelchair user + pusher, and another disabled person who is ambulatory.

In my experience of years of being a wheelchair user, actually members of the public are usually eager to offer to let one go ahead on mobility-related services like lifts. It's not usually conflictual or negative in any way at all, but tends to be very pleasant.

@Innocenta

Things should be accessible for wheelchair users, but they shouldn't get priority over other people that need to use that facility just because they're not in a wheelchair.

@amylou8 Except that we actually don't have a choice, and other people do

Other people with disabilities also don't have a choice. It's not disability top trumps. It's not fair to those with invisible or less visible disabilities.

@HunterHearstHelmsley That's an oversimplification and not directly true, though. Often people with invisible disabilities do have some choice, albeit at a cost. (I was originally invisibly disabled, for years, so I'm speaking from very extensive experience.)

Using a catchy phrase like 'disability top trumps' doesn't actually mean anything. Different needs exist and recognising that isn't wrong, just uncomfortable.

I have a teenage severely disabled son in a wheelchair. We would wait in the queue for the lift. Why on earth would we not? I would feel extremely embarrassed if mums with pushchairs were giving way to us.

My friend uses a wheelchair and he’d be mortified if someone fawned all over him trying to get him to go in front of them in a queue!

We did ask a young lad to go in front of us at a BMX park a few weeks ago as I couldn’t carry DS’s bike down the stairs and the only lift was a specific disabled lift. It was quite tricky to use and had taken me a while to figure out on the way up so I made a jokey comment about how it would take me longer than him so he could go in front. I would hate to have insulted him by treating him like an invalid especially as I’d just been marvelling at his skills in his wheelchair on the skate park!

Otherwise, I’d only ask someone to go first if they were obviously in distress at waiting.

@LadyCatStark People offering don't normally do it in a 'fawning' way. I'd be uncomfortable with that too; I think almost anyone would.

Wheelchair users should always get priority over buggy users because wheelchair users are in that situation permanently and almost certainly have very little choice about their needs. Most buggy users are (a) only in that situation temporarily for a few years, (b) could choose to use a sling and a lightweight quick-fold buggy in order to be more versatile, but just prefer a bulkier option and (c) have the physical ability to walk instead (even if unhappily in the rain. Of course this doesn't apply to every buggy user - sometimes it might be the case that the parent has serious back issues such that they can't use a sling/pick up a folding pushchair, or the child might have additional needs requiring bulkier heavier equipment, but these exceptions will be rare.

If its a service designed for everyone and you feel you have a need to go first, I think there is a responsibility on you to verbalise that. Not everyone using a wheelchair to get around a shopping precinct for example would feel that they needed to go first because of their disability but if someone said can I go first because I'm in a hurry I'd of course let them go assuming I wasn't too.
Disabled toilets I'd always offer because I have twins.
Buses, the drivers need to be more proactive. Their very quick to say no and drive off if someone is in a wheelchair and it isn't my job to be scanning every bus stop, but it is my job to move

but these exceptions will be rare.

@BuanoKubiamVej not where I live. I live near a respite centre for children. So there can be multiple wheelchairs users on a bus. The maximum I've seen is 8, which I was impressed by. I was the only person on that bus with a baby/toddler simply because I used a sling.

On public transport the buggy should be collapsed and baby on your knee. A wheelchair user has no other choices here but to park their chair in a designated space and that shouldn't be taken away by someone that has an alternative.

Lifts should be form an orderly queue and that's that. Able bodied people should take the escalator or stairs (but often don't) and everyone else in genuine need should take their turn in order. It's
not safe to carry a baby and lug a buggy up and down loads of stairs especially in a busy place.

I think disabled people should take priority for accessible toilets containing baby changing facilities because they don't have any other choice. A baby can sometimes be changed inside their pram or on your knee if you can find somewhere quiet to sit. That's not to say parents shouldn't use them, they are for everyone under those categories, but if someone clearly in need of an accessible toilet joins the queue I would offer for them to go first.

Life is hard enough for disabled people and they have very few allowances made to make their lives more straight forward, so they should be able to access what is available without stress.

On public transport the buggy should be collapsed and baby on your knee.

That's fine if the bus driver waits while you do this. At least on London buses, the baby would be rolling around on the floor while you tried desperately to keep your balance and take everything out of the buggy basket in order to fold the buggy. I tended just to walk or wait for the next bus.

I would say if it's for a single lift, then you'd queue as normal with your buggy and the wheelchair user waits, just as they'd have to if it was another chair user in front of them. I would say your need to use it is a great as theirs in this situation.

@Goldbar

On public transport the buggy should be collapsed and baby on your knee.

That's fine if the bus driver waits while you do this. At least on London buses, the baby would be rolling around on the floor while you tried desperately to keep your balance and take everything out of the buggy basket in order to fold the buggy. I tended just to walk or wait for the next bus.

I was just saying the spaces are intended for wheelchairs so if someone wants to stay on the bus with a buggy they will have to move and fold the buggy. There's obviously the option to get off too.

@peasandcarrrots. I agree with you, but it does make me laugh when people say 'just fold the buggy' . I tried to do this once and ended up kneeling on the bus floor with my then 14 month old pinned under one leg trying simultaneously to fold the buggy and to balance and stop us flying into the bus sides as the bus veered sharply around the corners.

On public transport the buggy should be collapsed and baby on your knee. A wheelchair user has no other choices here but to park their chair in a designated space and that shouldn't be taken away by someone that has an alternative. at the point the space is needed by the person in a wheelchair. It is not exclusive use, it's priority use. There is zero need for me to battle with newborn twins in my arms whilst the wheelchair priority space remains empty

I love reading these disabled threads because they are so laughable.

Some very selfish people who are adamant they 'are a special case'. Never mind the people who completely forget the not all disabled people are in a wheelchair.

@DaisyDeli Why is it so difficult to accept that being a wheelchair user is a unique type of need?

Many wheelchair users have experience of invisible disability, far from forgetting that it exists. But acknowledging it doesn't have to mean (and shouldn't mean) denying material reality.