to think thats its ridiculous that buses don't have to have space for wheelchairs and pushchairs?

[Sarz84]

Today I decided I was going to venture into town to meet a friend, I don't drive and live rurally where the buses only run every hour. After rushing round like a headless chicken I managed to make it to the bus stop in time, however much to my annoyance when the bus doors opened the driver simply said "no space for buggys on this bus".
Well to say I was annoyed is an understaement, I politely enquired whether the next bus would have space but the driver had "no idea love".
I can't believe that in modern society that public transport is still unaccesable to certain groups of people. Had I been in a wheelchair I would have also have been left waiting and hoping the next one could take me. It seems stupid that the government want us to use public transport yet its not possible for everyone to use it through no fault of their own!!

Could you not have folded it?

Was there definitely no room, or was it just taken up by others? Would hope if you were in a wheelchair buggy users would have been told to fold theirs up?

They usually do have space. I would have folded it.

Did he say there was no space because it was already filled with pushchairs/wheelchair? Or did it just have no designated space on that bus? It's quite rare for a bus not to have wheelchair/buggy space nowadays I think.

It is probably only cos you live in a rural area but yeah i agree, If your are in a wheelchair are you expected to not leave your house because the buses dont have the room for you, or worse still they expect you to pay for cabs everywhere as most are forced to..

I live in a large city so luckily if i ever did need to take a pram anywhere the buses now accommodate for this, they have 3 seats each side as you get on that fold up and make space for wheelchairs and prams, aswell as the little luggage space if you wanted to fold the pram down. I really would of expected this to be rolled out everywhere though, considering just a few years ago the equality commission forced a lot of shops to re think their layout and add on wheelchair access and exits, why not the buses though

I meant to add i know the buses in rural areas can be smaller to get round easier, but surely there should of been a little space somewhere if it was folded??

Was there no space as there was already buggies on, or was the bus jsut not one that you can take prams on?

YABU on both accounts really, its not too hard to fold a pram down, unless of course you had a huge tank.

YANBU DH once took DS on the bus in his pushchair. It is a big pushchair so DH took DS out and folded it up as best he could but it was still taking up a lot of space.

An old lady with a walking frame was waiting at the next bus stop. She put out her arm to flag down the bus but the driver drove straight past her shaking his head.

DH was absolutely mortified that he caused an old lady to be left stranded like that. We have since bought one of those umbrella buggies for use on public transport.

I have nothing useful to suggest though. Just thought I'd relate the story.

Could you not have folded it?

I have to say the size of most pushchairs now annoys me. There is just no need for it. The smallest people on the bus (the babies and toddlers) end up taking up the most room!

Can I just ask what you're meant to do with the baby while you fold the pram down?!

If there was no space rather than it being taken up then make a conplaint to the bus company. I have known people to get their local MP involved, not everyone can fold a buggy because they are disabled, so there should be accessable transport.
Transport companies are subsidised and should be re-investing in modern designed buses.
There is usually, or should be, under the law, arrangable transport for those that are wheelchair users.

A lot of prams are one hand fold. Easy to hold the baby in one arm and fold with the other.

Op, I suggest you get a more compact pram for intances like this.

There is the occasional bus on my bus route that still has steps so you have to fold, or wait for the next bus. My bus, officially, runs every ten minutes though so not too bad.

Was there a reason you couldn't fold the pushchair OP?

I think most buses do have space for wheelchairs, don't they? When there is no space for buggies it usually means that there is someone using it already. I used to use a little local bus that was particularly short with no central doors - it was in London but it went through an estate that had turns too tight for normal buses. Even that had a wheelchair space. Where we live now has just a twice a day mini-bus type service and that has wheelchair space too.

I do agree that some buggies are ridiculously large these days. Obviously if someone doesn't use public transport regularly then they aren't necessarily going to realise that they will have difficulties with a particular pram, but I do sometimes wonder what the thinking on the part of the manufacturer was. I was on the bus the other day and a buggy with the widest wheelbase I have ever seen got one. It was too wide to fit down the aisle even once everyone had moved all bags (and a guide dog!) and eventually had to be lifted over the top of the seats by two passengers. It then couldn't get into the buggy space properly. It seemed to be a standard single buggy - the seat wasn't particularly wide and nor was the storage space and it wasn't fitted out for any sort of disability - it just had a massive wheel-base. I couldn't work out why!

I think some of today's buggies are Totally Unreasonable! Agree re wheelchairs though, everyone needs access to public transport.

Chopmonster - most people I know who use public transport in london take some sort of carrier or sling with them in case they need to fold the buggy.

I'm more worried about buses not adapted for wheelchair access than for buggy and prams. The former is a DDA issue, the latter a laziness issue.

And yes, I've had to dismantle and fold enough prams and buggies in the last eight years to enable me to get a job in the silver cross factory, once with a child of eight days old. I just think that people get intensely snotty about being able to wheel onto a bus when it's not really a right. One of my local bus companies has a policy of not permitting large prams on the buses. Now if they would only ban those horrible four wheeled 'sholley' things as well...

I use the bus a lot and there have been occasions where it has been too full or others where drive just being a jobswoth and "won't have more than two buggies on this bus i'm afraid", but in general we usually manage to squeeze on. We have a fairly small Maclaren buggy and it is easy to fold down and hold a child if needed but some bus drivers don't want to wait while you fold it etc.

Sorry you got a not very helpful driver OP, maybe next time have the buggy ready folded and just get on as then you are no different to a passanger with bit of luggage.

Oh gawd, those massive trolleys. The situation I described above was not assisted by the woman who categorically refused to move her massive trolley out of the middle of the buggy space or to move herself from the fold down seat into one of the two other priority seats close to hand. She did not appear to have massive mobility issues judging by the speed with which she had darted in front of me and run over my toes when the bus pulled up!

I think knowing some of the buses are buggy friendly makes us lazy. When we had the old style buses I thought nothing of holding dd2, folding up the buggy one handed and dd1 getting on on her own. then they used to send one bus through and I got to the point where if I missed it then I'd consider not going to whatever it was I was going to. Which was just plain laziness because I'd always managed fine anyway.
People were always willing to help too, either by holding a baby or folding the buggy up for me.

Thing is, surely you wouldn't have to be a regular user of public transport to want a buggy that folds easily and isn't too huge to store?

Surely you'd have same issue with a car? I'm sure most parents have had the screaming child/pouring down with rain/trying to ram the buggy in the boot scenario.

Pootles - these are all very good reasons why I decided at an early stage that I was never going to get to grips with buggies and abandoned them entirely in favour of slings.

I can safely say I have never failed to get on a bus yet!

Can anyone tell me where they put the folded buggy on buses? We have a Maclaren umbrella-fold and most of the buses round here have space for a wheelchair or 2 unfolded pushchairs, so generally we can get on without trouble. However, none of them have luggage space big enough to put the pushchair in, even folded, and if it's on the floor it's a trip hazard, since although it takes up less space folded it's still pretty long. It's not exactly a convenient thing to tuck under my arm (even supposing I could manage it without walloping someone while clutching wriggling DS), so I tend just to get off and walk if the bus gets too crowded, but I'd be grateful for advice from anyone who's cracked this one!

Sorry for hijack, OP.

It's quite amusing to watch grannies with evil trollies getting all catbummouth (we so need a lemon emoticon for this) about not being able to get their trolley on a bus. I once offered to put one old dear's trolley in the luggage rack because the wheelchair spot was full. She was disgusted and huffed off the bus. I think she thought that the poor woman whose adult son was in one of those large reclining type motorised wheelchairs ought o have made room for her precious King Edwards. Daft mare.