to think that wheelchairs should be priority on buses?

[mamadivazback]

My DS and I were on the bus today coming home from the town when I noticed a woman I vaguely know to speak to in the queue behind about 8 people with her 6YO DD who is in a narrow childs wheelchair and her DP with 2 year old son in small stroller so we waved, as you do.

Now the bus was about half full and 2 girls got on with their children in pushchairs, one with a very large Emmaljunga type and the other with a stroller and both children were happily sitting up by themselves and looked to be about 18 months old but neither thought to fold their pushchair when the lady tried to get her DD on, she had taken her DS out so she could fold pushchair and all sit together but the bus driver told her she could not get on as there were already 2 pushchairs onboard so she had to wait behind in the rain for the next bus.

I know pushchairs are entitled to use the bus but I thought you had to fold them if a wheelchair user was getting on and was quite shocked when the bus driver refused her a ticket, I spoke to her later on and she said it has happened a few times and it's just bad luck but I really don't think it's fair.

No, I didn't choose to get on the bus with a pram that wouldn't fold, it could not be avoided. Broken pram, hospital appointments to get to.
No other means of transport.

Also, you might think 'wtf' at my son screaming being a reason not to fold the pram, but you haven't seen him have a meltdown.
You haven't had to stand in the street for half an hour, heavily pregnant while he lays on the floor in HELL of a lot of distress because someone said hello to him. Hassle isn't the right word.
Actually getting to the hospital for a weekly scan, without having a nervous breakdown is a better explanation.

I still got off the bus for wheelchairs despite this.
And arrived at the flippen hospital ready to faint.

it's the single people who should be blamed for sitting in priority seating, not just 'selfish women with prams'.

I was referring to the girls saying it was a hassle, despite what you may think I did not start this thread because of you and your problems.

People sitting in priority seating who don't need it annoy me whether there is one or 10 of them.

You don't know my circumstances I may well have had to deal with my own son having a meltdown on several occassions but again I did not start the thread to discuss my own problems, I was simply asking a question before I put in a complaint.

5inthebed.
I'm really stressed thinking of those very difficult few months, when having to use buses was absolute hell. I couldn't eat, hence the weekly scans to checkmy baby was still growing because I was losing weight for the entire pregnancy, I was constantly ready to pass out.
Constantly looked down on for my son's behaviour (whom now is being diagnosed). Having to miss buses constantly because of no space just tipped me over the edge so many times, I'd be there crying my fucking eyes out.

I think wheelchair users would have been perhaps in equal need to me back then.
The only difference I could see was that they got mobility money so would be able to afford a taxi if necessary while I couldn't.
May sound 'selfish' but whatever.

A great big sob story for you

must tell dd she isn't allowed on a bus, she must use her WAV and never try to be "normal"
I do hope mumof you don't face this kind of discrimination as your child grows.

Well, it's not always the case that pram users are just being awkward and selfish, that's my point.

Just for the future mumoftwo, if you find yourself in this situation again and you are one of the 'lucky' ones to have a dangerous pregnancy and have to use the bus then you can claim NHS vouchers from your local hospital to cover taxi's.

I'm surprised your MW never told you that or mybe it's different here.

Any minute now, someone will come ond tell you pregnancy is not a disability.....

Anyway, as I've already said, I think you're stressed. Going through a dx for a child is very stressful. You're coming across as very uncaring when I assume that is not the case. Was there only one space on the bus, or was someone else in the other. The buses we have here have two spave, some even have three and four, depening on bus size.

Oh, and disability money does not get you many taxis. My Ds2 gets £75ish a month for taxis. Taxis are roughly £20 return here, that is 3.75 taxis. ot many trips out there, good job I can drive. And I got my driving lessons paid for me by a charity, no cost there, maybe you should look into doing the same?

like I said earlier, you don't get mobility until a child is 3. My ds didn't stand, walk or crawl at 3, we had no extra money for taxis and no mobility car. However I did show people not to be judgemental in my own way.

dd can't fit in taxi's her chair is to tall, also taxis are not safe as no wheelcahir fixings.
so can't do taxi's as seems wheelchairs shouldn't be on buses.
stressed or not very selfish attitude.

I didn't know that either mama, I had 2 dangerous pregnancies and didn't realise I could claim taxi..........not that I need to know for my future.

Devient I got 2 taxi's a week in 2006 for the last 6 weeks of my pregnancy because it was compulsory that I attended hospital due to fears of pre-eclampsia (which thankfully never actually materilaised) and crippling aneamia, I never had any transport and was too weak for buses.

I was just told the hospital would refund my bus ticket because I was on income support.
If I had known about a free taxi, damn, lol
It was two buses each way to the hospital.

I plan on applying for driving lessons from family fund, thanks 5inthebed.
I assume that's what you got?

Yeah one of mine was pre eclampsia, was in hospital daily for months and not just an hour here and there, until they kept me in.

I never understand what there is to argue about on the subject. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

The vast majority of users of wheeled contraptions on public transport are pram users, not wheelchair users.

The vast majority of pram users on public transport have no additional needs for themselves or their children and have made an active choice as to the type of pram they use.

ALL wheelchair users have additional needs and have no choice about the type of transport they use.

A minority of pram users on public transport have additional needs which, in an ideal, perfectly organised world would entitle them to extra consideration.

Therefore, most of the users of wheeled contraptions will be able to use public transport without difficulty most of the time. On a small number of occasions a pram user might have to cede priority to a wheelchair user.

On an even smaller number of occasions that pram user might also have additional needs which unfortunately aren't obvious enough to allow her to claim equal status to the wheelchair user.

Or to summarise, it is an infrequent occurrence for a wheelchair user to get on a bus. Therefore most pram users will never find themselves in this situation and the very, very occasional situation where someone finds it difficult to give way to the wheelchair user is simply not frequent enough for the whole priority structure to be changed.

Obviously the woman in the OP were unreasonable but surely it is about mutual respect and appreciating that every situation is different.

You cannot know that the woman leaning against a buggy struggles to walk without it or the toddler perched in his pram can be safely removed from it etc etc. Surely the rule is that we all do what we can when we can without behaving like a twat?

Genuine question, are there any adult wheelchair users here who would on being told a bus was full (no prams, just lots of people standing) expect those people standing to get off the buss so that there was space for their chair?

TheQueenOfDenial I wouldn't expect space to be made on a full bus. That's not how it works.

good question TheQueenOfDenial.

Why should pram users who can't fold their pram (like people with baby twins which is a more frequent occurence) be refused the space, but people standing in that space on a full bus get to stay there?

A wheelchair user would have to expect standing people to get off a full bus for them, for it to be fair.

I still think buses should be redesigned to meet everyone's needs.

I think the bus drivers should at least offer to hold the babies while the mother folds a pram, like they used to.

It's usually the elderly people who can just manage to help you that have the sense to offer.
The rest of the general public are ignorant tossers.

Speaking of experience from having two kids in a pram.

Again, the scenario of the wheelchair user needing to get on a bus so full that people couldn't make room is an exception rather than the norm.

Around DS's nursery there are very frequent buses but it is rare for there not to be at least one pram on every bus. If there wasn't a policy about pram users then a wheelchair user would almost never be able to get on a bus in that area.

It is also relatively rare for buses to be jam-packed. Occasionally in rush hour, if there has been a delay, there might be a very full one which simply couldn't accommodate a wheelchair. But that wouldn't be something that a wheelchair user faced on a daily basis - prams on buses are.

The reason why pram users are such an issue is because they either have to get off the bus or fold the pram and find somewhere to put it - this is no doubt why they are often reluctant to move. It would be fairly unusual for a person simply standing in the wheelchair space to grumble about shuffling over a couple of feet. I have seen three wheelchairs getting on buses that I can remember - on all of those occasions there was argument from the pram user occupying the space. On none of those occasions was there any argument from any foot passenger about moving to create room.

There's obviously a need for more pram spaces then

By the way, I do get what you're saying.

I agree, 99 times out of 100 the pram user should give the space up.

Why? A pram user pays the same as any other passenger but takes up the space of 3 or 4 other people. If they created three spaces that means losing at least 2 more seats to accommodate one more person who could just as easily wait for another one of the very frequent buses. Or fold their pram if they were able to do so.

Public transport, like many things in life, is designed to run as efficiently, cheaply and well as it can. It can't accomodate every individual situation. If they had three spaces then there would inevitably be a day when four prams wanted to get on. Should they then make four spaces on all buses? What about when five prams wanted to get on?

All the providers of buses can do is cater to the average scenario, ie pram users can usually get on and may occasionally need to give way to a wheelchair.

It's just life. Not everything in our daily lives goes exactly how we want or need it to go. Sometimes we might be massively inconvenienced but we can't expect everyone around us to respond to every difficulty we have as individuals.

Where there is a serious, ongoing difficulty for a significant proportion of society, eg wheelchair users, that is when we have a right to expect our service providers to take action.

again Driver is not supposed to leave the cab in order to hold your baby. He could get fired for that.

And really, redesign all the buses? who is going to pay for that exactly?

Ahem, have you seen the buses with fold up seat in the pram area?
There could easily be more of them.
If two seats were created to be fold up ones a pram could go in there.

There was one pram space on the bus I had to get into town where I used to live and so people would literally fight over it, while many many normal chairs were empty.
Buses in a different city, where they have the fold up chairs as well as the wheelchair space can fit 3 to 4 prams on them.

I think there is ongoing serious difficulty going on for pram users who have to miss 3 or 4 buses per outing because of inadequate buses.