To trhinkl that it is madness to allow buggies on buses?

[mrsruffallo]

I think wherever possible (i.e older babies onwards) buggies should be folded up. I am so tired of these oversized contraptions being pushed through the aisles, banging passengers thighs and shoulders as the squeeze talong a narrow aisle. I have had my ankles knocked todday and somehow had to squeeze against another passenger along the crowded aisle to make room for yet another buggy.
Theworst thing I have witnesses was a wheeelchair user being denied access onto the bus because there was already a buggy in the wheelchair space. The buggy owner didn't offer to fold up and got off a few stops later.

I do so love the utter crap you come out with

comparisons to 'back in the day' are spurious. i guess i could do my washing with a mangle, too, huh?

there are fewer local services. there is more traffic in many areas served by buses, and tighter timetables for drivers, plus a generally faster pace to life, which has extended to public transport. if i think back to my town, 15-20 years ago, i feel sure that a) i would have found it necessary to use public transport less often to get the things i needed; b) there would have pavements between points a & b (increasingly, it seems pedestrians aren't counted in urban planning!); c) there would have been more time for me to carry out the child removal/baggage juggling/pushchair folding...

meanwhile, suggesting that people put their babies on seats (with or without seatbelts) is just ignorant as fuck. i'm hoping the people suggesting this don't actually ever transport children at all.

and no, it would not be impossible for me to fold my buggy. if the driver asked me to, or a wheelchair needed the spot, i would. but make my child unsafe every time i get on a bus, because some self-centered cow is annoyed by having her ankles bumped? hardly. really can't wrap my head around the way some people think. your inconvenience? minor. child safety risk? moderate. you lose. duh.

4madboys, I never said it wasn't okay for somebody to take an unfolded pushchair on a bus! It depends on the situation and the type of bus. I was simply pointing out that it is possible to fold a pushchair up if the situation requires it.

I certainly don't think things should be made more difficult for pushchair users if their unfolded pushchair isn't going to cause a problem for others on the bus. But taking unfolded pushchairs (or coal!) on a bus is not essential in the way that taking a wheelchair on a bus should be seen as being.

I would not expect other users to stand so that I could put my shopping in the wheelchair area with folded down seats, but I frequently see other passengers have to stand up on buses because somebody has put an unfolded pushchair in front of the folding seats. Sometimes there isn't even a baby in the pushchair. The owners are just being selfish.

ah right, i didnt see the point you were making, i fold my pushchair for a wheelchair if needed, but as i said our buses are large enough and have spaces for wheelchair AND pushchair. the buses DONT have any storage space for luggage tho, so no where for a folded up puschair to go!

Oh please! People on this thread are talking when their kids were young. It is not twenty years ago and the pace of life has not got faster in the past decade. In fact we are in a recession, so the 'pace of life' is if anything slower than it was 10 years ago when we were in a boom.

I think it is great that life is easier now for parents, and it was certainly a lot easier when I had mine than it was for my mum, who did put terry nappies through a mangle back in the seventies. But the excuses on this thread just getting weaker and weaker.

If you take a baby on a bus where you cannot strap a carseat into a seatbelt, you are taking a risk that you wouldn't do in a car, whether the baby is in a pushchair or on your knee. If there was that much greater a risk from having a baby on your knee rather than strapped in a pushchair, bus companies would be sued, have massive insurance premiums and be in lots of trouble with health and safety laws for telling parents to fold their pushchairs when a wheelchair user got on.

4 madboys, sorry that post was not to you! I am crossposting.

Holding youngest child ( 6 weeks), first needed to lift seat up before I emptied basket, them got todddler ( 18 months) out of front seat and grabbed changing bag to finish with folding tandem buggy... Needed a few more hands and helpful people.. Had to do it once and didn't enjoyed it one bit but still wheelchair users come first... and more often than not i get help from people to get on the bus and finding a space for the pushchair than complaints.. i drive but couldn't do without the bus, and by the way what do you think of elderly people with oversized shopping trolley: should they empty it, fold it and sit with their shopping?

"I would not expect other users to stand so that I could put my shopping in the wheelchair area with folded down seats, but I frequently see other passengers have to stand up on buses because somebody has put an unfolded pushchair in front of the folding seats."

My baby is not shopping. Sigh. The posted signs on our buses say that there is room for three pushchairs, in front of the folded down seats, with priority given in this area to wheelchairs. There are also seats designated for the elderly/non-wheelchair disabled.

If a wheelchair user got on, I would fold. Because I am not a stupid bitch. If someone who obviously needed a seat got on, I would expect (and if no one offered, would ask!) some other able-bodied person to give up their seat, first, before I took my baby out of the pushchair and folded it. If an able-bodied adult has to stand so that my child can remain in her stroller, in the designated spot and when it is one of the three or less strollers on the bus, I am absolutely fine with that. Absolutely fine.

There are some big changes that have happened over the last 20 years that does make travel more essential.

local hospitals in many areas have closed to be replaced with big centralised facilities miles away (in my case 22miles).

Town centres have lost a significant amount of their businesses with a lot of business being transferred to out of town business and retail parks.

Community centres serving relatively small local areas have closed, the same with smaller branch libraries.

There is so much that is no longer with in a walking distance that is practical in terms of time.

I want to point out that I have never caused a wheelchair user to not be able to get on a bus in fact when dd 1 was 14 days old I walked home as the bus was full. I had an EMCS with dd and I can assure you that walk took significantly longer than it would have if I could have maintained a 4mph walking speed. BTW I was at the GP surgery getting my wound treated not out gallivanting so it was a necessary trip.

No, your baby certainly isn't shopping. But we're talking about pushchairs. Nobody at all is suggesting babies be banned from buses, although with the number of posters hugely concerned about the crash risks, it is only a matter of time before somebody suggests babies not be allowed on buses at all for their own safety.

After all, in a crash it perfectly reasonable for four adults to be stood up so your infant messiah can use up their seating spaces in a pushchair.

this is an utterly ridiculous argument between two parties vying for the same resources.

this is not unlike any socialist argument you will hear.

why don't these parties stop arguing that one deserves and the other doesnt and work together to dget the appropriate resources for both?

i;ll tell you why

becuase the capitalist bastard pigs have you BRIANWASHED

People on this thread are talking when their kids were young. It is not twenty years ago and the pace of life has not got faster in the past decade. In fact we are in a recession, so the 'pace of life' is if anything slower than it was 10 years ago when we were in a boom.

I'm sorry? Are you saying that there could not possibly be anyone on this thread whose children were young twenty years ago? I am forty, and I don't think I am the oldest person who posts on these boards.

I am not sure why you are having a go at me for talking about twenty years ago, anyway, as I was responding to people talking about their MOTHER's experiences, which surely were at least twenty years ago..so my response was absolutely valid...whatever, you make no sense.

The last part of your post is nonsense, as well, and not supported by any sociological or economic evidence. Recession does not equal slower pace of life. It is fact that traffic is exponentially heavier than a decade ago; also a fact that people have less 'leisure' time than a decade ago. (If anything, recession might equal more mums taking public transport.)

can i pick the four adults?

I was a baby 38 years ago and my mother had a huge silver cross- she walked everywhere because she had to- there wasn't such a thing as umbrella strollers and buses weren't accessible. She thinks things are marvelous these days- she doesn't go around saying "you youngsters don't know you're born".

Can I just make a point that firstly, it is very tricky to fold a push-chair while holding on to even one toddler, let alone more than one, while also holding on to shopping, handbag, etc, and the bus lurches along because the driver doesn't have time to let you get sorted, and you have no free hands to hold on to the bus. Add to this mix any post-pregnancy difficulties, such as healing c-section, or as in my case, very severe and crippling hip and pelvic pain and sciatica. I still had limited mobility up to a year after DS was born, I couldn't bend or lift.

Fortunately I lived in a European city where many people are helpful and take time to make life a little more tolerable for young mothers than in England.

I have been through both situations - no low floor buses when DD was tiny. Used to have to hold DD under my armpit, load shopping up my arms, fold buggy (which WASN'T umbrella fold as I couldn't afford a Maclaren back then) and try to struglle on the bus with my bus ticket in my teeth. The one and only time someone offered to help me, they STOLE my entire week's worth of food shopping - I had no more money to replace it with, and I lost half a stone that week.

Now, low floor buses every 7 minutes on my local route (chose where I lived specifically because of the good bus routes, as I'll never drive because of my uncontrolled epilepsy). I have two prams. One is a cheap umbrella fold thingy from Mothercare (cost £35) that DS3 is very uncomfortable in, but is OK if I am just running errands or picking a FEW bits up. The other IS a fuck-off huge, practically unfoldable pram (to give an idea of the size - even 'folded' it doesn't fit into the boot of a Toyota Avensis, which has a cavernous boot). I got given it by a friend, for NOTHING. When I am doing a weeks shopping for 5 people - I HAVE to take the huge tank pram. It is the ONLY way I can cart enough food home to feed us all. I accept that it is fairly impractical for everyday bus use - but before DS3 was 6mo and able to go into a CHEAP (i.e. not Maclaren) umbrella fold pram - I had no choice but to use it every day, IN RUSH HOUR (shoot me now...) so that my dc could get to SCHOOL.

Oh - and I have two words for you all - MAC Major. When DS2 was non-walking at 3yo, a very tall 3yo, and was in a MAC Major - I was once asked to get off the bus for a wheelchair, and refused, as I was taking him to a hospital appointment. Why does an adult wheelchair user get priority over a child wheelchair user?? How many times did I get huffed at when the bus driver asked people that were already on the bus, with clearly mobile toddlers, to fold their prams, because my DS was in a pram too...NO IT IS GIVEN OUT BY THE WHEELCHAIR SERVICE, IT'S A WHEELCHAIR FOR SMALLER PEOPLE!!! (Forgive the shouting please)

Oh - and now that DS2 is out of the MAC Major, and it's just DS3 in his pram, if a wheelchair user is waiting, I take one of two actions depending on which pram I have - umbrella fold, I fold it, my big Tank thing (always FILLED with shopping), I get off and wait for the next bus 99% of the time.

HOWEVER - There is one situation where I just cannot get off. If I have been food shopping and have my DS2 with me, AND I have no more money left to pay for another bus fare for him - then I simply cannot get off and wait for the next bus, as I will not be able to pay AGAIN for DS2. And DS2, while he can walk short distances now, cannot walk all the way home. He still HAS disabilities, even though he may not appear to. So, on a very very few occasions, I HAVE looked like a total bitch, refusing to get off the bus for a wheelchair user (3 times in the last 8 months), but it is because of a combination of MY disability, my DS2's disabilities, having to do food shopping thus having my tank pram AND having no more money left in my purse.

I apologise if you are the wheelchair users that I have pissed off - but I have my own crosses to bear too!!

Why don't the bus companies create a job for someone and have a bus warden of sorts to assist in the folding of buggies and holding children following a CRB clearance. Everyone needs to use the bus. YABU.

Riven - why would you assume that was aimed at you? If it wasn't aimed at the OP I would have directed my comment to the person it was aimed at.

Let me tell you what is really annoying with poxy buses. And it really gets on my nerves.

Bus drivers not allowing you to get on the bus using the back doors. This would make life alot easier for mums like me with prams. I dont want to bash everyone walking down the bus isle. But if passengers want to sit on the seats with their legs wide open, feet sticking out in the isles, as well as their shopping bags. I will run my pram wheels over them all because they cant be bothered to move.

I really hate it when the bus driver pulls away before you get your pram in the correct location so you end up going into someone or something.

I will not stop getting on the buses and when I met rude people who are unhelpful and a real pain in the arse I will answer back. Why because Ive been getting on the bus for 3 years now and Im sick of arseholes who dont give a thought for a mum with a child and a pram!!! In others words shove it!"!!!!!

Huntycat :(

Another thread which proves that children and mothers with children really are seen as the bottom of the food chain.