to think these people were selfish and rude.

[cakeoclock]

The push chair v wheelchair on a bus just reminded me what happened this weekend.

I was christmas shopping with friends (one in a wheelchair) in Harvey Nicks Leeds and it was pretty busy. We stood waiting for the lift, the doors opened and it was rammed full of people (no push chairs). Not one of the miserable gits got out to make space for the wheelchair just looked away until the doors shut and we had to wait ages for another lift. There were escalators less than a minute walk from the lift.

AIBU to think that this is lazy, selfish and awful and to hope if any of you are reading you feel ashamed.

Once again....the majority of people crammed into a lift do not need to be there.

Stop with the invisable disabilities argument!! It's silly!

Lifts are NOT packed with people with invisable disabilities....they're just not!

No matter how many of you shout at me about it.....lifts are populated and monopolised by people who do not need them! Nothing anyone says about their invisble condition will change that fact!

Kelly - who shouts abuse at people?? What are you talking about?

you've probably never sat in a wheelchair watching 10 or 15 full lifts open and close while you try not to piss yourself then Rumple.

Prams aren't the same as wheelchairs. You choose to have a baby, and you choose to put it into a pram. People don't choose to live in wheelchairs.

I'm with pictish - I'm happy to work on the grounds that the majority of people in over-crowded elevators in busy buildings are just lazy thoughtless people who could use the stairs if pushed, and whose health would probably benefit from it.

The Science Museum and Tate Modern have little signs up saying "please use the stairs if you can to leave the lifts free for people who don't have the option" (whether due to wheelchairs, pushchairs, SPD or whatever). Strikes me as the right compromise.

The DCs love lifts, but DH is making a concerted effort to make us more stair-minded - I'm rubbish at work first thing in the morning - I could do with a nannying little sign on the lifts there saying "Use the bloody stairs WITMW!"

'I'd love to know where some of you people live that every single person in every lift has an invisible disability. You'd think that would get into the Daily Hate.
'

Well I would think about these things anyway as it is both my field AND my b

But funnily enough think S E Wales LMAO: Daily Fail area of choice!

Pictish, do you think people in wheelchairs have more rights over people with prams?

Can't you see that unless it says otherwise people can use lifts just for the sheer hell of it and not have to justify their reasoning?

I'm still amazed that some people think lifts are just for people in wheelchairs.
We've not come very far really have we?

'Wheelchair users, people with crutches and people who have buggies should be given priority because, funnily enough, it's why lifts were invented. They weren't invented so the able-bodied fucking gobshite lazy people of our society could use them as a personal travelling service.'

WHy not stick signs on the lifts telling people which of them you think should be able to use the lifts? And what are people on crutches and people with buggies using them for if not as personal travelling services?

I didn't know the lift was for priority of the wheelchair user! I thought it was for anyone who fancied using it, whether for fun, lazyness, quickness, whatever?
Oh silly me, I for got that wheelchairs users have all developed the inability to queue, for ANYHING!

No we haven't come very far when people won't do very simple things to make life easier for those that have it much tougher than them. Its still an able bodied world and most people couldn't give a shit about thinking about others, clearly.

Oh and neuromantic, you really won't win any friends by dividing the pushchair users from the wheelchair users using "choice" as a weapon. Seriously bad tactics.

Stick to having a go at the able bodied but slightly knackered parents of whingeing 6 year olds (me for example). I'm a much more deserving target.

rumple,
Some buildings have special ramps they put on the stairs for the wheels of the chair, other ones rely on sling type things to lift the person, or in a real emergency people carrying the chair whislt the person is still in it. In some buildings you get fireproof lifts, although to be honest I am not sure if I woudl be brave enough to use these in an actual fire.

neuro,
Why is someone who says that the normal waiting time is two minutes a dimwit, and who put you in a position to award it? You could be up for patronizing person of the year with your attitude towards disabled people. And I fail to see why you call the dailymail the daily hate when your attitudes about disabled people seem to come right out of it - "i cannot see your disability, therefore you do not have one and are a lazy scrounger".

I'm at this. I get that people just might not think fast enough to be kind but I never imagined people would actually justify not getting out.

Justification seems to be either "maybe they have a non-visible reason" - well yes, but highly unlikely to be all of them. Or "why should I? I'm just as important as them." Well again, yes, but why not, when it's just kinder and more considerate all round in getting everyone up/down a floor faster. You don't have to (as clearly proven in this instance) but if you're healthy enough, it's not that great a personal sacrifice for someone else's benefit is it?

How sad that kindness and consideration really seem to be losing out against 'why should I'.

I've plenty of friends, thanks, I don't need the like of the horrors on this thread stamping their feet and complaining about wheelchair users "demanding" a little common courtesy.

I must be stupid think Harvey Nicks installed the lift to encourage more shoppers to go right to the top to spend their money there- of course, I should have realized they were just for the customers in wheelchairs.

On buses, I think people in wheelchairs definitely have the priority over people using buggies, yes.

In a department store I'd say it was 50/50. The reason being, that stairs or escalators are an impossibility with wheels!

If you CAN use the stairs - do. If you CAN use the escalator - do. If you cannot use either stairs or escalator, use the lift.

It's pretty simple.

'Nothing anyone says about their invisble condition will change that fact!

I disagree.

Because- and ehre's my argument with disabled toilets and the rest as well...

people need thsoe facillities for reasons you can and cannot see.

When people without needs regularly take the piss it causes bitterness: and then people with invisible disability get caught up in the firing line which is brutally unfair: my asd ds1 and ds3 have been refused access to a disabled loo before becuase he did not look disabled (DS1 used to have urge incontinence and there was a huge queue; ds3 licks toilets without supervision but is old enough that if you elave the door open in the aldies people get funny).

If we all take a little responsibility and only use what we need then when and if we need to use faciliities- and many people will have a phase of illness such as SPD / IBS etc that makes using a facillity or waiting for one harder- we will benefit from that trust being extended to us.

If the person using the loo before ds3 looks NY I give them the benefit of the doubt and then hope that is returned to ds3.

"friends" in the sense of "people who might be influenced to do the right thing"

kelly, you might want to actually read the thread before assingning such statements to me, as I did not and would not say any such thing. In fact I clearly above stated that Group 1 was people who could use alternatives and Group 2 was people who could not, for any of many reasons.

I'll await your apology. Not with baited breath though, I'm sure I'd suffocate waiting.

Pictish, you claimed your were rude to people in lifts and claimed it was Ok because you did not focus on individuels, and they were all lazy tossbags in your opinion anyway.

I never claimed I was rude. You assumed I was.

neuro,
Which particular statement are you atlking about

no, "friends" as in "people who aren't cunts". You do have an odd definition.

Kellt I understand Neuro is talking from her own experiences of waiting with a wheelchair as lifts fly past filled.

It IS kindness though- and aforethought. If you know to eb aware you stand a chance of noticing before the doors have clicked shut again.

I have ever said anything about it it is to a lift FULL of people....never to an individual, so I never worry about it, as most, if not all of them are lazy tossbags.

That is what you said, and given the language you think it is acceptable to use on here, I think you may have a strange concept of what is rude or not.

Neuro,
How many times have you got out for an elderly person who is not using a wheelchair, but is obviously finding it difficult to stand waiting?