to think not folding a buggy to make way for a wheelchair user on a bus is despicable?

[Zara1984]

Just watching Channel 4 news here and a focus piece on public transport accessibility for disabled people.

Apparently one of the biggest users for wheelchair users is parents with buggies not folding them to make way for wheelchair users. This startled me - surely there are not really parents out there who refuse to fold down their buggies to make way for a person in a wheelchair??? Seriously? What kind of twat does that?

AIBU to think that any parent who does this is not a nice human being?

Does this actually happen???

Whoops! Sorry. I think ElizaRegina - more space for buggies - is on the other thread.

Still wondering . . . what did people with children in prams do before the buses were modified to accommodate wheelchairs?

Yes indeed, Expat. We walked.

But then we were obviously soft-headed because we actually left our prams, with babies in them, outside shops. AND allowed complete strangers to hold them when we needed help folding up our pushchairs.

We held our child our hip with one arm and folded the pushchair (which wasn't tractor sized) with the other.
It wasn't easy at first, but with practice it became almost effortless.

back in the days there were local shops?

you didnt have to travel miles for a and e and doctors and dentists and family planning clinic.

Families lived closer together in the same area so visiting your mum didnt involve two buses.

There were more places in schools so you didnt have to get on the bus with your younger kids to drop oldest reception age kid to school.

Fucking hell.

How old do you think the people on here are?

I used to flip the buggy one handed with DD. She is nine.

My mother didn't move town and watch all the services disappear in 9 years.

And I used to take ds1 to nursey in the city during the rush hour. One train, two changes on the tube.

Fucking hell, how old do you think I am??
10 years ago for me.
My local shops havn't moved in 10 years, the supermarket is in the same place.
The distance from town to suburbs is the same. The hospital hasn't moved, neither has the GP.
My parents were an hour away 10 years ago, they are both dead now.
I'm 40 nailak, is that too old to understand difficult concepts?

Nailak - we're only talking 8 - 10 years ago.

Things haven't changed that much, at least in London. And it's a lot easier getting around most of the time.

Attitudes have changed tho'. I do think some mothers are far too precious about their children. I welcome the child-friendly amenities like baby-changing areas and high chairs in restaurants. But they do seem to have fostered a sense of entitlement in some mothers as witnessed on these threads. "My baby comes first" (!) And I have noticed a backlash among some sections of the community, e.g. p&c parking spaces next to the supermarket entrance, when the elderly and slightly immobile, who don't qualify for Blue Badges, have to walk much further has annoyed quite a few people I know. And of course they are aware that supermarkets make more money out of families than the individual elderly, which doesn't help.

I don't want a situation where fewer seats on buses to accommodate a new buggy space disadvantages people who need seats. Just so the selfish few don't have to fold their buggies.

I lied have just had a birthday!

ok 8 to ten years ago in London we had accessible buses? may be not as accessible but still with place. I know as from the time I was 5 me and my younger brother used to get on bus and train with my mum to work every day. so that is well over twenty years that buses have been accessible for buggies.

And at the train station the train staff would help. EVERY DAY. on the way there and back, as there were stairs.

But when did they move all the hospitals and GP surgeries, and why?
It must have been just after I moved out of London when PG with DS, 15 years ago.
I definately don't remember all London buses being accessible and I lived opposite Golders Green bus station.
Mind you, when you get to my age , I suppose you get confused.

i am just thinking, ten years ago when I was in college we definitely had accessible buses, we also had public disability buses, on a few routes which would come a couple of times an hour and only let us school kids on if there was space after elderly and disabled had got on.

All the buses ten years ago had wheelchair space.

I don't think I am getting your point.

Nothing was massively different 10 years ago. Not sufficiently different to mean that women now cannot manage a buggy. Just more women thinking they shouldn't have to.

This thread is taking on an air of 'Eee-by-gum, that's luxury that, when I were a lass we parented blindfolded....'

I live in East London/Essex so maybe it was different bus companies.

What has changed in 10 years, is a massive increase in population...

my point is ten years ago the buses were not different to, they all had spaces for buggies/wheelchairs, so all this talk of peopple managed ten years ago with no space and folding buggies is just not true.

No Nailak, there are more buses in London than the ones that went past your college, you are wrong.

The point that Pagwatch is succiently making is that sadly, along with the increase in accessibility, is an overwhelming sense of entitlement.

Last Routemaster taken out of service in 2005. They were the ones with a cubbyhole under the stairs, just big enough for a folded pushchair and the conductor's sandwiches.

What Pagwatch said.

It's the younger generation. Never had it so good.

Still have to carry a buggy down the stairs at the station. People still help.
But, thanks to the disabled lobby, we're getting a lift. And I shall be delighted to give up my place on it for wheelchair users. Because it will be their lift.

No I am not wrong.

In East London ten years ago all the buses were accessible.

I am aware there were more buses then the ones that went past my college .

My mum didnt have a car went everywhere by bus.

I never have been on a bus in London without a space for pushchair. They may not have been accessible to disabled people, maybe no ramp. But the pushchair space was definitely there.

maybe not all of east london, but redbridge, newham, and surrounding areas