To think an Olympic athlete can manage a couple of steps better than a ...

[poppy283]

... person in a wheelchair, an elderly or frail person or someone with a buggy?

Our local buses are run by Stagecoach, all are usually the accessible kind with a space for wheelchairs and buggies.

They are rapidly disappearing and being replaced with the old style buses with steep stairs to the drivers booth, and no space for a wheelchair or buggy.

This is because they are being taken to London to transport Olympic athletes and 'the world's media'.

Stagecoach have so far refused to provide a timetable for these inaccessible buses so there's no way of knowing what kind of bus will turn up. This has led to overcrowding issues on the remaining accessible buses.

Personally speaking, I'm 8 months pregnant and have a 2-year-old, and am not prepared to do any avoidable heavy lifting. If I wasn't pregnant I'd probably fold the buggy.

AIBU to think this is a completely rubbish way to treat customers, and if these old buses are kicking around they should be used for the athletes and not the buses people depend on?

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

But maybe they're going to use these same buses for the paralymics and don't want to be faffing around swapping inaccessable buses for accessible buses as soon as the main olympics finishes?

But there's only one wheelchair space. Surely that's not much use for the Paralympics?

YANBU.

I am now having visions of the chaos as the paralympic wheelchair basketball teams queue for hours waiting for their turn to get onto the bus, one at a time.

YANBU, must be a complete pita. Although I have witnessed quite a few times drivers letting people on one of those old style double deckers with big feck off pushchairs, effectively blocking the aisle .

We have a few of the old style buses here, thankfully all of mine can now walk, but I have been known to dump a baby in the drivers lap if noone else offers to help .

Surprised it's not against the law really, surely they must have to offer a certain frequency of wheelchair friendly buses?

I have been on a few old style double deckers which have been rejigged to offer the flat floor and wheelchair spaces, so it's not impossible.