Interesting - Bus Company on wheelchair/Pram spaces..

[Bathsheba]

Yes -that old chestnut.

The Chair of the NCT has posted a letter on her facebook page (and has asked for it to be shared so I doubt any problems with doing this) from a bus company's solicitor - the bus company are being accused of being disabalist in not insisting that parents fold down prams/Get off etc. I've posted the info from the bus company below and will happily post a link to this thread on the facebook page as they have been asked to garner as many opinions as possible.

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I write further to our recent telephone conversation. As I explained, we are solicitors acting for Arriva North East Limited, which runs bus services in the North East. Arriva is currently involved in a court case brought by a number of disabled passengers. They are alleging that Arriva has discriminated against them because of its policy on use of the wheelchair space by parents with buggies. The court case is very important as it is likely to decide how wheelchair spaces in buses and trains across the UK can be used in future. Arriva?s policy is that drivers will ask parents with buggies to fold them down if a wheelchair user wishes to board the bus, but if parents cannot fold down the buggy or refuse to do so, they will not be forced to. Arriva believes that its policy is in line with the government guidelines and aims to minimise conflicts between passengers by striking a balance between the competing rights of parents with young children and disabled people to use the wheelchair space. The people bringing the claim have proposed various changes to this policy, to ensure that wheelchair users have absolute priority over the space ? the proposed changes are listed below. Arriva is obviously concerned about the impact of these proposed changes on parents of young children and their ability to use public transport. Arriva has been given until 28 January 2013 to gather evidence on the potential impacts of these changes. We would be very interested in hearing your members? views and experiences on the practical impact of the proposed changes on parents of young children. I would be very grateful if your members could respond directly to me with their views by 18 January 2013.

Proposed changes:-

1. Prohibit prams on board
2. Get drivers to ask passengers to fold down their buggies before they board the bus.
3. Get drivers to warn passengers each time they board the bus that they will have to fold their buggies and/or vacate the bus if a wheelchair user wishes to board.
4. Offer passengers with buggies onwards tickets if a wheelchair user wishes to board and buggy cannot be folded down.
5. Refuse access to buggies, prams and pushchairs which cannot be folded.
6. Refuse to continue the bus journey until the passenger with the buggy moves from the wheelchair space.
7. Insist the passenger with the buggy leaves the bus if a wheelchair user wishes to board and buggy cannot be folded down.

Kind regards,
Adam
Adam Hedley
Solicitor
(contact details follow but I thought best to remove them - Bathsheba)

lol, it's common but that could be having been in the position myself. Plus lifting a 2 year old who can't weight bear, severe hypotonia etc is lifting dead weight, whereas the person who could 'shuffle' and weight bear for a moment to switch is still easier. His old pead I bumped into last year said the thing I remember about your DS as a baby was how the hell did you lift him lol, we only saw him till DS was a year.

SN buggies can hold up to 50kg so not always going to have easily lifted occupants.

50kg!!! Blimey, that's heavier than me! Okay, I'd move 2 down to 4 and put 2 and 3 at equal priority then. Sorry about that (good thing my heirarchy is just one ignoramus posting hypothetically isn't it!)

I didn't even this was going on and this is my local bus company (to the poster above, I pretty much live on the wall!

I haven't read the full thread but you can't refuse people with prams and unfold able buggies if there is no wheelchair needing the space though? Just let them on on the condition they get off sharpish if the space is needed

Manic - why did you put 'Children in wheelchairs' after adults in foldable wheelchairs?

My replies are based on the bus having a space to put a folded buggy. If they don't, then really - it has to be first come, first served doesn't it? Otherwise public transport becomes inaccesible to a different sector of society - which is also unacceptable.

1. Ridiculous
2. Also ridiculous, why create a problem where none exists? Why make someone fold down a buggy until the space is actually needed?
3. A little insulting for those of us with half a brain, but worth it to warn the idiots.
4. goes without saying surely?
5. Ridiculous again
6. Fine - provided there isn't a good reason for it not to be folded (ie parent or child with a disability/SN)
7. Fine - once again, if there isn't a damn good reason not to

I avoid travelling on the bus with young children whenever I can because there isn't much space on them and the twins have gone on foot for a long time now but these rules would have massively affected me after the twins were born. Ds1 was 4 had just started school which was 2 miles away, the twins had feeding problems and I had dd1 who was three. I had no way of avoiding the bus to pick ds1 up from school, I could not have walked to school because of needing to feed the babies and really because I was not physically fit enough due to the pregnancy to manage even with dd1 on the buggy board, ds could not have managed to walk home, he was already crashing out when he got home. It was only for a short period of my life but what would you have liked me to do? Put the newborn twins on the wet floor whilst I turned away leaving them and dd/ds unsupervised and folded the pram which I would have then put where exactly? Been late to pick up ds? Not picked him up at all?

Our arriva buses have one pram and one wheelchair space, the pram space is not designed for and not safe for a wheelchair it is meant for prams I don't see why that isn't the solution to the problem? People forget that actually it is just a problem with ordinary life that even able bodied people can't get on a bus when it is full, the same is true for disabled people and people with prams, it shouldn't always be prams who have to actually be asked to get off the bus so a wheelchair can get on, this may well put children at risk and it is much easier for anyone to organise alternative transport. It is one vulnerable group over another.

Many years ago when people with prams couldn't use buses there were local shops and local hospitals that you actually could walk to, they do not exist anymore. If you don't drive and need mat services or paed a&e your only option is the bus which is irregular, takes an hour, runs through rural areas to the hospital 8 miles away. If you want specialist children's hospital treatment you have to travel 50 miles on three buses, people do make these journeys by bus, often people on low incomes. I can't believe some people would be so callous as to say the rule should be that a family should be chucked off the bus, potentially in the middle of nowhere, with no buses for an hour and no idea where they even are... Think it through, not everyone lives in London where alternatives are easy to arrange, it is a damn sight easier for someone to make an alternative arrangement at the start of the journey than at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere potentially with young children who could easily come to grief as a result.

(And there is no need if arriva simply fitted their buses out like they have them here with a space for a wheelchair and a space for a pram/two buggies).

chippingin - I was thinking about size, weight and the dignity of an adult. But I didn't take dead weight into account so I'd put them higher now.

Firstly, I didn't realise the spaces where for wheelchair use only. I have always thought they are for pram/ wheelchair and in a first cone first serve basis and sorry hit that's how I think it should be. If I pay over £5 to go into town with a newborn to say 18 month why should I be made to put pram down or get off?? I've paid, I need the space just as much as a disable/ wheelchair user does. It would be impossible to collapse a pram, hold the bag and baby and then be expected to sit holding baby with no restraint. Now ok let's say at toddler age and with a buggy it would be easier and possible to do this so out of common courtesy I would but I would be bloody annoyed if asked to get off a bus when the child was in a carrycot/ extremely young. What if the baby was due his next feed or I needed to get back to pick up dc 1 from school?? What am I supposed to do, leave everywhere an hour earlier than expected just in case a wheelchair user may decide to get on. Sorry, but I think it's unfair to be totally a black and white issue, IMO

Damash wheelchair users have a right in law to use the space. So whether you like it or not, you should move.

Damash, its not impossible at all what do you think parents did before busses had wheelchair spaces?

I think paying a fare for an unfolded buggy is a good way of increasing space for everyone on the bus and reducing the amount of times this is an issue, as well as introducing the idea of folding to people who previously wouldn't have considered it. If each time a parent left the house they considered whether their buggy use was truly necessary there would be a lot fewer buggies everywhere clogging up not just buses but streets cafes events etc. They're everywhere! Often holding a tiny scrap of a thing or a pile of coats whilst the child who 'needs' it tears around on foot. If we could decrease reliance on prams and pushchairs it would become less and less of an issue - as would the whole prams in disabled loo debate. But then what would MN talk about I suppose...

I would find it very difficult to get about if I wasn't allowed to take my buggy on a bus (twins and a baby) but I would NEVER take up a space needed by a wheelchair user. I was refused to get on a Stagecoach when my twins were very little - which made me cry, incidentally - as the driver told me the space was for wheelchairs only. There were two spaces. I told him I would get off if someone else needed it. I had to collect DSS from school and literally had no other way to get there.

Different now, but I couldn't have folded a twin pram by myself, plus carry any shopping and the children.

MissCoffeeNWine - how exactly does one decrease reliance on pushchairs? I don't have a car so I need to use public transport.

but don't wheelchair users receive travel expenses so that they can use a taxi?

The way I took this was for things like hospital appts, where wheelchair users can have access to provided transport or the cost of a taxi.

Also some do get mobility benefit, or IS if received gives money for appropriate transport to hospitals/opticians etc

Also some councils do run this scheme my nana used to get a taxi provided x times a month. Not sure if they still exist or notm

I think paying a fare for an unfolded buggy is a good way of increasing space for everyone on the bus and reducing the amount of times this is an issue

I like this idea, free to fold, charge if not!

What makes me sad about a lot of these responses is how people don't seem to help each other.

I'd be happy to help if someone needs to fold their pushchair - I'm good for holding babies / toddlers / shopping.

Damash

It s a black and white issue. It's a wheelchair space so figure out how to cope.

I agree Sunny. But then you get the nutters mothers who will not let another passenger hold their baby for 20 seconds because that is apparently unacceptable

Damash - you do what those of us with disabilities have to do, and plan ahead that some arsehole person might not move to allow us on, so leave early.

Holiday - that scheme certainly doesn't exist around here. And the thing with saying that DLA or IS give money towards taxis... It doesn't arrive divided up. You get X amount through, and have to live on it. I have to use taxis at times when I am really ill (be it pain, fatigue or mental health) and it then means that I have to watch my own food consumption and how much I use gas and electric to balance it out. Even if you receive the highest rates available, it is barely enough to live on. Factor in needing to get a taxi a few times a month, and you are screwed, frankly.

On the other side of things, I don't think it is fair to charge for a buggy. Being aware of my own financial situation, I am also aware of those that some of the young mums from my old under 21s antenatal group used to go to. Especially those under 16, who were unable to claim any benefits because of their age. They got a bus once a week - because the group gave out free day travel tickets to get you to and from.

And even those just on a normal budget, things are tight. You start charging people to get out of the house, you are practically pushing a lot of people into PND without an option.

Can I just add (I know I posted this earlier on the thread, but just a reminder!) that if there were some sort of charge for buggies, that some sort of label or sign to explain that the child in the buggy is disabled (at ds's special needs nursery there is only one child that uses a wheelchair, all the other children are in 'normal' pushchairs) would be useful.

In the past when ds and I have caught the bus, I have had to fold our pushchair, because someone with a baby in a pram, was in the wheelchair space, because he is in a 'normal'pushchair, despite being disabled.

Doesn't this just illustrate the problem.

It must be quite difficult to post on a thread with 200-plus posts without reading the OP or subsequent comments fully (or reading them but deciding what you 'always thought' must be right instead). Maybe if you do that, you also never read the very short notices up in the bus explaining that the space is priority for wheelchair users?

But it is there, that note.

Because of MN (well, I'd like to think otherwise, but definitely MN makes me grin at myself when it happens), I do sometimes end up offering people on buses help to sort out the buggy. I always get politely busy 'no, thanks, I can do it - done!' replies.

So a child needs to in a car seat up until the age of 11 but it's ok to be freely plonked on a seat on a bus. Gladly the area I live doesn't have this rule and there is usually space at the front for 4 prams, 2 wheelchairs or mixture of both. Maybe the issue should be the design of the bus to accommodate. And what's the point in referring to when it wasn't possible to take on prams. When was the the 60's?? I do have sympathy but still stand by that it's unfair and IS NOT black and white! If its a toddler in a buggy fine - collapse and fold and move to another seat. If its a pram with v young infant tough! They should be able to stay on and get home or to wherever they had planned to go like everybody else. We all have important lives!

Damash you need a sensible buggy for the bus. I had two buggies - a big walking one, comfortable to push (single then twin) which i used most if the time - and meant I walked rather than took the bus (good for shifting baby weight as well). Then I had a v cheap small easy to fold buggy for the bus ( didn't even bother trying to get on with twin one). When babes were too small for cheap buggy I used a sling.

Lots of choice that disabled people don't have.

I'm always slightly stunned by the lack of imagination which means people compare the 'difficulties' of able bodied parenting with having a disability.

Are people really that clueless/self centred?