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)

I'm a wheelchair user and parent of a child who had (until a month ago when we were discharged) mobility issues.

I pretty mch don't go out without dh when I need my wheelchair. But I've had numerous arguments with buggy users who thought they shouldn't fold when I brought my dd2 on a bus with her Maclaren Major. It's classed as a wheelchair. It's umbrella fold, but have you ever tried folding a buggy with a 7 year old under your arm, because the pain of making her stand was too much and no-one would move to let her sit.

No one has a child in school uniform in a buggy for no reason.

but the parent of the baby is a short term problem, whereas the parent of a disabled child or disabled person is a long term situation.

People who short term break there leg are not entitled to a blue badge for example but others who can't walk long term do.

I don't think it is a bus design issue but peoples beliefs and feelings. Change all the spaces to blue badge spaces, show the badge you get the space.

Someone come along and interpret that for me lol

They've always been wheelchair spaces though, haven't they? That's always been the whole point of them, the reason they exist. Yes it can be convenient for other able-bodied people to use the space to put their various bulky items in if no wheelchair-user is currently using it, but I have limited sympathy for anyone who saw that convenience as a right.

In the city I live in the bus company brought in new rules (after I'd bought a travel system for ds1) that you could only bring folding prams on the buses. Anyone in the wheelchair space would have to move if someone in a wheelchair got on (unless the bus was full, ie four people standing in the space would not have to get off if a wheelchair user needed on).
This led to years of campaigning, and much crap in local media about lazy women etc.

The bus company has now changed its policy to the following (much more common sense imo) one: any pram can use the bus if there is room. If someone requiring wheelchair space needs on, they have choice of folding and moving, or getting off and being given an onward ticket.
No problems with new system have been reported in local media. They are also phasing out one-accessible space buses in favour of ones with two larger spaces.

I have had to get off buses when someone in a wheelchair comes on, because sometimes folding my buggy is not an option (for instance, I couldn't really fold with the twins in the buggy on my own). However, I can still walk, and to be honest, babies aren't permanent, I get off the bus every now and then for up to a year and a bit, a wheelchair users will probably use a wheelchair for a longer time, and even if not, experience more trouble during that time.

A company that is supposed to provide public service doesn't actually have the common sense to know that someone in a wheelchair have a priority over a parent with a child. What a shame that they only want to hear from parents with the children and not those in wheelchairs and there carers/ helpers.

Adam Hedley and whoever your representing, I suggest you get yourself a wheelchair and use it continuesly (from when you wake up until when you go to bed) until 28 January 2013 to gather evidence. I'm sure you will quickly realise which group should have a priority.

Wheelchair users should get priority, absolutely agree with that. A parent should fold or get off.

But, I haven't saw one bus, not a single one lately, that provides somewhere to actually put the folded up pushchair. So not only do they have to put these changes into action, but they will have to also provide a storage space otherwise there is no point in giving parents the choice to fold.

Our buses say that wheelchairs have priority but I've heard drivers tell a wheelchair user that there is no space because of my pushchair. Both times I've managed to yell that there is space while folding the pushchair but if I hadn't noticed someone in a chair was trying to get on they'd have been left on the spot.

So I think insisting that drivers at least ask the pushchair to fold would be a good start. It would be a shame if everyone had to fold all the time when for most journeys there is no-one in a wheelchair wanting to board.

So options 3, 4, 6 and 7

I just got off when a wheelchair user wanted to get of the bus. Would rather do that than have people demanding me to fold the pram down. If I was on a long journey though or the weather was rubbish etc.. I'd have no choice but to fold it down.

But I'd do it before someone DEMANDS me to do it.

I use a powered wheelchair, but if someone else in a manual wheelchair was waiting for a bus or lift, I always offer them to go first. So how can an able bodied person need to be forced to realise that?

I have just ordered DD a new pushchair. I'm not a regular bus user at all, incredibly rarely tbh, but knowing that I might want to take DD on a bus or train at some point I chose to get a one handed fold. I wouldn't think twice about moving or folding for a wheelchair user, and I am able to identify a sn pushchair.

This is an asshole issue, some people are assholes and if they persist they should be chucked off the bus.

lol Coola, good post.

drjohnson, this is not 'a bus design issue'. Newer buses are designed to be accessible by people in wheelchairs (and also have bright handrails to assist the partially sighted). Parents are very lucky to be able to use those spaces when they are free thanks to the hard work and ceaseless lobbying of disability advocates. Parents should fold their buggies the minute someone actually needs that space for its primary purpose.

I have a folding buggy which I bought specifically for buses ( I had a bigger one for walking - which I do more often). However, the buses have replaced the luggage part of the bus with another wheelchair/pushchair space so that when my baby was newborn I was happy to fold for the wheelchair but was then told to get off the bus anyway as there was nowhere to put the buggy (without it being in the aisle). So I ended up in the middle of nowhere with a 1.5 hour wait for the next bus.

I have no issue folding a buggy but he buses around here at least need to then provide room for that buggy.

A lot of bus drivers have experienced abuse by parents who have refused to move for a wheelchair user. My Dad being one of them.

I've got a friend who uses a wheel chair. A while ago a mum with a buggy refused to fold her buggy to allow him onto the bus. The driver switched the engine off, and refused to move until the mum had either folded the buggy, or got off the bus. She eventually folded the buggy. I will always offer to get off the bus with my 3 month old ds, if a wheelchair user needed the space I was in, as my pram is a pita to fold down. Its no hardship on me to wait, I just make sure if I'm making a bus journey I leave plenty of time for it, in case I do have to wait for another bus.

I hope the solicitors are also writing to disability groups to get their opinions...

ChocHobnob is it not the case that bus drivers experience a lot of abuse full stop - I've heard cheeky teenagers, people complaining about out-of-date cards, about late buses, and even one about not being allowed on with his dog. I imagine drunk passengers give far more abuse to drivers, and happens more often, than the bad-mannered parents who say they won't give a space to a wheelchair user.

I would just fold the pram down.

What would of helped when DC was small is a seat that was able to strap the baby in while I had a free hands to fold the pram.

A wheelchair user did get on once and she held my baby to fold the pram down :)

Commenting without reading the whole thread, but might not have time to comment if I do that.

1. Prohibit prams on board - NO (too much these days is so far apart that unfortunately buggy accessible buses are now very necessary to many people, rather than a luxury.)

1. Get drivers to ask passengers to fold down their buggies before they board the bus. - NO (not as a standard thing, it's much quicker for everyone that buggies can just be wheeled on and off.)

1. 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. - YES (at least until it becomes the social norm so that people don't need reminders)

1. Offer passengers with buggies onwards tickets if a wheelchair user wishes to board and buggy cannot be folded down. - YES (I think this is essential if people will have to get off the bus to accommodate a wheelchair)

1. Refuse access to buggies, prams and pushchairs which cannot be folded. - NO (but I think if point 3 is enforced people will only use non-folding options when a folding one won't do the job they need it for.)

1. Refuse to continue the bus journey until the passenger with the buggy moves from the wheelchair space. - YES

1. Insist the passenger with the buggy leaves the bus if a wheelchair user wishes to board and buggy cannot be folded down. - YES

I do think though, that bus companies should have the sense to only purchase buses which are designed to have both a buggy and a wheelchair space. The best ones are the older designs which will actually fit two buggies in each space. If the rules above are followed then you would hope never to have more than one non-folding pushchair at any one time. Plus, this would mean that two wheelchair using friends could actually catch a bus together!

Also, if you do have one non-folding and one folding pushchair, and the non-folding is in the wheelchair space, it will be necessary to nurture the good will of people with non-folding to fold and allow the non-folding to have the buggy bay. This will not happen if the current situation continues with people using non-folding unnecessarily, but might if people with folding understand that those with non-folding have a very good reason for doing so.

Hope that all makes sense!

I barely see disabled using a space. Seems very much a hammer for a walnut discussion? Spaces are for disabled, parents 2nd, fold up if dont fit? Really doesn't seem so difficult. Am bit bemused by issues...

I think 3 and 4 are reasonable-ish options.

But I do think this is a very difficult one. We are a carless family and although we are happy to walk a couple of miles, when the DCs were buggy age we did sometimes use buses for longer journeys. Sometimes if a DC was asleep and/or the buggy was laden down with shopping and extraneous bumpf it would have been very, very difficult for myself or DW (alone) to collapse the buggy, keep hold of the baby and attend to additional bags too. It relies on other passengers being helpful which is not always the case...

Recently the DCs and I were on a small bus on an hour long journey (certainly not walkable by anyone's standards). No problem for us as DCs are now well beyond buggy age. But it was a grotty, rainy October day and we went through a town centre mid Saturday pm. At three successive bus-stops three Mums with buggies got on (sensibly beating the crowds at the main town-centre bus station). I was astonished that the bus-driver allowed more than one on TBQH. It was already a full bus. I joked to the children "all we need now is for someone in a wheelchair to get on" and lo and behold at the next stop a disabled person and companion did get on. The Mums with buggies manoeuvred their buggies out of the allocated space quite civilly but in doing so did effectively blocked access/exits for a lot of the passengers (which I'm sure was a health and safety breach). I could not believe that the driver just got on with the journey and didn't demand in a jobsworth manner that the Mums get off. All were happy although I'm not sure what would have happened if there'd been an accident or some bus inspector had got on...

But I would say it's equally discriminatory to turf parents off buses if they can't fold their buggies etc.... I know it's not the same as being disabled but I'm sure most Mumsnetters can remember how shattered you can be going out with babies/toddlers (and it's not as if shopping trips into town centres/hospitals etc...aren't necessary). Can you imagine having to wait an extra twenty minutes or half an hour (as with the bus we were on) with a fretful, tired, hungry baby/toddler and laden down with shopping.

If you are generally a car-free family you might have a rather robust buggy to allow you to walk a lot with the baby. You are not necessarily going to have a fully-foldable stroller too....

Whilst most able-bodied parents would probably not mind being turfed off (or not allowed on) a bus if a disabled person needed the space, it might not be as straight-forward a scenario as that. What happens if it's the last bus on a route, it's dark and you are waiting for the bus (or are turfed off it) in a not very nice area/in grotty weather etc....

Maybe there should be some system whereby disabled passengers at bus-stops can give advance warning that they intend to get on a bus so that parents with buggies are given notice...

I am wondering what used to happen before the disabled spaces were incorporated into buses? I certainly recall that the old Routemasters had no space for wheelchairs or occupied buggies...

Have said all this, I only recall a couple of occasions when we have travelled on a bus and this has ever been an issue for us. If some bus-routes have a lot of wheelchair and buggy users maybe there needs to be a revision of the type of bus provision offered in those areas? Surely it is equally wrong to condemn either group of people (particularly parents who are isolated and car-less) to restricted lives to the advantage of the other group?

And by the way why should parents use their child benefit to get a taxi? I'm pretty sure that George Osborne would take it away from all parents if it was being used on 'luxuries' such as taxis. Haven't used a taxi anywhere since we've had children car or no!

I don't agree with point 6, other passengers have places to go.