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)

Oh it only took five pages to get domeone that thinks wheelchair users shoukdnt have priority over s pushchair.

Having a baby, using a pushchair is a choice. Being in a wherlchair is not.

I agree that provision should be made for wheelchair users. I also agree that it's not beyond the wit or capability for today's young mothers to fold their pushchairs. I'm sure that people would help them on and off the buses (I have held babies while the pushchairs were being folded before a journey or unfolded after a journey).

If I have a gripe it's for those of us who are 'older' and have shopping trolleys (I don't but I've seen some who do) and I've often thought about taking the RailAir bus link from Heathrow to Reading and then a local bus home. However, I have been daunted by the thought of two large suitcases, a wheeled cabin case and a handbag holdall to get the lot onto a bus and into a space. Would I have to get the lot off the bus for a wheelchair user?

I'd vote for 3, 4, 6&7 - is there a difference between 6 and 7?

The drivers on my route quite frequently refuse to move because someone has tried to sneak on without paying or someone is standing on the upper deck or stairs. Not surprisingly, when everybody wants to get going, passengers join in with calls to 'get off the bus' or 'go downstairs' ... I think socially shaming inconsiderate buggy users could work a treat in these situations

When my DC were little I had a massive great silver cross pram for doing the main shop on foot and a tiny (and very cheap) folding pushchair for taking on the bus. It was small enough to fit next to my legs in the normal seats. I also used a sling when I had a baby and a toddler. Difficult and tiresome but entirely possible. Most people are happy to help if you ask nicely.

It's worth remembering that nobody without a buggy expects to be able to get on a bus with piles and piles of shopping as there simply isn't room.

I don't know why this is an issue because as JamesBexleySpeed says, The rights of the wheelchair user are enshrined in law, whereas the rights of buggy users are not. That bus company who have decided to give equal priority to buggy users need a legal rocket up their arses.

I agree that buggies have become stupidly big.

I appreciate the problems of those living in rural areas with infrequent services but you need to be campaigning for better bus services, not to have the rights of those with disabilities downgraded.

gazzalw.
What's your problem?
My dds is that she can't walk. Perhaps you'd like to discuss it with her. Others on here will tell you that she's quite capable of demonstrating what idiots people can beholding her own.

Of course it's not discriminating against (able-bodied) parents and children to say they can't use the wheelchair space. No more than it's discriminating against cyclists, or dog owners, or people with shopping trolleys or big suitcases or whatever to say they need to give priority if a wheelchair user needs the space.

The space is there for wheelchair users. It's not for whoever fancies using it or finds it convenient. And it is not discrimination to insist on it being used for its proper purpose.

i know Sofa, that's why i said 'i would buy a different buggy'. not sure why you highlighted CAN as if i'd said i couldn't.

At the end of the day parents should be considerate. Oh but I cannot put the buggy down, hold the baby and the bags is NOT a valid excuse. How do you think parents coped before the wheelchair space was introduced? Erm, they folded, held baby and bags. Its not exactly rocket science and it is not hard.

There is no legislation to cover you and your buggy. Bus companies allow the use by buggies as a courtesy, to get extra ticket sales. Just in the same way car parks provide p&c spaces.

How is it fair for the person at the bus stop to wait 20+ minutes in the pouring rain because of self entitled parents who cannot be bothered to fold their precious buggy. Yet for the buggy and parent to be turfed off it discretionary? Last time I checked buggies have rain covers etc, wheel chairs do not. Also, having a baby is a life style choice, being in a wheelchair isn't. Can you imagine waiting in the pouring rain to see bus after bus, after bus of self entitled people not wanting to put the buggy down?

If you don't want to be turfed off in a dodgy area, or the last bus etc, fold your buggy. Why are your needs more valued than a person in a wheelchair? So it is ok for that person to be stranded in a dodgy area or miss the last bus?

Why should a person in a wheelchair have to give notice? When the simple solution is to fold the buggy?

Oh and before route master introduced the space for the wheelchair, note wheelchair, not buggy, people in wheelchair either didn't have the freedom to travel like everyone else. Or had to take cabs, which obviously but them at a financial disadvantage.

I was born in 1980. The youngest of 5 children. My disabled mother had to wrangle me and her four other kids on buses which all had steps up. You folded down the pram at the bus stop. My wheelchair user Dad didn't get to go out much. Now we have easy access buses, because people with disabilities campaigned for them. So just fold your damn pram up.

When I bought my car I checked it out carefully to make sure it was suitable for my purposes. Why don't people go to a shop selling prams and have a go at collapsing them? Is that such a radical idea?

3,4,6 &7 all seem perfectly acceptable - is anyone arguing against them?

Dawn that's shit. Does he not know about the Equality Act? FFS.

Just out of interest has anybody ever complained about the quality of buses and cost (as opposed to specific wheelchair issues?). I made a complaint a while ago about the cost of the buses and the bad service but never got a reply so wondered if I was just being a moody old moaner .

My complaint was that it had cost us £15 for a journey for two adults and one child for a less that 15 minute journey (the price is right not a mistake) and that the buses are badly designed (see my post above about there being no luggage space and not being allowed to have a folded buggy on board as there is nowhere to put it).

I rarely get buses now as it is actually cheaper in a taxi for the journey i do most (hospital trips) which is astonishing really. When did bus travel get so expensive?

Hopefully gazzalw is in a minority of one on this thread. Someone with a large, unfoldable buggy can generally get off and walk while someone in a wheelchair cannot. Someone with a large, unfoldable buggy will only have a baby for a few years, people in wheelchairs may be in them for life. Someone with a large, unfoldable buggy could have chosen a cheap, smaller, umbrella fold buggy if they need to use public transport, people in wheelchairs... Need I go on?

As long as everyone who (quite rightly) thinks that wheelchair spaces are for wheelchair users, is sure to offer someone a hand if they are struggling to fold down their buggy and hold a baby and shopping etc, then there should be a lot less of a problem all round.

I used to be a bit fence-sitty about this, but a lot of posters on here pointed out the difficulties they faced coping with mobility issues and it now seems very clear cut. Use the space if it's empty, but be prepared to move. If it bothers you that much, start a campaign to improve access to public transport for parents with prams. In the meantime, the clue is in the name: they're wheelchair spaces...

Option 6 or 7 would be best from my experience, but it would be helpful if bus compaanies gave some basic training to their employees to enable them to hold a small child while the parent folds the buggy. Generally I have picked on some random woman who looks unfased by the prospect, but the drivers have generally been fairly unhelpful (with a few lovely exceptions), particularly the one who thought it would be a good idea to drive off while I was still trying to hold baby, send toddler to find a seat and collapse a buggy.

I do think that pushchairs should absolutely be folded down wherever possible so a wheelchair user can get on the bus, however, I 'babysit' an 11 year old boy with severe autism (major flight risk) and he has a taxicard I'm sure these cards are very difficult to get and only apply in London so maybe easier access and a wider roll out of this scheme could help if people with disabilities want to use it? If they do want to use public transport (as is their right) I do think pushchairs should be folded down in the vast majority of cases.

Why should a person in a wheelchair have to give notice?

Has someone suggested this? Fucking hell!

Yep, gazzalw.

I do think in some senses design is to blame- our l

I personally have no axe to grind here but as part of a family that has used and paid for public transport for the entirety of our DCs' lives I can see that it's not necessarily a straightforward argument.

We are quite used to walking miles with the DCs and always have done but there are times when we, like all parents might choose a bus over walking for a reason. Maybe they've had loads of shopping to do (and if you don't have a car the shopping has to be transported somehow!), they're exhausted or not feeling well, maybe they've got to get somewhere within a given time-frame, it's dark and they don't want to risk their personal safety. Whilst in theory and in other circumstances a parent (who has manners) might say "certainly I'll collapse my buggy, not get on the bus or get off and wait for the next one" there will be occasions when it's the last thing they feel like doing.

Is this issue directly related to the provision (or lack of it) of Dial-A-Ride services which means disabled people have to rely more heavily on public bus services?

Or is the issue that the bus companies don't have totally transparent policies that are followed to the letter by the drivers. Some drivers are total jobsworths and they usually aren't helpful to anyone, able-bodied, parents, elderly or disabled, whilst others bend over backwards to be accommodating to all but possibly at the expense of one of the mentioned groups. It's a very difficult one and

I wonder how many of you do rely uniquely on public transport to get around. If you do you might not be quite so harsh on these seemingly 'inconsiderate parents'. Quite often where we live, they might not even speak English as their first language and consequently wouldn't necessarily understand the instructions to fold a buggy anyway....

5dcsandallthelittlesantahats My mum and a couple of her friends managed to get a bus service reinstated after it was stopped for being unprofitable. They got a couple of local councillors and the local paper on their side.

Old people are actually worse than buggy users in my experience. The amount of times I've had crap for not giving up my seat despite having a bright pink crutch, and when getting on in a wheelchair, been told I was inconsiderate for getting on at rush hour Really love? I'm trying to get to a meeting. You and your friend are going to Sainsbury's cafe.

Wtactualf!!? What planet do you live on?

Do you not think that a disabled person might have somewhere to be or shopping to do? You have the choice to use your legs - they do not.

Disabled services have been cut to ribbons by this government. Why should anyone have to accommodate you when you clearly don't feel you should do the same for others. One day it might be you in a wheelchair.

Damn thumbs!

Our local bus company only has one wheelchair space. Fine but the bus route we live on passes a day centre for the disabled and an old people's home! It's a really busy route (being on the way to the local hospital) and I have seen situations where the bus already has one wheelchair user and another wheelchair user wants to get on! The poor person ends up having to wait for the next bus.

That's before you even put buggies into the equation...

3 and 4 are fine too, I do think wheelchair users should have priority, but whether it is worth making a parent collapse down a buggy with a sleeping baby in it in case someone in a wheelchair needs it more doubtful. If you choose to take a pushchair which can't be folded then you would have to accept the risk that your journey may be disrupted.