Buggies must be folded by law, if a wheelchair user wishes to board

[BerniceBroadside]

I know this can be a hot topic so thought I'd share that stagecoach have new signs on their buses stating that buggies must be folded by law if a wheelchair user wishes to board. Let's hope it's actually enforced.

Well, retro if you are not going to abide by the law, don't take the fucking bus then!

The Equality Act 2010 is legislation that ensures equality of opportunity - new buzz phrase. It does not mean that everyone is afforded exactly the same thing. It means that everyone has the opportunity (for example) to get on the bus and not that they have the same space/seat.

Sorry Gobby but not travelling anywhere for years is not an option for many mothers.

Anyhow as I said it's pointless so ignore away,I'm off.

Retro Give it up, you just got owned by a 17 year old.

Maybe some of you would like to re read the title of this thread.

There really are some nasty fuckers around aren't there!

Dawndonnas DD, your posts are always so eloquent.

Who is the argument here directed at? This thread has made several valid points but is being derailed my generalisations on SN. It's coming across as bullying of retro if you ask me.

Re-read her post, I think you've mis read.

Sorry Gobby but not travelling anywhere for years is not an option for many mothers

Indeed. That's why most of them learn to manage, awkward, but do-able as it may be. It's only temporary remember.

It's called a wheelchair space Not a buggy space. Do get over it now.

Bullying on retro?

Oh shit must borrow the kids inco products I'm laughing so much.

There are a few bullies round here who as I said earlier do their utmost to isolate me even further from the world than in already am.

They can get fucked.

All I can see if Retro assuming that she can occupy a wheelchair space purely because she has multiples. Of course it's harder with more babies but it doesn't stop it from being a wheelchair space.

Dear God. If you want to know what it feels like to be continually bullied and belittled, try being a person with a disability. Having more than one baby is not a reason to use a space legally allocated to someone else. How is that hard to understand?

I haven't misread anything, I get it, using buses with more than one child is hard work. hard but possible.

Fluffy All the way through this, Retro has said she can't fold. Plenty of people have made some eminently sensible suggestions. Retro has ploughed her own path through the thread, regardless of suggestions.

Dd says Thank you, and yep, she's a twin!

The realisation that I couldn't do the school run alone any more was one of many factors that meant being sole carer for 3 kids with disabilities was no longer tenable.

dawndonnas dd

I'm going to ignore your disability as its not relevant to the point I want to make. Your post is one of the most articulate, rational, thoughtful and intelligent pieces of writing I have read in a long long time.

I have worked with a lot of teenagers some sn and some not. You have a way of vocalising your feelings and opinions in a mature way far beyond your years. I would love it if someone like you could work with my teens and be a voice for them. I think you are gifted.

Dawndonna's dd here.
Mum got me back to read that Fairyjen
Thank you.
I'm doing my A levels and would like to go to Cambridge to read Lit.

dd dd.

I Know you will succeed, you don't have it in you to fail I can tell

I mean it, I work with children in care, many face adversity, discrimination and a whole host of other problems. You would be an inspiration to them I think. < whispers > and may encourage a select few to speak less "text speak" as I don't understand half of what they tell me

fluffytent, you have been straying perilously close to GF territory throughout this thread, from your touching concern that we should all be considering invisible disabilities, to your volte face that this thread should be cleaned away to somewhere normal people needn't see it.

And pretty much every other post.

I have an out and about double. It's like a tank. I hate buses and avoid the darn things at all costs. People with buggies - just walk! It's far more therapeutic.

DawnDonna's DD - What an eloquent post. Chanel that in your Cambridge interviews and you will sail it.

Your point is precisely why (other than because I am, I hope, a decent human being) I would always fold or get off. Because, you know, having to get off a bus (on the assumption that for some reason I couldn't fold, which would only really have happened if no one had agreed to hold the baby and restrain the toddler whilst I did it) might make one day a little bit shitter for me. But every other day I get to go about my business without any of the additional burdens of being disabled. That is privilege enough to mean that I don't get to trumpet on about 'equality' meaning the wheelchair user should wait.

Though, yes, I agree that if the buggy user is also disabled in some way, there may be an argument for a system recognising that.

I think the whole thread could be summed up as 'be considerate'.

Offer a seat, fold your buggy, hold a baby or bag for a minute. It's not hard!

I'd have an even trickier time.

I'm visually impaired and I have a buggy which isn't gigantic but isn't teeny either.

I would struggle a bit doing that and holding DD, especially as it isn't a one handed one.

I think it should be whoever was on it first stays whether it be a wheelchair user or a buggy - chucking someone off a bus because they aren't the right passenger doesn't fit right either.

I have lots of friends in wheelchairs who don't like to put people out and I explain that they aren't putting people out, but they feel like they are inconveniencing parents. I state they chose to be parents, they didn't choose to be disabled.

It's a tricky one though, it really is.