Buggy's on buses

[Cookiechef]

Today me and ds where in town and where waiting to get bus back home.
My ds will be 3 in May and has been diagnosed with autism, he needs a buggy as he refuses to walk or runs on to roads with cars.
Two other mums had buggy's on the bus one of the mums had their baby out of the buggy and I asked politely if she could fold her I could help if she wanted, she point blankly refused and I can't take ds out of his as he has a meltdown on buses if not in the buggy.
I mentioned to the bus driver that ds has a disability that's why he can't get out and he basically told me I had to fold or get off and wait an hour I did get off and get a taxi home which was the last of my money.
I was wondering as we are awaiting a special needs pushchair from wheelchair services, does my ds have a right to get on a bus in his buggy or can I be asked to fold.

I don't drive and use public transport, once my DD's were old enough to get out the pushchair (but not able to walk long distances) when i got on the bus i would always fold it if someone else tried to get on with a bigger pram and a younger baby. I felt rude sitting with pushchair up and dd out of it when we could quite easily sit on the seats. I always remember helping my struggling mother with 2 DBs when the were a baby and a toddler with no easy access buses. In the days you could rarely fit a double buggy through any doors so we had to take 2 prams, fold them up get the kids, the prams and bags on the bus.

If i was at the bus stop with a folding buggy and a mother with a baby too young to take out the pram i would remove my DD and fold the buggy giving her the space.

I always remember having sick dd at a&e when she was a baby, i tried to get on the bus which was once and hour and a kid with an electric scooter was in the pram bay. He refused to move and the bloody driver refused to move him so i waited an hr for the next bus after making a huge scene at the bus stop, i was absolutly furious and after complaining received a free all day pass !

And obviously if op explained the situation i would also give up my pram space

From my understanding a wheel chair takes priority at the bus stop, i cant see how they could chuk someone with a newborn and a big pram off the bus mid journey should they not be willing or able to take down the pram. Their DC could also have SN but be in a pram as OPs is.

TBH it seems to depend on the driver, i think it's his decison. I have seen drivers make people vacate bays and i have seen drivers let 2 prams in one bay.

This is the second case in as many weeks of a child needing to remain in buggy due to disability. We need more awareness - simple as that!

The order of priority is Wheelchair, SN Buggy, Mobility scooter then buggys luggage etc

Empty buggys have no priority whatsoever and should be the first to fold

There is a woman who regularly gets on the bus here and takes up the 2 fold down seats with an unfolded buggy and then sits in the first 2 front seats with her child on the busy after school drop off time.
She is very rude and refuses to fold it down often.
A few weeks ago a woman with newborn twins need to get on to get to hospital and this entitled lady ended up getting in a discussion with 3 of us other passengers and it transpired she simply thought first come first served so we fold her buggy for her and put it the luggage rack.
She was very angry but didn't kick off and the bus driver waited unt it had been resolved.
Poor mum with newborn twins didn't really need a confrontation like that and tbh the driver should have made her fold it up, not be left to others to put a selfish twat in her place.
Complain, complain, complain.
I really do believe that when people let things slide you end up with the selfish people getting away with esculating entitled behaviour and they need to be taught otherwise!

I'm an occasional wheelchair user and my dd2 was in a MacLaren Major buggy due to a genetic hip condition for 5 years.

I'd SO many arguments about her buggy - it was officially a wheelchair but because she was sitting in it in her school uniform with her reading book many folk took offence. She couldn't put her foot to the floor without screaming in agony and had a wheelchair in school and at home.

Luckily all the bus drivers we had were totally behind us -big thanks to FirstBus!

But the entitled folk with massive buggy devices drive me mad. If I'm not in my chair (I only use it when I really can't walk due to a nasty rare neurological illness that will actually kill me by about age 60) I use a walking stick. I can't stand. The big buggy people are SO entitled - I've never refused to fold apart from with dd2. WHY do perfectly healthy people with perfectly healthy children refuse to fold for me in my wheelchair or dd2 in hers? I just don't get it!!?

Just gonna wade in here and throw in the other problem of the parent being the one with the disability and unable to fold the pram/carry the child and shopping because of this.

Not saying they (I) should get priority over wheelchair users, (although that isnt neccessarily clear cut - before anyone jumps on me, i'm talking about people who can walk and use wheelchairs!) but should do over any old pram pusher.

Nothing useful to add but I really can't believe how self entitled some people are. Even if they had a 'right' (which they don't) to leave the buggie up, surely normal consideration and common sense would prompt them to just fold it if someone gets on who obviously needs the space.

What is wrong with some people?

Thankyou everyone for your thoughts I have just bought an autistic awareness card from NAS so hopefully it may be of some help if something similar happens again. I am going to start driving lessons in the summer when we have saved up enough for them as we use buses mon-fri when dp is at work.

Right, I'm sick of myself whinging about it and doing nothing
I've set up a petition, I'll link it when its activated

Basically saying I want it enshrined in law that sn pushchairs/parents with disabilities take priority over other parents in the pushchair space.

Saddening to see the amount of petitions active on the hmgov site that want parents to be legally able to use blue badge spaces/disabled bus spaces etc :(

Hey beyond tired if you send me the link when it's up I can get all my family to sign it and other parents, I didn't know that website even existed before now.

Will do

Have had an email that it just needs to be checked by a real person and then it'll be active :)

Do we know the reason why the other woman wouldn't fold her buggy? People will tend to assume she's just being awkward and there's a good chance she was. However the OP has said her son has an invisible disability and will have a meltdown when taken out of the buggy. Maybe the other woman's child was disabled and couldn't be taken out of the buggy for similar reasons?

Of course we don't know for sure and she may well have just being awkward. Hopefully she would have explained why she couldn't have folded the buggy if that was the case.

OP, does your DP actually need to drive as part of his work, or just to get there and back?
Just wondered if he could travel to and from work by any other means.

BeyondTired the legal obligation is for compliance with the equality act by the bus company which involves making reasonable adjustments for all disabled people. Policies that do not comply are likely to be discrimination.

A rule which applies to everyone but places a disabled person at a disadvantage is likely to be discrimination.

A wheelchair user's journey is no more important than anyone else's. The fact that a space was intended for them does not change this or waive the legal obligation to all disabled people.

It is quite reasonable to expect a wheelchair to get priority over a buggy in most circumstances but this should not be a "one size fits all policy" due to cases like the OP's (I know it was another buggy but it might be a wheelchair next time) and the child mentioned recently who was on oxygen.

In general an SN buggy could be folded more easily than a wheelchair (with accompanying adult lifting of assisting child onto seat) but this is not an invariable rule either.

Proud, it does also say in my speil that I know it is technically covered by the equality act already, but I'd like it to be more clear (or something like that)

There's no way I could fold dd2's major buggy when she was 6/7 with her under my arm and there were no front row seats. She was in constant pain and standing/walking had her screaming - and I'm also unable to stand due to a life-limiting neuro disability!

Majors are wheelchairs. And they have much more right on a bus than a massive P&T or whatever - because the children in Majors are bloody well disabled!! What makes people so entitled that their totally healthy child's needs are more important than a disabled child in chronic pain? Or an adult that can't walk - it's only a few days a month that my walking is badly affected - but I still need to go to work and I'm lucky our local bus company is helpful. They're fantastic!

In general an SN buggy could be folded more easily than a wheelchair (with accompanying adult lifting of assisting child onto seat) but this is not an invariable rule either.

A lot of sn buggies do not fold. Ds's buggie (picture on profile) has a tilt in space mechanism, in order to maintain good posture in any position, it does not fold at all, and yet just this week we were asked to fold when we got on the bus, as there were 2 buggies on the bus already. I pointed out that ds is disabled, his buggy doesn't fold and is issued by wheelchair services, there was much harrumphing, one buggy owner refused to even look at me, and the other one eventually said she would get off the bus as she was only going to the next stop anyway ( less than 5 minutes walk away).

We catch the bus a lot, usually to the hospital. I noticed recently that the sign on the bus states

You are required by law to ensure that the designated wheelchair space is made available if a customer wishes to board with a wheelchair (or, if no wheelchair user is travelling, a disabled buggy or approved mobility scooter).

Which means that if a wheelchair user wanted to board then we would have to get off the bus, which would be a bit of a bloody nightmare, and personally I think a little unfair as IMO a sn buggy is a wheelchair. I have emailed the bus company twice for clarification of this in the last few weeks, but am still awaiting their reply.

Hazey you have as much right to space as adult wheelchair user IMO.

I'm wondering whether you might get more joy from Equality Commission than from bus company though. I assume their policy was put in place with best of intentions but pretty sure you're being discriminated against.

BTW I was on bus today and a lady with a walking frame got on. She was obviously having great difficulty walking and placed her frame in the wheelchair space sitting on pull down seat by it. I don't know much about walking frames but it didn't look foldable, she clearly needed it and I don't think there was anywhere else on the bus that it could have been conveyed.

Bus companies need to think about how they can accommodate people like her or like my colleague who could not fold buggy due to severe arthritis.

And OP YANBU - I've got autism myself and wouldn't wish a meltdown on my worst enemy.

Asking this because I'm genuinely interested in what the correct response from me would be...

A new mother with tiny baby in a pram (carrycot) on a bus and someone disabled gets on... carrycot itself doesn't fold but the frame does... how do I manage to unclip the carrycot and fold the frame and then vice versa when I get to my stop? And if I can't do this then what should I do?

If it is completely impossible to fold (with help?) and hold the baby, and there wasn't enough room for both,then you would have to get off.