To think that she should have offered to move?

[extremepie]

Sorry it's another bus thread!

Got on the bus with ds2 the other day, ds2 has autism and a special needs pushchair.

Usually we would use the wheelchair/pushchair space but there were 2 people sitting in the fold down seats in that area (both seats actually designed for 2 people a seat so 2 people taking up 4 seats). The woman had one of those walker things with wheels and a seat that was unfolded so took up a lot of room.

Both of them saw me getting on the bus and made no attempt to move at all, I was going to ask if one of them could move so I could get ds's pushchair in the space but the lady on the other side of the bus moved over so I could sit down and put the pushchair in front of me.

Both of the priority seats were (at the time when I got on the bus) unoccupied so there were 2 free seats about 2 feet from where they were sitting, Aibu to think that at least one of them should have offered to move so I could get in that space? She could have folded the walker down easily and fit it in the space in front of the seat, plus she had someone with her to help!

What got me even more annoyed was as we went along the bus stared filling up and the man with her offered his seat to a random person getting on! But he wouldn't move for me & my disabled child? Aibu!?

no yanbu but is the disability obvious? im only asking because they might not have known you needed the seat? (clutching at straws)

No it's not obvious, he has ASD so looks normal but his behaviour is not 'normal' as such :(

Even if he was an nt child in a pushchair shouldn't she have moved 2 feet across to the priority seats instead of taking up 4 seats?

the seats are for disabled and if she had a walker she probably had some disability ..and sometimes the elderly don,t recognise a disabled childs buggy .because buggys are only allowed to be kept up if no one else disabled needs space ..and yes I have an 14 year lod with autism

It sounds like a bit of a non-event tbh. You all had a seat. No blood was shed.

You should ask.

You don't know what disabilities they might have had. It does sound as if they were taking up a lot of space, but on the buses I use, I can't visualise how a wheelchair would've fitted even if they'd been using only once space (which might be hard for someone with balance issues as round here, they are very narrow fold-down seats).

Ok it's not an earth shattering event but it just annoyed me that they were happy to take up 4 seats instead of 2 on a very full bus, in the wheelchair space when there was adequate additional seating available. I didn't have the option of putting ds in a seat, they did have the option of sitting in them!

There was another lady who got on the bus at the same time as me with a baby in a pushchair, she had to fold her pushchair and sit in the priority seat because there was no other room so 6 seats being taken up when they could have sat in the priority seats, we could have both fit in the wheelchair area and there would have been another seat free!

Plus she did have someone with her to help her fold the walker, help her to her seat etc - not debating the fact that she obviously did need a seat just that she should have been more considerate of all the other people needing to get on the bus!

I do get where you're coming from. Is it possible they struggled to get up and move further back, especially if the bus was full?

I am slightly grasping at straws, but I do think it's not that unusual for people to take up more than one seat when they need it. On lots of buses, a wheelchair space takes up three seats, which is perfectly acceptable.