Disabled priority in lifts?

[harshbuttrue1980]

I had a disagreement with a friend this weekend and genuinely want to know if I am BU. My friend can't walk, and uses a mobility scooter. She isn't in any pain at all, and has no other health issues. She has a great job and a really active life.
We went to a shopping centre this weekend, and the lift was full, so we had to wait to use the next lift. She said afterwards that I should have asked the other people already in the lift to get out so she could get in. I said that I didn't agree with this, as she is equally able to wait as everyone else. She was a bit taken aback.
To clarify, if there was someone on crutches, heavily pregnant, a child having an autistic meltdown or someone else who would struggle with waiting, then I think they should have priority.
Am I being unreasonable to think that someone in a scooter shouldn't ask everyone else to vacate a lift so they don't have to sit in their scooter and wait their turn?

[PovertyPain]

This is such depressing reading. You can dress it up all you like but the "tough shit if you're disabled, you couldn't possibly need the lift more than me" attitude is horrible. Yes, some people who use mobilty aids can wait, but others can't. Yes, there may be people with hidden disabilities but I find it hard to believe that that the majority of lift users are disabled. Having a disability, of any type can cause a person to get tired quicker. If you have a physical disability, putting on your shoes take that little bit more of an effort, opening a door takes a little more, it goes on and on, so no, it's not the same for someone in a wheelchair/mobilty scooter as it is foe everyone else. They're lucky to be sitting down, whoopdi fucking doo!

My girl is 20 and won't even take a lift if I ask her to "in case someone in a wheelchair needs it". She has autism and can tire quickly, yet she shows more compassion for those who need extra physical help that many of the able bodied on here. You should be ashamed, but you won't be, you'll just come up with some glib excuse.

[andintothefire]

Yes, there may be people with hidden disabilities but I find it hard to believe that that the majority of lift users are disabled.

Totally agree - many people just don't think about whether other people might need the lift more than them. They probably wouldn't think to get off a lift if somebody who clearly needed it was waiting. Hopefully this thread has opened a few people's eyes about why they shouldn't just assume that people with disabilities are as able to wait as everybody else - particularly when they can't squeeze into lifts as easily or when they are not on the top or bottom floor.

However, I think there have also been fair points made about how there are other people who need lifts as much as somebody with obvious disabilities. I think there is a difficult question about how to deal with that, but it seems to me that there is a bit of a consensus that if you need the lift, you should just ask politely if somebody who doesn't need it as much should get off. I think that most of what is considered rudeness in people hogging lifts is simply people not thinking of all the difficulties that others might face. I certainly hadn't given much thought to how long somebody might be waiting on a middle floor, for example, but will be much more aware of it in future and prepared to get off and walk to the top floors if I possibly can!

[fanjoforthemammaries7850]

I don't think your friend would enjoy this thread if you showed it to her.

[LurkingHusband]

The metro is totally inaccessible to people who use wheelchairs. I had to pay a lot out in taxis when I visited London.

Going back to my old stomping ground in 2014, with MrsLH, we were pleased that the weekend was totally accessible (in Woolwich). Including getting onto the DLR, changing (twice) and getting off at Canary Wharf. Totally step free. It's one aspect of London Underground which has changed beyond all recognition since 1996.

[LurkingHusband]

One side effect of having to wait so long for lifts, is a realisation of how (being charitable) little thought people put into anything. I have seen people queue for a lift for 5 minutes, when the stairs take 30 seconds (I know, because I have walked them). If people are that ignorant about themselves, it's hardly fair to expect them to consider others.

This seems as good a place as any to unload both barrels of the Lurking logic cannon at the idiot architects (looking at the new QE hospital in Brum) who ensured (wait for it) there is no step free access from any car park level to the hospital.

Yes, that's right. The only way - in a hospital ffs, from car to hospital is a lift.

Almost as barmy as realising that the corridors are not wide enough for 2 wheelchairs to pass.

But then the design was "borrowed" from a US prison ...

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

Thing is, the people in the lift will have no idea that the wheelchair user who can't squeeze on may have been waiting a long time. That's why threads like this are useful: they make people think a bit.

I do think there is often a case in a busy museum or shopping mall or emptying venues, for places to put a steward or a security guard on a lift. Just to send the odd one up or down empty so that wheelchair users aren't waiting for ages on a middle floor.

I have to say, I think the problem has got worse in recent years too: maybe more people are using lifts.

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

Access is a complete bugbear of mine Lurking, ridiculous in this day and age. Our local Specsavers has moved to a newly fitted out new shop. All lovely except it's on loads of different levels with no lift at all.

Sorry member of staff but you do have to run up and get me my contact lenses because the whole of the contact lens floor is inaccessible to me.

[LurkingHusband]

I have to say, I think the problem has got worse in recent years too: maybe more people are using lifts.

As alluded to earlier, some "new" building designs seem to have settled on the lift as the preferred way to move between floors.

It's probably a little off of me to say this without research, but somehow I suspect the designs are based on US ones ... either that, or somewhere there's a shadowy cabal of elevator manufacturers who have infiltrated the worlds leading architects.

There's also the relatively recent trend of building ing great supermarkets above the car park. So there's no access to street level (Tesco Dudley, looking at you). The only way to the shop floor is stairs, travelator, or lift. Bearing in mind wheelchairs are not allowed on travelators (neither are pushchairs or prams for what it's worth).

What we need are more paternoster lifts (look them up) - then no one would use them .

[LurkingHusband]

TinklyLittleLaugh

Redditch ?

[randomsabreuse]

Paternoster lifts aren't exactly accessible though...

Might go on one for the challenge of getting out on the floor I want!

[TinklyLittleLaugh]

No Lurking Lancashire. Obviously a nationwide policy then.

[Marynary]

But Mary the problem is people who aren't in a wheelchair may also struggle with stairs so how do you decide on the order of priority?

Well yes, I struggle a bit with stairs but if you aren't in a wheelchair you can usually stand on an escalator so do usually have more options in many shops or shopping centre.
Regardless anyone who is able bodied or able to stand on an escalator should give priority to those in wheelchairs.

[Whycantibetangy]

I did this this weekend at Meadowhall. We were waiting behind another family for the lift with my dh and 2dd. When the lift came, a family of 5 including one wheelchair user joined the queue. I stepped aside to let them on first, they tutted and rolled their eyes at the other family (who had already got in) with not a thank you, an acknowledgement, nothing. My dd (7) said just that little bit too loudly 'they are very rude mummy, lets just wait for the next one'

[cleaty]

I went in a wheelchair to London a few months ago. I could not use the metro for anywhere I wanted to go to. I had to get a taxi from Kings Cross to get to my hotel. Some stations that used to have lifts have actually had them removed.

[LurkingHusband]

TinklyLittleLaugh

To be fair, I know the Redditch Specsavers have moved, which I why I mentioned them ...

IN THEIR DEFENCE: we haven't actually been into it, so I don't know about accessibility.

FOR THE PROSECUTION: The reason we haven't been is because the previous store (2 doors down) had the only wheelchair accessible exam rooms on the upper floor. Which meant a drive (not accessible by foot) up to the upper loading bay, and a bump through the fire exit to get into the store. We know where we're not wanted.

[LurkingHusband]

cleaty

With the usual caveat those with less than perfect bodies have come to understand ("accessibility" being up there with "where do you keep the unicorns ?" as a question least expected of a customer) this does say:

Step free access: all entrances are step-free, there is level access throughout.

If your experience was different, I hope you alerted TfL.

[LurkingHusband]

its good old fashioned selfish, entitled able bodied people who are too fecking lazy to walk up some stairs

Which - to add insult to injury - would probably be quicker than the lift !

[JuxtapositionRecords]

marynary what a ridiculous comment that just because someone can stand they shouldn't get the lift.

[Feefeefs]

also it has to be said not all disabilities are visible. Lung cancer, cf etc may mean the stairs are impossible but people could look entirely normal

[Alisvolatpropiis]

My blind Grandmother can stand Mary, should she give the escalator a go?

[Andrewofgg]

Once in I stay in but I let a wheelchair suer go in before I do.

And a pram or buggy depending on whether I am going up or down, how many flights, and how much i am carrying.

When I bought my present printer the car park outside the customer pick-up point was being resurfaced and I had to push it, all 26 pounds of it, on a trolley to the lift in the multi-storey; and when I was first in the queue a woman with a buggy insisted that she had to go first, she had a buggy and she had to pick her older child up from school. The woman behind her told her to go forth and multiply - as it were - and when the lift came I got in and to my very great glee Ms Fuck-Off squeezed in next to me and Ms Buggy had to wait!

[Andrewofgg]

*wheelchair user. I don't know anybody who sues wheelchairs but I suppose all things are possible.

[Aeroflotgirl]

Yanbu at all, why did she not tell them to get out of the lift, she can obviously speak! Hidden disabilities, that is all!

[ShtoppenDerFloppen]

I have a disability, as do my children.

I would never in a million years expect people already using a lift to vacate it for me or any of my children sheerly because of a mobility device. I am humbled by those who offer to let us go ahead (and thank them but decline, more often than not) but I can't fathom the degree of entitled attitude that one must possess to think that it is in any way appropriate to demand occupants of a lift vacate it just because someone with a mobility device wants to use it.

What is even more mind boggling, is that this "friend" had the audacity to expect demand that the OP be the one to voice this insane expectation.

My mobility can make my life challenging. The "I take priority because I have a disability" attitude of people like the OP's friend makes my life outright difficult.

Common courtesy works both ways.