I'm so sorry it's about disabled bus seats

[YourNewspaperIsShit]

But It's absolutely not the normal "having a dig" thread and if I wasn't torturing myself about the situation I promise I wouldn't post it.

So I don't drip feed: I'm autistic and have an invisible physical disability.

The bus to DD's nursery was just a small one on this occasion and there was one wheelchair/disabled seat. The front seats have 'elderly' signs on and there's a sign on the wheelchair seat saying something like "This seat is for wheelchair users. Small prams and buggies may use this seat but must move if a wheelchair user needs access". Totally acceptable, I have no dispute.

So basically what happened was I got on to pick DD up from nursery, normally we go in the car but only DP drives and he was called to work. I have 6 month old DS in his pram (Silver Cross Wayfarer if it's relevant coz I can't fold it). I was in a lot of pain that day or I would have used his sling, i physically couldn't do it. In fact I kind of lean on the pram like a zimmer frame IYSWIM.

Pay for my ticket, park pram in the space and sit in the disabled seat. Every other seat on the bus is taken. Elderly people in the front seats. Halfway through the journey we reach a bus station and a lady in a wheelchair is in the queue, bus driver tells me to get off. Normally I'd 100% do this but I wouldn't have made DD's pick up.... She is only 4 so can't exactly wait another 30mins for the next bus.

I start having a panic attack with the situation and kind of splutter out that I really need to catch the bus. The absolutely lovely lady in the wheelchair says she's only taking her shopping home and will wait for the next bus.

Bus driver, assuming I guess that I'm just a snotty young entitled mother demanding the seat, continues to tell me to get off the bus. I start to cry.

I manage to choke out that I'm also disabled and get told "aye of course you are love, what kind of person takes a seat from someone in a wheelchair". It then felt like he was pitting us off one another, like some awful 'disability contest' saying things like "go on then what have you got, is it worse?"

The lady eventually gets through to him that she really isn't in a rush and goes out of the station so he can't just sit and wait for her. He reluctantly drives off with a shitty attitude and a grunt

I don't know what I'd have done without her lovely calm demeanor. I'm still absolutely mortified that I didn't get off the bus though, if it wasn't for DD there's no way I'd have stayed on.

Totally prepared to hear I WBU, especially for starting a bus seat thread. But I can't stop thinking about it and have noone to discuss with IRL

In hindsight I would have caught an earlier bus but usually they have big ones with 3 disabled/pram seats so I didn't think.

Op I am a wheelchair user I also have a baby. I do not think my need to use the space trumps yours. Neither of us could sit elsewhere on the bus due to our disabilities.
Yanbu.

Yanbu

I'm astonished by the number of people who think the wheelchair user should have priority in this case. The OP has a mobility disability and a young child she is unable to carry. She uses a sturdy pram as a walking frame and is not physically able to manage with a folding pram as it would not provide the mobility support she needs. Therefore it is completely reasonable of her to use the space provided for disabled passengers.

If she was in a wheelchair herself the other wheelchair user would also not have been able to get on this bus as there was only one such space. This situation is no different as the OP had no alternative to using the large pram as a walking aid.

We should not be engaging in some kind of disability top trumps where wheelchair always wins. In this case I suspect the OP would be less able than the wheelchair user to wait, as those who need walking aids are often unable to stand for any length of time.

The answer is for more provision on public transport for those with disabilities of whatever sort, and not to shame those whose challenges are less visible.

For practical purposes I also agree with carrying some sort of formal verification of need for those whose disabilities are less visible. It's distasteful, but since many able-bodied people behave in an entitled way, there probably does need to be some way for bus drivers etc to be able to tell whose need is genuine.

This thread is interesting. I have a 15 year old ds with multiple invisible disabilities (medical and mental health) and one of my best friends has a ds of a similar age with an invisible and semi-invisible (club feet....you can't see them unless he's wearing shorts and flipflops) disability. We live in the USA and both our ds's have handicap placards which allow us to park pretty much anywhere (Sorry guys, but the USA, and particularly California is much more advance than the UK in this regard) which is enormously helpful (apart from the evil looks from strangers). However, it doesn't always help the kids in every day teenager life. Our children go to the same school which is about a 15 minute walk from my house and 10 from hers and we have to drive our ds' to school because they can't manage the walk without significant physical consequences. As a result, we are coping with how do we help our ds' interact with their peers in a "normal" way without constantly announcing their disabilities (which is hard enough for an adult...try being a spotty teenager and having to cope with it). For example, the other day, my dd and my friend's ds and about 10 other kids walked to In and Out Burgers after school. It's about a 10 minute walk which any "normal" teenager can manage without issue. Afterwards they walked to my friend's house...another 10 minute walk. My friend's ds didn't want to say that it was too much for him and although my dd asked if he wanted an Uber, he said no because he wanted to be with the other children. That evening his feet were so swollen and painful from the 20 minutes of walking that he couldn't go to school for 2 days because he couldn't stand on them. So, it's not quite "how do you convince the bus driver that you really are disabled" but it's the same train of thought....how do you live a "normal" life when no one around you recognizes or understands that you can't do everything "normally." Do you tell the other kids that you are "disabled" and can't walk 10 minutes and subject yourself to their potential (but not actual) ridicule. I watch my poor ds struggle with this every day, knowing that when he's finally mastered interacting with his friends and peers, he will then have to go out into the world and do the same with strangers and the ignorant (bus drivers).

I wrote an essay in response to the fucking stupid posts on here but couldn't finish it.
Op, YANBU and from the tone of your responses I think you know YANBU. The woman who told you to stay on the bus was lovely and the bus driver was an insensitive cretin. Please hide all further posts on this thread as more nasty fuckers will be along and you'll just become agitated.

from a fellow disablee

YourNewspaper Samcro I understand you're annoyed but at no point was the lady unable to access the space. I was getting up when she told me to sit back down, she chose not to use the space.

I don't know if you truly believe that statement that the lady in the wheelchair was able to access the space, but I don't and I bet many other readers don't either. Your words and actions were designed to hold on to the space and that is what you did. Only by quietly removing yourself when asked by the bus driver would you have made the space accessible. You could have done that at any time but you chose not to.

I'm not addressing the wider issue of whether you were entitled to use the space over and above a wheelchair user, just the statement I have quoted.

charleston actually, I don't think the OP could have chosen to remove herself quietly. Did you miss the fact than she's autistic and began to panic?

Okay, maybe not quietly, but she could have removed herself and it is a fallacy to say that the seat was accessible to anyone else in that time.

Both people in this case needed more space due to their disabilities. Ok officially the wheelchair user had the right to the space, but she did the morally right thing of realising at that point the other persons need was greater than hers.

9 times out of 10 yes the wheelchair gets priority but sometimes it's not that simple.

I agree that the bus driver was rude but I do think wheelchairs have priority. She chose to wait but if she didn't want to then she should have been able to have the space. Lots of people I know won't go on a bus with their wheelchair/sn buggy using child because they can't face stand offs with prams. The only way this will change is if the right to use the wheelchair space is a given.

The OP has an equal right to the space BECAUSE SHE HAS A DISABILITY.

With blue badge spaces you can only use them if you have a blue badge no matter what your disability or how severe it is. At least in this case you get to use the space if a wheelchair user doesn't require it.

But both people in this particular case could not access the bus without that space due to disabilities. That's what makes it different to normal situations.

Thanks everyone for your kind words, I am starting to feel better about the situation now it's been a tough thread I thought I might regret because sometimes my logic is a tad flawed but for the most part it seems I wasn't too U and that's enough to help my conscience

charleston What you're saying is what I assume the driver thought although I can promise I didn't try to 'hold onto the space' until it was offered to me. There's no way I couldn't have said the things I said because I kind of talk myself down from a panic IYSWIM? I didn't say them to manipulate the situation in my favour, especially because i couldn't really have predicted the outcome of them because I can't read social cues It was accessible to the lady and she chose not to access it, there was no point in me getting off once she'd left although if I wasn't going for DD I probably would have due to the embarrassment

Also just to add in if anyone feels my replies are a bit direct or sound snotty or anything I just struggle to convey emotion well when I type I really am grateful for everyone's input

If something is offered to you, you can decline. It's not as if she held a gun to your head and shouted, 'Sit down or I'll shoot!'. She has probably had a lifetime of trying to avoid making a fuss and conceding her rights to avoid making others uncomfortable. It's not that she didn't want the space. Everyone should be able to see that.

Or maybe your autism means you can't, but take it from me, that space wasn't accessible to her or anyone else. You had it!

I'm really sorry you went through this Your, the bus driver was very insensitive to you.

I dread getting the bus for this reason. I have an "invisible" mobility condition (invisible until something dislocates, anyway) and need to lean on my daughters pushchair for support. It's a folding pushchair but I can't fold it for risk of dislocations, especially on a moving bus. It's the same with the lightweight buggy we have, except I can't lean on that.

On a good day, or if there's seats close to that particular bus stop, I could get off if a wheelchair user needed to get on. On bad days or if it's just a bus stop in the middle of nowhere with nowhere to sit I think I'd just break down and cry to be honest! so it sounds like you and the lady both handled it very well.

The biggest fault lies with the bus companies. if buses were more disabled friendly, with wheelchair and pushchair spaces and enough priority seating, these problems wouldn't arise.

Charleston - do you have any idea what it's like to be in constant debilitating pain? It's highly likely the OP would've been in agony getting herself and her pram off the bus to stand for half an hour. It's great the wheelchair user could recognise this but most people are just like you - ignorant and dismissive of disability unless it's visible. It's a shitty attitude that needs to change. Equality for disabilities means all disabilities not just those socially acceptable to you!

In this case the bus service was wrong and needs to provide better access for more than one disabled person. Disabled mothers are often treated appallingly and there is no help for being a disabled parent.

Why so nasty in your first posts, Charleston? Did you join just to be nasty?

Unless you name changed just to have a go at the OP. Very spiteful.

OP has said she knows it was a wheelchair space. She was worried and upset about not being there to pick up her DC and the kind person with the wheelchair gave up her right to the space. Obviously she has more of the milk of human kindness than you do.

But she was so annoyed that she left the station, I don't think she was just conceding because she felt like she had to Although that is just a guess.

I'd like to think if I was on a full bus with a pram and plenty of time but another disabled person/mother was in distress trying to make a doctors appointment, etc I'd swap. Why can't she be in a wheelchair and just doing a nice thing for someone?

I've not addressed whether I think the OP should or shouldn't have got off the bus. I don't know because I don't think she has alluded to the nature of her pain or condition. I also know many people, maybe most of us, are not very objective. I am simply objecting to her assertion that the seat was accessible to someone else. It was not.

I got on a train with Ds and someone had a double pram in the wheelchair space. with sleeping twins. I made a judgement call that at that point we were in a better position to wait even though in theory I was within my rights to insist she moved from the space. She offered to leave but was very greatful when I said it was fine.

As it happened the guard let us stand by the door - wouldn't have been space for a double tnough - but otherwise we would have waited for the 15 minutes.

Sometimes it's not always black and white and the person in the wheelchair or their carer will make a judgement call to decide.

If the wheelchair user had insisted then the op would have got off. But thankfully that wasn't needed.

I'm pretty sure these aren't my first posts. My posting style is usually blunt and direct but I never set out to be nasty, though my comments may hurt. Why say someone can access something when they can't, because you have it? That is purely the issue I am addressing.

She can be in a wheelchair and trying to do a nice thing. But don't say she chose not to take the seat. If you'd left the seat she would have grabbed it. But she couldn't grab it while you were in it.