To think it's common sense to let a w/c user have the w/c spot

[SparkyStar84]

I've just seen the ruling on disabled people getting priority in disabled spots on buses. Isn't that common sense. What kind of person would deny a w/c user the space because 'pushchair'?
I'm a w/c user it makes it easier in a way to get about with children, though I know some w/c users still have a buggy.
This is about the parents who refuse to move, when asked, by someone who might have an appt or something important to get too. Not saying the parent doesn't. But isn't that the point of foldable buggies over great big travel systems?
It just bugs me that people have had to leave the bus because a parent wouldn't move. As a parent with kids of many ages, also remembering times gone by, the purpose of easy foldable buggies is that you can decamp when on the bus.
Do you think it's an issue that buses need to provide buggy spaces too?

If you have an easily collapsible buggy, it absolutely is safe. I and many other posters have done it many times! There are lie-flat buggies for newborns that have a one-handed fold and a shoulder strap (and they cost a lot less than an enormo-pram!)

But trifle that isn't what you're paying for. You're not paying for the wheelchair space because you don't have a wheelchair. You're paying to be transported from A to B, but you're categorically not paying for the wheelchair space because you have no right to it. Unlike the wheelchair user for whom it has been designed so that their legal right to access the bus at all is protected

The wheelchair user is paying for the wheelchair space. You're just squatting.

I think the entitled are confusing the idea that they paid for transport on the bus with the idea that they paid for the wheelchair spot on the bus. The service is TRANSPORT that you've paid for. That's it. You get that transport if you're sitting holding your baby with your pushchair folded.

FizzBombBathTime: I don't accept that, no. There is no other space for a pram so, if I need to because I need to get somewhere, I will use the space that is there. The judgement today doesn't legally compel me to move. I honestly don't see why a parent pushing a pram, who can't reasonably and safely fold it, already occupying the only space he or she can reasonably occupy, should be automatically trumped by someone else who needs to use the bus, whether that person is a w/c user or not.

If I am 5 miles from home and I have to walk down a main road,

Count your fucking blessings you have the luxury of being able to walk down the main road 5 miles.

Gawd. I can't believe that even after the court case there are idiots arguing that they have an entitlement to be in the wheelchair space with their pram.

People really are bloody selfish and self obsessed. Shows why the court ruling was necessary.

In decades gone by how did people cope. I mean there wasn't all these fancy prams, kids were in a fold up pushchair, Mum's removed them as bus was approaching, either with/without help of others.

What on earth are you shopping for? Is online grocery shopping not an option? That's the only reason I could imagine for a load of heavy bags.

You have luxuries now that many didn't.

Next you'll be saying well we should get a taxi. But we're even discriminated there, being charged extra because we can't use normal cars.

For a big shop a second alternative, can't you use a taxi?

Did someone say she's a teacher? That is frightening!

All them decades women and babies coped without the Chelsea tractor of prams. Did it do them any harm, no! Can you get gold down pushchairs suitable from birth yes. Is baby wearing safe - any baby wearers around to tell her the benefits?

Again, there isn't much point in me continuing to post here. Obviously most people think a w/c user's needs are more important than everyone else's in all circumstances. I can't agree, but it's not worth all this.

Servicesupportforall

you can feed a baby wherever it needs to be fed at 5 weeks breast or bottle. hmm
*except I need to now half strip his cos its not that easy to get to his button which I hate so I can do it in public but not in the cold in public so bus stop in winter? No. Starbucks? Yes. Also means I need to get to both ends of my pushchair when someone has decided their favourite place is leaning up against the back of my pram.

Allow plenty of time for important appointments. hmm
It takes an hour on two buses. So allowing time to have one drive past, one to kick me off, one to be late (our service is crap) that would add on an extra hour onto the journey. Or necessitate an hour wait at the other end. We normally pop to say hi to our nurses so this is probably about right. But if it was a 9 am appt I wouldn't be getting my child up 2 hours early because you think I should have least priority on a bus. How often do you travel an hour early for every appt and then sit with a cranky toddler in an over priced cafe for an hour?
Not to mention waiting for a call back to the doxs who says cab you come in in 20 minutes?

Excuses excuses
Or aka not everyone's life is black and white. Not every person put of a wheelchair doesn't have a disability. Not every child in a pram doesn't have a disability. Not every trip out if for fun..

As an old gimmer who can remember having to do the shopping by bus, with twins, in the days before wheel chair spaces, buggy spaces or even lowered steps to get on, this is how I managed:
Bus pulled in, quickly unstrap twin one, climb up bus steps, dump twin with nearest adult. Climb off, clamp twin 2 under arm, fold buggy (stripy McLaren deck chair type) with one hand, hand bag strap round neck, climb on bus and retrieve twin one. Pay bus driver at the next stop.
I used to walk the 3miles home as managing shopping as well was impossible.

Before the twins were old enough to go in the buggy, I had a silver cross twin pram, built like a tank, and I walked everywhere unless someone took me shopping in their car. I was much fitter and thinner!

So no, I don't have any sympathy for the fit young mum and her pfb in its huge buggy which she won't fold. Wheel chair user has priority every time, they can't just walk to the next stop.

Er, no. I'm not asking strangers on buses to hold my baby or my stuff and I'm not standing on a moving vehicle juggling a pram, a sling and a baby. What's the matter with you? Like the w/c user, I paid for my ticket and if I need the space as much as he/she does and I was there first, he/she can wait for the next one. When my baby is bigger o will fold my buggy of course

Trifleorbust you should just fuck off. If you can't see how utterly appallingly disablist you're being, just reflect on the fact that we're all only TABs - temporarily able bodied.

One day you will need the compassion from others that you are so lacking in yourself.

Again, there isn't much point in me continuing to post here.

Don't forget your sign on your way out.

"If I am 5 miles from home and I have to walk down a main road,"

Boo fucking hoo.
If I'm five miles from home, I sit there (in the rain of course, also with crying hungry children) until somebody is able to take me home.

None so deaf as those who will not hear, as my granny used to say.

Lord. The attitude is bad enough. But the brazenness of 'I won't move, no one can make me move' - don't you feel like a prize twat when you do that on buses?

What on earth are you shopping for? Is online grocery shopping not an option? That's the only reason I could imagine for a load of heavy bag

Hmm, right, how dare I want to go shopping?

When i had DC1 i had a massive pram and had to use the bus, it was a nightmare as i couldn't collapse it or carry baby and pram as it was so heavy. DC2 and 3 had the smallest lie flat folding umbrella buggy i could find for using the bus and on the rare occasion i had to fold it for a wheel chair i could manage it with a baby and a toddler, when they could walk i used to just fold it anyway before i got on as they liked sitting on the seats.

I remember in the 90's my DM getting the bus with a pram with a baby in, a toddler and all her shopping, she used to try and wait to go shopping when i was there to help her but if i couldn't she somehow managed to get them up the stairs, coming back someone would try and meet the bus to help her off.

Fizz it wasn't me, but I am finding the ever more ridiculous excuses entertaining!

It's just like people who start sentences with "I'm not being racist, but...". You know exactly what is coming.

Hang on, this isn't the same teacher who started that autism thread, is it?

If so, I hope mn follow through on their (cough, alleged) no-nonsense approach to disabilism...

I think wheelchair users SHOULD have priority. I remember some stupid bitch on a bus (not a mum with a buggy) saying they should take a taxi - as if everyone is made of money. In any case some wheelchair users have reported that not all taxis take them -even being forewarned.

I am afraid I do think mums and buggies can be a bit entitled at times. It is always amusing when a 3rd one gets on and they all have hissy fits. Then the last one on has the great idea of putting the buggy in the aisle so no one can get past.

A far cry from the 1960's when if a pushchair folded or not was already on board, none other could be put on and no one argued, spat, swore about it either!

Chipped are you sure?!

I just thank the Lord trifles opinion is not the majority.

I'm not sure why Trifle is wittering on about fiddling with a sling on a moving bus. The whole point is that the baby is in the sling before you get on the bus. Then you can either fold the pram or leave the pram at home. I lived in London when DS1 and DS2 were babies. We had a pram for about a week before realising how impractical it was for public transport. We ditched the pram, bought a couple of good quality carriers and never looked back. My friend was a pram user but always put the baby in the sling while waiting for the bus. We always got on the bus and never became embroiled in any of the fights to the death over which pram was there first.

There are choices, and it's a short time in your life, compared to the lifelong difficulties facing a permanent wheelchair user. Suck it up, and be glad of your mobility.

Thanks for all the reports about this thread, which we appreciate. This is clearly an emotive subject. Can we remind you all that, whilst we do encourage robust debate on here, it's obviously also really important to be respectful of one another's views. Here's a reminder of the talk guidelines . www.mumsnet.com/info/netiquette. Thanks all.

Trifle, as someone who frequently travelled on buses with baby in pram in pre-access days, and who subsequently had to deal with teenager in wheelchair, I just find it impossible to take any comparison between the two seriously.

I never found myself in a situation where I couldn't find anyone to hold the baby while I dismantled the pram (and no evidence that baby-dd suffered because she had to be held for 2 seconds by a bus driver or another passenger)

Otoh dd never found herself in a situation where she could magically float above her own wheelchair whilst folding it at the same time.

I wasn't strong, I had fairly bad infected scars after delivery, but even so I could manage to get baby on first, then pram parts, then shopping.

Otoh I never found that teen disabled dd had any aptitude for disassembling herself into several manageable parts and taking those onto the bus separately.

Babies and buggies and crowded public transport feels stressful - I get that, have been there. But truly? There is no buggy-stress that comes anywhere close to wheelchair-accessibility stress. Have been there too. There is just no comparison. Be thankful if you haven't had any experience of this, Trifle, and cross your fingers that your luck holds out.