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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think we don't need to give two of our seats on a train to someone with a disability?

117 replies

Stompythedinosaur · 02/09/2018 14:05

I'm sort of aware I might be being unreasonable, but I feels unfair.

I am on a train with dd1 and dd2 (age 7 and 5), longish trip, about 3.5 hours. The dds were sat next to each other at two seats at a table and I was across the aisle. A lady got on and asked if she could sit as she had cerebral palsy (for info, we weren't in priority seats or anything). I offered my seat, but she said she needed a table seat. My dds got up, and I was expecting her to take the window seat, so one of the dds could go o the other seat, and one on my lap. However, she then put her bag in the other seat, and refused to move this, saying she needed it there due to her disability. I offered to put this in the luggage storage, or for it to go under the table, but she was adamant, and after a couple of refusals, she turned away and wouldn't respond any more.

It the end I decided it wasn't worth the hassle, and we have ended up all day on the floor in a vestibule, but I was really irritated. Am I being unreasonable to thing that even with a disability you aren't entitled to 2 seats on a busy train?

OP posts:

Aeroflotgirl · 02/09/2018 16:42

I totally agree, disabled people are people, and some can be arses, like this woman. She was rude and entitled. She could have had her bag on her lap, or on the floor. Or could have taken op help and have the bag overhead. Turning herself away from op, after op had given up 2 seat for her, is dame rude.

Flipn my dd has ASD and learning difficulties, and when she was younger would do that, I always apologised, and would have offered to buy you a new cake. Maybe she was having a bad day with him.

MynameisJune · 02/09/2018 16:47

You don’t sound nasty at all. In fact I’d hazard that she targeted your kids because she figured it would be easy to guilt you into moving them for her. She’d have never got two adults to move from seats.

Completely entitled, it’s a bag. If she can carry it into the train then she can manage it on the table.

AamdC · 02/09/2018 16:49

Well to be fair Flipn. My son who has severe autism and leaening disabillities would take a cake or a drink off a table if he wanted it the differance is i would apilogise and pay for another slice for you

MistressDeeCee · 02/09/2018 16:51

I'd have moved her bag. I don't have time for nonsense.

MissLingoss · 02/09/2018 16:56

If someone needs specific support when travelling....

If you tell the train company, they'll normally arrange assistance. So this lady could have had an appropriate seat or seats reserved for her, maybe someone to escort her to it.

I once encountered someone who thought she could take up four seats in a crowded train. She was in the aisle seat, her handbag on the window seat next to her. Her suitcase was in the leg space of the opposite aisle seat, so no-one could access the window seat on that side, either. She moved her suitcase so she was then only taking up two seats.

FlipnTwist · 02/09/2018 16:56

AamdC not blaming the child at all, it was the complete lack of apology or even acknowledgment from the the woman with him that shocked me!

Poppyinagreenfield · 02/09/2018 17:07

You are being extremely unreasonable. Hopefully you will never have to find out why.

MrsSchadenfreude · 02/09/2018 17:09

Why is she being unreasonable, Poppy?

Aeroflotgirl · 02/09/2018 17:14

Why Poppy because she was rude to op, who gave up 2 of her seats to her so she and her child ended up on the floor. There were many options to accommodate that woman's bag.

Livelovebehappy · 02/09/2018 17:19

Nope. Not being unreasonable at all. Unfortunately it is becoming increasingly common for disabled people to feel that their disability means they don’t need to be grateful or courteous. A bit like the elderly. No excuse for bad manners.

senmumoftom · 02/09/2018 17:21

OP , you are lovely and a fab example to your young daughters. Please tell them how proud you are of them and how they helped a person who didn't thank them and wasn't very nice to them.

Totally agree, disability is not a get of out jail free card like SO MANY mildly disabled play it making life even more difficult than it should be for those who DO have severe disabilities and don't get support because of examples like this piss taker.

A seven and a five year old end up with no where to sit because this woman is a cow. And because OP is Soooooo LOVELY ( and you are OP) she doesn't find a guard and get this woman OUT of the seats she took under false pretences . She can then wander the train and see if she can try this piss take with other passengers.

OP you couldn't have been nicer. Praise your DDs to the sky when talking about this to friends and family, what lovely girls not to make a fuss.

Aeroflotgirl · 02/09/2018 17:28

If it was an emergency that she needed the bag from the floor or the table, she could have asked op, instead was happy seeing a whole family on the floor because of her, and turned her back to them, nice! Now her dds have learned that some people can be arses, and not to do a favour next time.

IrmaFayLear · 02/09/2018 17:29

There was a thread a while ago in which the OP had not let someone sit down next to her on the bus because she had anxiety issues . I think the internet yet again is a force of ill when people get the idea they can behave like utter arseholes because of a disability.

FGS, we all get anxious to some extent and I know it can be terribly debilitating. But anxiety that gives you the idea that you are entitled to two seats on the bus is not a disability, but a serious case of CFery.

Angelf1sh · 02/09/2018 17:29

None of us can really know if she needed that seat. I have CP and can completely understand why she didn’t want it in the overhead compartment or on the floor because I couldn’t have retrieved it from either place once it was there and she can’t rely on someone being around to help when she needs it. I personally would have put the bag on the table, but that might also have been a problem for her to move/lift.

I can understand why you thought she was behaving unreasonably, and quite possibly she was, but I think you ought to take what she said at face value because you just don’t have any evidence not to.

Bluelady · 02/09/2018 17:48

Did she get roasted, Irma?

luciadilammamor · 02/09/2018 22:37

IrmaFayLear Bluelady Stompythedinosaur with anxiety, though, you may not know what somebody's triggers are- they may have had social anxiety or PTSD due to interpersonal trauma or OCD and fear of germs....who knows? I agree we all get anxious but if someone says they have anxiety they are likely to be talking about a condition they have actually been diagnosed with. You can even get bus passes for free bus travel if your anxiety makes travel difficult- it means your carer gets to go free if they travel with you.

I need my carer with me if I am having a bad day or have had an episode (PTSD and BPD/EUPD mixed with some social anxiety) and also have a muscle spasm and balance issue due to a bad reaction to some antipsychotic drugs I took in a psych unit in my 20s. I need a priority seat if I do travel on a train, which is rarely as I find it all so stressful.

I do travel on the bus and sometimes if I get bad muscle spasms I cannot reach my bag from the floor so I may put it on seat next to me. But if someone actaully asked me if they could have my seat with the bag on it, I take the bag off and let them sit. But I do think the onus is on the person needing a seat to ask. I tend to be shy with strangers and sometimes just struggle to ask if they need a seat, so I wait for them to ask.

I was once told off because I did not automatically give up my seat for someone with Downs Syndrome, because he did not ask me, and back then I did not know it could affect mobility (since then I have been priveleged to meet some wonderful people with DS and know that they can have respiratory issues and tire easily). The young man was very polite and made no fuss but a woman in the seat down the aisle from me started screeching at me how terrible it was that I did not get up and let him sit. Because she could not SEE my disabilities she started screeching that I was a faker and just need to lose weight (I am very large, Tes Halliday size). I was mortifed!!! I had recently had a breakdown and was in recovery from that and my head felt like it was in the clouds half the time, really unaware of others around me and very vulnerable. The woman who yelled was in the wrong 99% except for ONE THING. That I did not have trhe foresight and was too shaken to remove my bloody bad from the seat next to me!!!! So I was 1% cheeky fucker that day, for not removing the bloody bag!

IrmaFayLear · 03/09/2018 16:39

My sympathies, lucia.

The person in the thread I recall only mentioned the anxiety after about 20 posts. I see this a lot: people reach for the "anxiety" tag to explain away bad behaviour. It annoys me because having true anxiety is a nightmare, as you have experienced.

Dm had anxiety. She had so much anxiety she rarely left the house, would not answer the door/use the phone/go to parents evenings/anything at the school/etc etc etc. She was never diagnosed, but boy, did we suffer because of it. And as a child of course you think it's all normal

And get on a bus? Dm wouldn't have got on a bus to save her life - or ours!

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