Aibu to say this woman on the bus was petty?

[Solasshole]

So, was just on the bus home. Bus was fairly empty. On the bus there is a woman with a baby in her pram sitting in a disabled seat. There are 5 other disabled seats nearby that are empty. There are also numerous other non disabled seats nearby that are also empty. Another passenger gets on the bus, she has mobility issues from what I can tell. She approaches mum with pram and requests that she moves from her seat so she may have that very particular disabled seat. Mum does so quickly and then has to awkwardly move pram while bus is moving and ends up having to stand as other disabled seats nearby wouldn't let her be close enough to pram without blocking the exitway of the bus.

Aibu to say this disabled woman getting on the bus is just fucking petty? There are 5 other seats marked for disabled persons nearby that are unoccupied which would have been more than suitable for this lady. Why go and ask the mother to move because she just HAS to have that particular seat?!

FWIW, I am not the mother in this situation, just a somewhat bemused passenger observing. I have had a very bad day in the public transport department and this level of pettiness over a bus seat just made me go

(Yes I know disabled woman has every right to request whatever disabled seat she likes be vacated for her but come on!! there where 5 specifically marked disabled seats available to her!!!)

The second picture is the fingerprints left by another DM who just pulled me off the seat in the wheelchair area she didn't even ask me - just saw my crutches, tutted and pulled me up off the seat.

Wtf, @ItsReallyNotOk?? Why the hell did she do that? That’s common assault (more likely more serious due to marks being left). You should have spoken to the driver. I’m so sorry that happened to you. 😢

OP I don't know where in the country you are, but on London buses not all priority seats are equal.
For instance, on the crappy "Boris buses" (which are really badly designed anyway) there are 6 priority seats but only 2 have decent legroom (the 2 facing the wheelchair space, where prams can also go)
2 more are next to the centre doors and have less legroom, and the other 2 face backwards, which makes a lot of people travel sick.
So the person demanding the seat, though it sounds as though she was unnecessarily rude, could well have had a reason for needing a particular seat.

It depends. If the seat was one of the ones nearest the door, then it was perfectly reasonable for the disabled woman to ask, as she would've found it harder to walk any distance further.

@ItsReallyNotOk that's really fucking not ok, and you made some good points. xxx

Some of 'the disabled' do have a very entrenched sense of entitlement.

I do have a disabled child, by the way.

YABU - pushing a pram is nothing like having a disability has anyone said it is?

It sounds as though this individual was being rude but not being able to board busses due to prams being in disabled seating is a daily occurrence for people in wheelchairs. And some people's lack of compassion and attitude on the topic sucks.

It may well be that on this occasion the mum was accommodating and undeserving of being made an example of, but I can see why the disabled passenger felt the need to be assertive.

people are people (profound - hey!) & someone can be rude & disabled & judgemental - I think that public transport needs to have enough adaptable seating for people with either disabilities or young children/pushchairs to use - easily. & issues about how disabilities affect you & judgement on whether someone is disabled is a minefield. & some people with disabilities can be as awkward and difficult & rude as the rest of the population. However it maybe (devils advocate here) that they have had previous bad experience (like not being able to get on bus, train etc) but courtesy (honey) get a better result than being rude (mostly) our local bus goes to a major hospital & one time I witnessed someone demanding an elderly couple move - thing was (especially as they both got off at hospital stop)they could have easily had a hidden health condition & the impatience of the individual concerned as well as their rudeness was stressful (someone else on the bus clearly muttered about saying please) another time many years later I was in a shop getting something off shelf & walked a step backwards to place item in trolley (as you do) got yelled at - and nearly run over - by someone in a mobility scooter (they don't make that much noise & the person was moving at speed in a crowded supermarket)point is they are suppose to give way to pedestrians & I could have had a child with me - I think mobility scooters are a great asset but they have to be used carefully in crowded places.

I'm really torn on this. I appreciate that disabled people have, and should have, priority - but I found it impossible when my children were small, and in pushchairs, if I had to fold up the buggy, hold two children's hands and carry shopping as well as the buggy, by myself.
One day, my whole family was on the bus, so a sleeping baby in a buggy, a young child, an older child etc, five of us in total. In the wheelchair space was also another buggy with another sleeping baby, and another family, plus their elderly parents. At the bottom of the steep hill leading to our house, one lady in a wheelchair wanted to get on. That meant twelve people, two of them elderly, were ordered off the bus by the driver. It felt harsh.

But she didn't, she got onto the bus and walked up to mum and said "Move, I'm disabled."

What a cow. If she needed that particular seat for a reason, she should have just asked nicely and explained. Disability isn't an excuse for rudeness.

With the number of ragged bits threads on MN detailing the horrific damage done to some women during childbirth, I want to know why people with "visible" disabilities e.g. crutches or wheelchairs always assume that women with prams are able bodied. Is someone with a pram with a 4th degree tear or a symphisiotomy really going to want to explain in detail why they need that seat and get in an argument when half the time they can't even bring up maternal birth injuries to GPs and get taken seriously? I think people need to stop assuming women with prams are able, and bus policies need to be less misogynistic penalizing women with prams.
After reading all the threads about how women with prams are treated on buses, made to get off constantly for wheelchairs etc I feel lucky to live in a very rural area with no public transport where I have to use a car to ferry my baby around, because new mothers are habitually treated like shit by public transport companies.

I thought it states that .....if someone else needs it so you could argue that you she didn’t need it.

Disabled lady has a right to a disabled seat, she does not have a right to whatever disabled seat she wants.

I would have pointed out the other seats and told her why I wasn't moving if I was pram lady.

YANBU. Sounds like she was just being bloody awkward

YANBU. The lady who wanted that particular seat was very rude.

Ive been the awkwars person before when i had significant joint issues.
I had to once ask someone to move seat as whilst there were other seats available, 1. I needed to be on a flat seat which excluded most of them other than the ones on the buggy/wheelchair bit

1. Even though there was an "identical" one opposite, the fact that it was on the opposite side meant i couldnt have the right postioning for my legs if that makes sense (eg i needed the aisle to be on my right hand side)

Im sure the woman i asked to move thought the same, but i did have legitimate reasons and explained them. Bus travel for me was a necessity as cars didnt have the right space for me, so i can see why people might get fed up of having to disclose lots of information about their disability to a whole bus every day.

Equally she might have just wanted the seat to be petty

It does sound like she was just being petty and awkward in this case.

@ItsReallyNotOk I’m sorry for what happened to you and I hope you reported it

One day, my whole family was on the bus, so a sleeping baby in a buggy, a young child, an older child etc, five of us in total. In the wheelchair space was also another buggy with another sleeping baby, and another family, plus their elderly parents. At the bottom of the steep hill leading to our house, one lady in a wheelchair wanted to get on. That meant twelve people, two of them elderly, were ordered off the bus by the driver. It felt harsh.

Any one of those twelve adults could have taken the child out and held it while another of those adults folded the pram.

I was on the bus the other day and a woman got on, before she was even fully on the bus she was shouting “my son has AUTISM, CLEAR the space, this pushchair counts as a WHEELCHAIR.” To which the man in the wheelchair who was already in the space called back “sorry love, but so does mine!” The weirdest part was that after much chuntering from the mother, she unstrapped the little boy (who must have been about 3), who trotted happily to an empty seat and said “we sit here mummy?”. She did have the grace to look a bit embarrassed.

I want to know why people with "visible" disabilities e.g. crutches or wheelchairs always assume that women with prams are able bodied. Is someone with a pram with a 4th degree tear or a symphisiotomy really going to want to explain in detail why they need that seat and get in an argument when half the time they can't even bring up maternal birth injuries to GPs and get taken seriously? I think people need to stop assuming women with prams are able, and bus policies need to be less misogynistic penalizing women with prams.

I agree. Even though I could walk, it was still uncomfortable to sit down 3 weeks after giving birth to my second. Don’t think the pain was gone until week 5.

You have no idea why the woman wanted / needed that particular seat.

Maybe, just maybe she was being ‘petty’ but so are you choosing an incident that has nothing to do with you to get riled up and judgey about.

Disabled people have enough shit and constant hassle to deal with so it is unlikely she was being ‘petty’ to make a point. She more likely needed that seat because it had leg space in front , or had the hand rail in the right place / on the right side, or was positioned to see the ‘bus stopping’ sign or something you and I don’t need to think about.

But you give yourself a gallop around in your high horse if it makes you feel better after your hard day.

“That meant twelve people, two of them elderly, were ordered off the bus by the driver. It felt harsh “

The whole point in making priority spaces for people who need them is so that they are not constantly excluded by being outnumbered by the majority. That is the nature of being a minority.

agree, hats of to the mother with the pram for not arguing back with what sounds like a petty situation

@CampingItUp

She could have been polite about it. Her needing the seat doesn’t excuse her behaviour to get the seat. I doubt there would have been a thread if she had asked instead of demanded the mum move.

OP, when I think of all the discrimination that those of us who are disabled face every day, as well has how hard our lives are, you start a thread about the one person who was disabled and possibly rude (you don't know why she asked pram mum to give up that particular seat)

If pram mum had a disability then was the time to say why she couldn't move from that seat and ask other bus passenger if it was ok if she sat on one of the other seats.

Agree with what It'sReallyNotOk said. And as for the "12 of us had to leave the bus for one wheelchair user'' jesus, there were 4 people in your family, that could have taken sleeping baby out and held them, and folded up the buggy.

When it comes to prams on buses, let's blame those who design the buses who in some areas of the country don't put in enough room for both wheelchairs and prams. My sister lives in a part of the UK where the buses have ample room - probably enough room for either 4 wheelchairs or 4 buggies. Why aren't all buses like that? I'd like to see conductors returned as well so when people are being real wankers about seats, they can intervene.