Wheelchair / buggy on bus

[MoonlightMistletoe]

Today I had got the bus with my sister we both have children I had my toddler who was walking and my one year old who's only just started to walk who is still in a buggy, my sister has a 12week old baby who was also in a buggy.

We had got on the bus as you do and the next stop another parent got on with their buggy, a few stops later we stop and straight away a woman is screaming/shouting at the rear doors with her phone in our faces demanding we collapse our buggies, very angry , shouting at us with buggies and also at the driver. The driver is telling us to stay put due to her being aggressive and recording us. Someone on the bus was telling us to co operate with the woman who wanted to get a person on the bus who was in a wheelchair. We know disabled people are a priority and had absolutely not said we wouldn't put the buggies down, I was taking my sleeping one year out the buggy while this woman was still swearing and being nasty and recording us, I had given my baby to my sister to sit with my toddler and herself while I was about to take her baby out the pram then all of a sudden everyone made a "ohhhhhhh" gasp and the disabled man has fallen down the side of the curb and bus sideways in his wheelchair.

She then looses her absolute shit at us for her own mistakes being so caught up in recording us to make sure we move that the man is now probably injured.

AIBU to think all she had to do was say excuse me can we move the buggies so I can get the wheelchair on?

Ffs steakandmantoo are you for real?.
At least posters like this show what wheelchair users have to put up with, shit drivers and nasty people.

@Dolorabelle I haven't suggested having a baby is a disability have I come on now 🙄

I don't know what your busses look like but where do you suppose I put the buggy there isn't any storage space unless it's in the way of the doors?

To be fair, steakandmantoo husband is a drink driver apparently so not the pinnacle of ethics in many respects.

The busses also run around under ten mins in my area, not hourly, not that it means people should abuse the system.

This was never about me being in a space I was allowed to be in this was about a disabled man being on the floor due to his carers angry outburst towards innocent people! Do I feel sorry for the man , yes I do, but as for that horrible woman I wouldn't have let her on either.

And we still have no idea whether that carer had been refused entry to buses before. She might well have reached the end of her tether. All we have is the bus driver unprofessionally telling passengers he'd had issues with her previously.

@ilovesooty ok so that's ok to verbally abuse and record people who arnt at fault is it ? No it's not.

@MoonlightMistletoe I didn't say it was. I'm just saying there may well be a back story and I think there are aspects of the driver's behaviour that were unacceptable.

@ilovesooty and that might be the case but it's still not acceptable behaviour so therefore the driver was right to refuse her on the bus.

@steakandmantoo
Your post is vile and ableist.

Don't let them bully you out of a space.

A wheelchair space on a bus is a space for fucking WHEELCHAIRS not pushchairs.

A pushchair has no right to be in the space in the first place as it is the ONLY space on the whole fucking bus that a wheelchair can go whereas you and your fucking pushchair can go in ANY other space you want to - you might just need to fold it to sit in some seats.

Unless you are under 2ft a DM will always have the height advantage over someone in a wheelchair and woman say everyday that men use their height advantage over women to bully them - well princess women like you do the same EVERYDAY to wheelchair users.

@MNHQ this post really is one of the ableist things ever written on here - accusing people with disabilities of bullying because they would like access to spaces that they've campaigned and fought for and it's the only safe space on a bus for a wheelchair.

More and more users of this site are becoming more ableist and there is at least 1 post every week on this matter.

@MNHQ you can't let the vile comments about people with disabilities go unchecked any longer.

Any poster making ableist comments should be banned for a set period of time.

I immediately thought of safe spaces for women when I read this - women and wheelchair users being told to fuck off out of the safe spaces created for them to level an uneven playing field and to help keep them safe, by selfish, entitled people simply because they are bigger or can shout louder than the group needing the space and to be kept safe.

@ItsReallyNotOk I agree with most of that apart from "it's not a space of pushchairs" because it clearly says "buggies may use this area however please move or fold if a wheelchair needs the space"

That's the issue the area has been made to be shared when clearly it needs to be a strict policy for wheelchairs only.

@MoonlightMistletoe it's unclear to me whether there is a back story and he had perhaps refused access before - and perhaps when she hadn't been abusive. We just don't know. In any case he had no right to tell buggy users not to move out of the designated wheelchair space and no right to comment on previous interaction with her.

It's an internet forum, unless the lady happens to stumble upon this thread and everyone trusts her responses to be 100% true then no one will ever know, so what's the point in speculating. The OP has stated that she will be more mindful of people who require access to these spaces in the future as a result of posters on this thread putting across their experiences etc which I think is great, and hopefully it has informed some others who have now also realised and will change their behaviour. Despite her probable frustrations it was wrong for the woman to shout at the OP, but it's easy to see how it reaches that point when everyday tasks are made ridiculously challenging and frustrating.

@ilovesooty I honestly wouldn't know because I don't know them all I know is he told us not to move because he decided he wasn't allowing her on due to her abusive behaviour at that specific time.

This woman decided to record innocent people instead of keeping the man in the wheelchair safe! She then yanked him up and told him to get up. You know some carers can be horrible, just like you hear stories on the news about professional carers neglecting their patients.

Absolutely ridiculous. Regardless what my husband is, I'm just stating what he's been told. And it's not just a wheelchair space.

Why should someone who's paid for their journey get off?

@ItsReallyNotOk If you read my post I clearly said if the bus is packed/busy.

Of course, pushchairs should be collapsed and moved IF SAFE to do so and there is enough space.

I was simply stating, that no-one has to get off the bus and stop their journey to allow a wheelchair to come on if it's too packed up. And that's facts. Contact RatPDev London united and hear it for yourself.

Can someone tell me what @steakandmantoo said before it was deleted.

I'm paraphrasing I think here but didn't the legal case agree the space was for wheelchair users but that the driver could not be made to force passengers to comply (could a police officer??) in that case steak?it has nothing to do with having paid or not, it all comes down to the gumption of the driver. Am not frankly surprised that your DH tries to weasel out of his moral requirements.

It's very hard to reverse a sense of entitlement and sadly many now do feel entitled to take large unfolded buggies on busses.

@gingersausage I basically said that don't let anyone bully you out of your space, if it's going to be unsafe to do so.

It has happened plenty, I've witnessed, a packed bus, mother's feel obliged to move because of wheelchair user getting aggressive, the bus is overcrowded and you have a mother holding a baby standing while also holding her collapsed pushchair.

If that mother fell or anyone was hurt the DRIVER WOULD BE LIABLE. Hence why drivers don't enforce it. Simple as.

Ideally that mother should do whatever women with babies used to do on busses before taking buggies unfolded became normal

I HAD to use a bus a few weeks ago. My pushchair is very lightweight and folds easily so when two other prams bulldozed un with their travel system (think bugaboo donkey) etc I actually started folding up due to the driver asking me. I stood there while the driver continued to let more people on and my toddler was being squished while I'm holding my folded up pram (egg quail) I got off and vowed to myself to never use a bus again. SO I DO understand the frustration at some mothers entitlement but I'm just stating that in some situations, that no-one has to get off. And even in my situation, my husband told me, I didn't have to move to allow another user to fit in when there wasn't enough space.. that's why I asked him and his colleague about instances to do with wheelchair users blah blah

I don't feel entitled for me it's the norm to get on the bus with my buggy because when I first had my children no one collapsed buggies before hand. I do remember my mum folding the pram with my youngest sibling, does anyone know when the folding buggies stopped?

@ItsReallyNotOk wheelchair users simply don’t have any safe spaces. As I’ve mentioned already, people think it’s ok to touch my chair, lean on my chair, attempt to push my chair out of their way, and on one memorable occasion sit on the arm of my chair. How many able-bodied people would stand for being touched like this? For having their personal space invaded in this way? Yet as a cripple, I’m expected to shut up and put up because heaven forbid I come across as “aggressive” or “entitled” or think I deserve special treatment.

Some of the replies on here are truly baffling.

Those people saying "ITS A WHEELCHAIR SPACE NOBODH ELSE IS ALLOWED NEAR IT" - are you seriously suggesting that if a bus was packed to the rafters and there was no space left for anyone else to get on (with or without buggies), other than the space reserved for wheelchairs, then the driver should refuse to let anymore passengers on.....until they reach a stop where there's a passenger with a wheelchair, then they're allowed to get on. But if nobody with a wheelchair needs to get on for the rest of the journey, the driver has refused other passengers for absolutely no reason.

As opposed to allowing people to use the space, UNTIL ITS NEEDED FOR A WHEELCHAIR. Which is the sensible, decent thing to do.

Some people are fucking ridiculous.

OP - you did nothing wrong.

@gingersausage woah why on earth are you calling yourself a cripple, that's heartbreaking to hear you call yourself that! You are a human being and I can't believe people actually do that, well I can believe it after this thread but seriously please tell me you tell them to get the fuck off of you!

I know it's not the same but I been on trams where people are literally breathing on your neck and that's infuriating so can't imagine how I'd feel with someone basically sitting on top of me!