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?

@gingersausage

how the hell was the wheelchair user going to get on the bloody bus without his carer? Were you going to wheel him on? No because you can’t leave your children. Was the bus driver going to get out of the bus, pick him out of the gutter, put him back in his chair and get him on the bus?? Nope. Was anyone else on the bus going to get off their arse and help him?? Let me think...no!

So what was your point here?

@MintyMabel That makes sense.

YANBU. That woman was incredibly rude.

I agree that when a wheelchair user needs the space, the buggy should be folded. What I don’t agree on is that mums with little babies should stand in the bus whilst holding the baby. This can be really dangerous in case of even a sudden stop. Babies are much more vulnerable and I think in these cases, the mum should get a seat or the baby should stay in the buggy.

I don’t live in the UK and travel here regularly with DS (who is a baby) by train or bus and we are - among elderly, pregnant ladies and disabled people - entitled to the use of a priority seat for exactly this reason. If I am on the train and not with DS and I see a mum with a baby in a sling who has no space to sit down, I will her offer my seat.

I wouldn’t recommend standing with a baby no. The bus I was in the other day slammed to a stop when a young cyclist casually rode in front. People and objects went flying I was relieved that dd was in the pram.

@MarshaBradyo

Exactly this kind of scenario is what comes to mind if you think about the dangers...

@MoonlightMistletoe You keep saying that you're allowed to be in the wheelchair area, despite wheelchair users on the thread telling you that you being there with an unfolded buggy makes their lives more difficult. In this situation, it contributed to the man not being able to get on the bus, because (although the carer was dreadfully in the wrong to behave as she did) the carer recognised that there would be a delay (and potentially antagonism) in getting into the space that is a legal right for wheelchair users. The carer's behaviour is a red herring. Yes it was atrocious. Yes she was wrong to abuse and film you, and to pull the man as she did. The bigger picture is that carers and wheelchair users face this problem every day, and buggies being in the wheelchair space is causing it.

I understand that your response is that if buggies have to be folded then parents can't get on the bus - and that wheelchair users need to stand with you to fight that. They don't. They've fought. It'd be nice if they did, but they don't have to. Parents need to have this fight, to remove seats from the general part of the bus and redistribute them to buggy users.

That's why your insistence that you're allowed to do something and have no other choice but to do it, are getting backs up.

I'm not a wheelchair user so those that are - please feel free to tell me to shut up and get back in my lane. I just feel really strongly about this issue.

@ScreamedAtTheMichelangelo

So really what people are saying is "my life's difficult because buggies are aloud to be in the space unfolded until a wheelchair user needs the space" that to me is saying wheelchair users are having the problems, now I know there was a campaign but clearly it's not good enough so therefore need to Campaign again to make sure it's a strict policy for their own sakes, a wheelchair ONLY space. At the same time if anyone has a problem folding their buggies then they do the same.

Otherwise things won't change.

@Honeybee85 Thankyou for acknowledging that woman's actions.

I think people's responses to what you've said would be "fold before getting on the bus", which I don't think people will do as there is a space that can be used unless needed for a wheelchair. I guess this is why people say to campaign for our own spaces. Also the bus drivers don't tell you to fold if that space is free before hand. So to me the whole wheelchair campaign isn't strong enough.

And what you're saying @MoonlightMistletoe is: "I know that wheelchair users campaigned for many years to get wheelchair spaces put in, at a time when buggies were always folded. Parents then decided that these new spaces were so convenient for their buggies that they'd nab them for themselves. Despite not seeing this coming, wheelchair users now need to go and campaign again to stop parents from taking spaces that only exist because of the first campaign. In the meantime parents should just carry on as they're allowed to do what they're doing, and maybe campaign as well if they want to."

Is that helping you to see why people might still be angry with your attitude?

I think it also has to do with the mentality that mums shouldn’t complain and just get on with it.
I have read some horror stories about maternity wards on MN and if mums are already treated so badly right after labour, it doesn’t come as a surprise that they are not being treated with much courtesy in other aspects of life. The story of the poster who had to take her baby to the hospital every day and who had to leave the bus regulary because she couldn’t take the baby out of the pram nor walk for medical reasons is just incredibly sad and a ‘good’ example of this.

Honeybee
But that’s an example of where the pram should be treated “as a wheelchair”. Provision can be made for this scenario.

I agree with you that parents with babes in arms should not stand as it is dangerous. This again is something, which can be legislated for rather than parents keeping their baby in a pram.

That's not what I'm saying at all @ScreamedAtTheMichelangelo ,

Firstly it wasn't just a random mum who stuck that sign on the bus that said "buggy users may use this space" it's whoever made the policy, so whoever makes the rules has not done a good job at giving wheelchair users exactly what they NEED , being a wheelchair ONLY space. So if the first campaign isn't working then people need to stop shouting and trying to be heard by the people who are just doing what we've been told to do wether that's a bus driver or following the rules of the sign post it means campaign again to get what you asked for the first time!! There's that saying if first you don't succeed try try again, that's the only way!
At the same time if people with buggies have a problem with having to fold then they also need to campaign for extra space to store and sit safely with their children.
It doesn't have to be a war agains one another we can all stand together and get things done properly.
I don't say all of that to be insensitive Im not being nasty and I do care about people so please don't take what I'm saying the wrong way.

@Mummyoflittledragon

I think we have the same opinion on this.
My post was rather directed at the (in my opinion) pretty harsh POV of some posters that mums with prams are just a nuisance who take up space from wheelchair users and should just avoid taking the bus. Many mums and esspecially those with newborns are very vulnerable too in a way and deserve some slack.

so now disabled people have to campaign again??? even though they have already done it. how odd.
no answer from OP as to how the complaint to the bus company went.

Samcro
That’s because she hasn’t complained. She’s concluded again the driver was in the right.

@Samcro how in anyway is that odd. If wheelchair users are not getting what they asked for then yes go back and fight for your rights! What's the point in putting up with shit if you can shout louder at the people who made these rules? Just because you don't it before doesn't mean you sit back and suffer if something isn't working!

@Samcro @Mummyoflittledragon so you are telling me if you had a member of the public shouting at people being abusive you would have let them on???

We have discussed in great detail why you should report this driver. I’m really losing my patience now.

@Mummyoflittledragon Surprisingly the bus driver has a duty of care to the whole of the bus.

You dont know the carer wouldnt have been abusive once on the bus.So in this instance the bus driver was right.

I wouldnt be pleased to be on the bus with someone so unpredictable as the carer.

so after 6 days and 17 pages the OP is still right and nothing has changed and no complaint been made.

so what is the point of the thread? except to stir, make disabled people feel bad and insist they campaign again(the parents never will 17 years on mn and I have never seen a campaign)

Durstarr
He’s been unprofessional. He discussed this woman with op. He has condoned blocking a wheelchair user. Yes, he needs reporting. Even if he wouldn’t normally do this (which we don’t know one way or another), he did on this occasion. It can be treated as a training issue if necessary but his behaviour is not beyond reproach.

@Mummyoflittledragon maybe report the carer as well then,she put the wheelchair user in harms way.

I wouldn’t recommend standing with a baby no

There are a lot of people who shouldn’t have to stand on a bus - the frail-ish elderly for a start.

I shouldn’t have had to stand for the 6 weeks I was temporarily disabled and had a heavy cast on my arm and the use of only one arm. Yet the women sitting in the seats designated for the elderly and disabled, with their prams taking up a lot of space at the front of the bus - so much so that on a couple of days it was impossible to get through - those entitled parents didn’t give a flying fuck about any other passengers and laughed if you asked for a seat.

Those 6 weeks opened my eyes to what people with permanent disabilities go through every single day of their lives.

It made me so angry.

Or alternatively, buggy users could acknowledge that the problem exists because they're doing something that's morally wrong, stop doing it, and campaign in their own right. What you're doing is holding up your hands saying, look, we don't like it, but the policy allows us to nab your spaces and remove your legal entitlements! What can we do but go along with it? It's so wrong though - please do fight the cause again! We support you, from the bus! It's the lack of honesty that rankles.

No the frail elderly shouldn’t be standing either. I find people are good at moving in general but probably lucky. I always stand next to the pram, I’d find the priority seats too far anyway. Plus don't fold just get off so no waiting required if person in wheelchair needs to get on.

I avoid rush hour buses though, which often can be so jammed they don’t stop for anyone, pram can’t get on, the bus I use quite often is pretty much near empty.