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?

My 9 year old is in a wheelchair and I never expect any special treatment. I've been there myself with babies and buggies so know it's not easy.
If there are buggies occupying the spaces when the bus pulls up and no room for my child's wheelchair, we just wait for the next bus.
It's no big deal. Certainly nothing to scream and shout about.

Waiting for the next bus is fine if it is the wheelchair users choice but it should never be expected. Some wheelchair users will have conditions where waiting is going to be a bigger problem than it will be for others.

Can you back that up, please?

The first trial of low floor buses, which were also the first to provide spaces for wheelchairs was in 1993. Prior to that, generally buggies needed to be folded so space was not provided. The trial was in response to consultation on upcoming legislation for those with disabilities.

DDA act of 1995 made it compulsory to provide a wheelchair space.

Prior to that, space at the front of buses was generally for standing passengers and luggage. When legislation lowered the number of standing passengers on a bus, these spaces were initially filled with seats but are now allocated as wheelchair spaces.

The addition of buggy signage to the wheelchair space is relatively recent. Same is true of the re-provision of some disabled toilets as “family spaces” or baby change. Businesses have recognised a need but are taking short cuts to provide by commandeering spaces hard fought for by disabled people.

Attitudes like yours make it easy for them to do that.

It's no big deal. Certainly nothing to scream and shout about.

The next bus is an hour and that has a buggy on it too. You wait again?

I’m teaching my disabled child that equity and equality is her right. That she isn’t a second class citizen. That sometimes her needs do come first and she will spend her life fighting for that. The mum in the buggy has a choice, she doesn’t. I also teach her that sometimes others’ needs are greater and she needs to compromise. That doesn’t include waiting an hour for the next bus because a baby is asleep in a pram.

MintyMabel

Could you provide links to that information so I can ascertain whether I agree that it’s factually correct? I remember buggy spaces on buses so at the moment I am not in agreement that what I remember is “bollocks”. It could be, but I will need that to be demonstrated with more than your word.

@churchandstate

Google it.

MintyMabel

Nah.

@churchandstate, and yet you expect it to be demonstrated with your word 🙄.

@MintyMabel I’m glad you are teaching your daughter that she is equal to able bodied people. That is exactly what we are, equal. Not better, or more important, we just want the same experiences. Sometimes though, getting the same things for a wheelchair user might mean slightly inconveniencing an able-bodied person. Luckily 99.99% of them understand this; the rest of them are on this thread.

But anyway, what you said is exactly what I mean: even if they weren’t labelled “pushchair seat”, they were clearly available to all, not just wheelchair users

No it isn't - the seats I'm describing were, as I said, just regular seats near the door. There was no "space" by the seat, nor was it folding. It was a bog standard seat with priority for disabled, pregnant women and people carrying small child because it was close to the exit point.

The only space for buggies was storage space where they had to be folded (and we were not allowed on the bus without them being folded).

No space was removed from parents and allocated to wheelchair users. At least not in my part of the world.

I think buses round my way have two buggy spaces plus a wheelchair space that can be used by a third buggy if a wheelchair user isn’t in it.
I’m a mum (my dc are well past buggy age though) and sometimes use a wheelchair. I’d never want a mum to be thrown off a bus so I could get on it! And regardless of anything else the woman in the op should not have abused anyone, and the driver was well within his rights not to let her on.
I do hope the poor man was ok though.

@Stayingstrong24 it’s lovely that you are so considerate but special treatment for your son would be a bus where only he could board.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable or special treatment using the one space that has been specifically allocated for his needs even if it inconveniences a mum like me. It’s his space not mine.

Perhaps I am a snowflake then cos I don't want my newborn babies in umbrella pushchairs

Why on earth not? So long as they lie flat and have a head cushion in place. How on earth do you think babies survived before pushchairs turned into chelsea tractors?

and I don't see logistically how i hold twins in my arms plus a nappy bag in one hand whilst folding and carrying the pushchair with the other and carrying it all in the bus a few weeks post C Section

Nappy bags generally went over shoulders but typically we asked someone to hold a bag or do the collapse for us or hold a child. I was never refused and I don't recall anyone else being refused a hand in that situation. It was just normal.

@churchandstate, and yet you expect it to be demonstrated with your word 🙄.

Eh? I said I remembered something, someone else said it was “bollocks”, and I am asking for evidence of that before I believe it. Nobody has to demonstrate anything to me if they don’t want to.

and yet you expect it to be demonstrated with your word 🙄

And based on “I remember” no less 🤣

@gingersausage it is a tough thing to do. She’s only ten but is having to learn social nuances which most kids don’t have to even think about.

Tougher still because we are also trying to teach her that she is, in many ways, no different to her peers. And in fact there are some, who are entirely able bodied who have way less advantage than she does.

She seems to be getting it 😄

C8H10N4O2

I see. Well, it was different where I was.

And based on “I remember” no less

What the heck else am I meant to rely on if not what I remember? The unsupported word of a random on the internet? No thank you.

I am asking for evidence of that before I believe it.

Because you are too lazy to google it.

You seem to have many opinions about the rights of people with disabilities despite being ignorant of the fact the 1995 DDA act exists.

Nappy bags generally went over shoulders but typically we asked someone to hold a bag or do the collapse for us or hold a child. I was never refused and I don't recall anyone else being refused a hand in that situation. It was just normal.

You should not be forced to rely on strangers holding your children or property to manoeuvre them safely onto public transport.

*MintyMabel

I am not “too lazy” to google it. The onus is on the person telling me my memory is bollocks (you) to demonstrate their claim, not on me to go ferreting round the internet for evidence.

The unsupported word of a random on the internet? No thank you.

It is supported. You are choosing not to bother looking because it suits you not to have to learn anything, you can remain ignorant and continue to treat disabled people with disdain.

@MintyMabel you mean where I said I was thankful that the policy of not being allowed on a bus unless your pram is folded doesn’t exist in my area? That’s a significant way short of expressing ‘how appalled I am’ that the policy exists elsewhere, and can only assume that your interpretation of my post is heavily biased by your own preconceived views/experiences.

This isn’t - or shouldn’t be - a competition about who deserves to be left stuck at home and isolated the most. Nobody does. For that reason I am grateful that in my particular area there is no need for either new mothers recovering from birth injuries or surgeries OR persons in wheelchairs to automatically lose out when it comes to bus journeys. You get on with your pram and thereafter EITHER fold it OR if you can’t, get off the bus, if a disabled person needs the wheelchair space. It is that simple. You are therefore not effectively barred from public transport if you are a new mum who can’t physically fold a pram and juggle two kids OR if you are in a wheelchair. Basically if we all don’t act like arseholes to others who have a different struggle to us, it works.

And as I keep repeating and you keep flossing over.... a person in a wheelchair should always get the wheelchair space on the bus above a pram. Hope this helps clarify 🤦‍♀️

The onus is on the person telling me my memory is bollocks (you) to demonstrate their claim

It really isn’t. Only lazy people think that.

you mean where I said I was thankful that the policy of not being allowed on a bus unless your pram is folded doesn’t exist in my area?

Yes, that bit. The one that is designed to ensure buggies aren’t in wheelchair spaces and people don’t have to rely on others to give them the space they are legally entitled to.

MintyMabel

Of course it is. Why should I make your argument for you?

You should not be forced to rely on strangers holding your children or property to manoeuvre them safely on public transport
Why? I really don’t see the problem. You choose the person to help you wisely, surely? I’m disabled but can walk. I really don’t see the problem with strangers helping out. When dd was a toddler and waiting for a hospital bed, a lady held dd in her arms and she went to sleep. That was a great help.