to want to use the bus like everyone else?

[toddlertamer20]

Hi,
I'm a single mum of 3, live in london and am now reliant on a wheelchair. I use buses to get around as I don't drive. I'm just getting so sick and tired of people being so incredibly selfish on buses. Wheelchairs have the priority, as obviously we cannot fold, however, as I have found out in the last few years, if there are prams on board and they refuse to fold...there is not much the driver can do as they can't be physically removed.
Most of the time, if a bus comes along with 2 prams, I will wait for the next bus. But sometimes I have to be somewhere and considering that is the only spot I am able to use on the bus, I feel like I should be allowed to use it. Everytime I insist that I need to get on it either a)end up with an argument eith the driver as he won't ask people to move or fold their prams....then a call to TFL who apologise and promise the educate the driver again.
b) I get let on but then the people with the pram won't move and argue with me, one of these times the driver was oblivious that I was mid gangway still and pulled off causing me to be thrown into a pole and break my arm. Or c) They just pull off and don't even attempt to let me on or put the ramp down.
Today again I ended up in a big argument. I needed to get a bus to get my youngest from school. The bus didn't come for ages. It eventually came but 3 buggies were on board, one without a child in it. The driver tried to tell me the next bus would be along in 20 minutes to which I said I couldn't. So he played the announcement asking the people to move their buggies. Then suddenly another passenger comes to the door and informs me that I need to wait as the people with the prams were there first. So I told him that actually by law I have priority, and I need to be on this bus. He then proceeds to tell me how I just need to wait and can't just get on and kick people off. At this point I was late already to get my child from school, so I did insist I got on. In the end I was allowed on bus got a mouthful off both the parents with the prams. I just don't know if it's me. I can understand it's frustrating if you're on a bus and suddenly you have to move or fold your pram up, but I cannot fold my wheelchair. It feels like everyone thinks I am in the wrong when I'm trying my best to just be a normal mother! Please tell me there aren't just selfish people put there...or is this honestly just me?
(by the way I do try to leave super early to make sure I have plenty of time to get there but then I am also waiting outside in the cold and I have problems with my joints so not a good combination)

@Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious

Nope... and no one has ever made me get off. I have an unseen disability but I don't need to explain that to you or anyone else on the bus. 😬

I'm a great advocate of women with prams (disproportionately poorer women) being able to use the wheelchair spaces when not required by wheelchair users. DC1 was a baby when Ken introduced wheelchair/pushchair accessible buses and it was revolutionary. The answer to "how did women manage before" was to a great extent "they didn't go places, or they spent much longer walking".

My practical suggestion would be for the bus companies to mount a big poster campaign, saying:
"Wheelchair spaces are designed for wheelchair users. They are provided by law for this purpose. To make parents' lives easier they are permitted to use these spaces with pushchairs on the c.95% of journeys where they're not needed for wheelchair users.
BUT IN RETURN YOU HAVE TO VACATE THEM WHEN REQUIRED. THESE ARE THE RULES."

Or ideally something more eye catching and memorable that will be noticed by people without skin in the game.

Some people will always be selfish or desperate and try to brazen it out. But improving bystanders' awareness of the rules should reduce the number of unpleasant incidents the OP faces where the other passengers don't back her up.

That stroller is £194 on Amazon? You must have got a fabulous deal to get it for less than 1/4 of the current selling price!

Hopefully if you were ever in that situation the driver would do their legal duty and kick your selfish arse off.

Are you saying that your needs to get on a bus trump a wheelchair user?

You don't need a wheelchair space for an unseen disability

But parents aren't paying for the space. Wheelchair users are. The parent pays for their ticket but those buggies not only take up the space of two people standing but the child doesn't even pay a fare as kids go free. So it's a double piss take.

@OnTheRunWithMannyMontana

Well if I have my child with me in a pram, then I DO need that space.

I see where you're coming from. Sincerely. But you need a wheelchair, you mention your child has ASD. Some children cannot be safely removed from a pram on public transport to fold it up? Such as some children with ASD or other impairments?

I’m assuming you are joking. Having a pram isn’t a protected characteristic.

Why? What unseen disability entitles you to use a space designed for wheelchair users and trumps their need for the space?

Utter nonsense. If you can walk you get your ass out of the space if a wheelchair user needs it too.

How utterly selfish. You chose to have a baby. Do you imagine OP chose to be disabled? And you will be past these problems within a year or so, OP will still be in a wheelchair dealing with the next batch of entitled parents.

Would you get off if the driver refused to move until you do?

People with prams don't need those spaces, you can get a foldable pushchair. You're just a selfish and entitled person.

This is great! And works if there are seats available on the bus. If not I don't know.

It doesn't help me especially because as I say my kids are older now. But I do know that when they were small (with a small age gap) I spent so much anxiety on getting on the bus and tried so many different buggies that would somehow be easy to fold, get down the narrow aisle and carry while on the bus - also while not pissing other people off for taking too long or jostling them with my bags or my toddler that I do really sympathise with parents who find it difficult - while acknowledging that they 100% should make room for the wheelchair user. I had pnd and and the prospect of having to do it really did stop me leaving the house once or twice.

As an aside I think I experienced one person offer to help me in the bus over my many many bus journeys and about five or six make judgemental comments about putting toddlers on a lead. Times have changed.

thats why prams and buggys should not be allowed to use the wheelchair space.

That doesn't entitle you to use the wheelchair space and does mean that the bus driver is perfectly entitled to insist that you get off.

Your pram needs that space more than my wheelchair.

It's more important for you to keep your child in a pram and watch me either not be able to get on the bus or crawl up the aisle out of my chair???

Are you a troll or something cos you seem to just be here to wind people up!

I can remember my DM moaning about the logistics of hoicking my toddler DB (now 57) out of his pushchair, grabbing hold of his reins with one hand before he legged it into the road, and collapsing the pushchair with one hand and a foot, then praying the conductor might help her lug the pushchair onto the platform of the bus and into the space under the stairs.

People with small babies who needed to use buses used to have prams that were like a carrycot with a separate chassis. They had to lift the carry cot bit out and put it on the ground, fold up the chassis and put it on the bus, then get on with the baby in the carry cot. If they were lucky, they could put it on a seat, but I recall seeing women on the bus with a carry cot on the floor at their feet.

When the "deckchair" buggies came out, my DM was so jealous that they weren't around when we were kids. Wheelchair spaces on buses weren't a thing then. Wheelchair users were pretty much excluded from public transport.

Mind you, I found it very exciting travelling in the guard's van on trains when my DB was very small. He had a massive Silver Cross pram, and there was no way you could get one of those on a 1960s train, so we all had to go in the guard's van.

Seriously? It's a space designated for wheelchairs, carrying a sign saying that it must be vacated if a wheelchair user needs it. And you really think that deciding that wheelchair user should use it rather than the buggy user in unfair discrimination?

honestly i know its a pain but we should be taking the license and time of every bs driver who refuses to enforce this rule, its absolutely ridiculous that they won't do their jobs on this!

but if two kids dont press their oysters they're willing to shutdown the bus for half an hour to prove a point. what deluded priorities.

"You will not be asked to leave the bus, but you may choose to do so."

The driver CANNOT make a pram user get off the bus. They can refuse to drive off until pigs fly - but that is MY RIGHT to stay on.

tfl.gov.uk/transport-accessibility/getting-around-with-your-buggy

No, you don't. It is a space specifically designated for wheelchair users. You can just get off the bus if the person for whom the space was designated needs it.

@OnTheRunWithMannyMontana so I'm a troll because I disagree with OP ? Sorry that's my opinion and sorry if you feel wound up.

Yep selfish and entitled.