To think that anyone can use the lifts?

[MyPlumNewt]

I’ve just been shouted at by a lady in a wheelchair and told I’m “holding up” the queue by queuing to use the lift. And then she kept shouting at me saying only disabled people or people with prams should use the lifts. AIBU to think that anyone can use the lifts if they want and not only disabled people or people with prams? I wasn’t jumping in the queue either, I was just waiting in the queue normally. The queue had 6 people in.

Not sure why you’re writing your every statement as a question but no one has said priority shouldn’t be given to wheelchair users or those with a disability.

But when you’re as rude as this person was, when there are only 6 people waiting anyway, she can wait for her turn, especially as there was no signage.

Well, I think when there's a queue, and there's someone waiting who HAS NO OTHER OPTION then yes, she should have priority and you shouldn't have gone ahead of her.

Her whole ife as a wheelchair user is slowed down by this sort of queue, behind able-bodied people who have a choice, when she doesn't. I hope at the very least, you stood aside for her, and the whole queue let her into the lift first.

YABU.

Who said OP was going down? She could have been going up.

Jog on wouldn't be very apt ,the shouty woman was in a wheelchair.
Disabled people aren't all saints nice and nasty in all people.

Even when pregnant, I always took the stairs unless is maybe 3+ floors. I think any extra cardio is beneficial.

Now I have a pram, it does irritate me when there are queues/lifts are full of people that look able bodied (I appreciate some may have hidden disability but not all).

It once took me and a lady with a walking stick 20 minutes to get from floor 1 of a car park to the ground floor because the lift kept getting full on the ground floor and there was no room by the time it reached us.

Hello @MyPlumNewt , welcome to MN.

No one should shout at anyone for no good reason, but personally I would give a wheelchair user priority.

Anyone can use a lift but if I see a wheelchair user or someone with a pram, I will give priority. Not all disabilities are visible so my ordering doesn’t particularly work but that’s just how I see it.

Out of order for someone to have a go at you though.

As someone with MS who doesn’t “look” disabled, this kind of shit drives me absolutely crazy. Invisible disabilities exist. I’ve thankfully never had someone shout at me like that, but if someone ever did they’d get a very quick and not-very-polite reminder to mind their own fucking business.

I haven’t voted and she was unreasonable to shout but at the same time I give people with mobility problems or pushchairs priorities with lifts.

My daughter is a wheelchair user so has to use a lift but we are often with her as a family so 3 to 5 able bodied people of whom only one needs to accompany my daughter for these few seconds and the excess will automatically divert to the escalators or stairs if there are people with pushchairs or wheelchairs sharing the same queue so there needs to be consideration on both sides. Another example is at airports, Ryanair and other budget airlines don’t usually pay for the airbridge so my daughter has to use the Ambilift. We need to be 2:1 with her for this as one to handle her and the other to partially dismantle the chair and carry all the gubbins that don’t go in the hold into the cabin, but we often see up to 6 family members accompanying a wheelchair or stick or frame user in the ambilift when 4 of them should just have used the normal channels leaving more space for the users it’s intended for and reducing the number of trips the ambilift has to take.

The lifts on the Elizabeth Line at Bond Street/ Davey Street are a pain and inadequate for the volume of traffic and I do internally give side eye to people carrying a couple of shopping bags using them instead of the escalators when there are always queues of pushchairs, wheelchairs and people shepherding enormous suitcases queuing at the lifts. My husband will take the escalators and meet us at the top so as to not take up space someone needs more.

I think it’s helpful that people who don’t have mobility problems or care for people with mobility problems often get a tiny taste of the obstacles we face when they have babies and toddlers. Until then you just don’t register the impact of people mounting the kerb to park on the pavement sending us into busy traffic on the road to get around if we have a light wheelchair, or if it’s a heavy powered wheelchair; sending us on a potentially long reverse and detour to find the nearest unobstructed drop kerb as taking some supportive wheelchairs down a steep kerb risks tipping them over. People think “People can get past!” - well maybe on two legs but many wheelchairs with seating systems and footplates for people with complex disabilities are wide, a lot wider than a person, a bike or a scooter.

One more suggestion; if you are sharing a hospital lift with a mother taking a very obviously poorly baby up
or down with a nasogastric tube/ oxygen/ O2 monitor up or down, please limit yourself to a quick smile at most if your eyes meet; maybe comment on his or her gorgeous eyelashes if you must but try not to stare too hard and resist your desire to comment about the poor little mite and what’s wrong with them. Their mothers are living a nightmare and rerunning through the neonatal hypoxic brain damage etc, etc, to a stranger in a lift on a rare attempt to get 10 minutes off the ward in daylight with their baby is not what they need. Even when you brightly comment that they are so resilient aren’t they! Not always they aren’t. Many die, or survive with lifelong disabilities which will have been explained to the parents. It’s a lead weight in the stomach and a knot in the throat to answer these doubtless non malicious questions but you really don’t need to ask them.

Someone else in front did offer to let her go first but she refused.

I was going up 2 levels.

Actually it doesn't as the capacity is rarely reached.

Well, you said it.

🙄🤣🙇🏻‍♀️

Have you been in every lift in the UK? The lifts in some of the shops here are quite small. A wheelchair user/pushchair and 2 able bodied people fill them. They are usually full.

I've never seen signs saying wheelchairs/pushchairs have priority. But I've rarely been in a shop big enough for a lift that doesn't also have escalators, so no-one needs to use the stairs.

Only people who consider others.

Lifts in my local shopping centre have maximum 6 people. I have seen lifts with max 4 in some shops.

Unseen 🙄
in the same way how did she know the op didn’t have any ‘unseen’ reason ?

I would allow a person in wheelchair, or someone with a stick to go before me. I would never allow someone with a pram, I have one myself so pram users can wait

😁 Roll on, perhaps?

I use a wheelchair sometimes. If I started complaining about anyone else choosing to use the lift in front of me, (not that I would because I struggle with the stairs even when I don’t need my chair) I’d firmly expect to be told to fuck right off. OP, whatever her problem was, it was her problem, not yours. The lifts are there for anyone who wants to use them and it doesn’t matter if you’re pushing a pram, you’re in a chair or you just can’t be bothered to take the stairs.

Just to put another perspective on this, I have a stick,I recently had a Knee replacement, and have already had the other knee and hip replaced a few years ago...I am waiting for ankle surgery too. I certainly don't expect priority...I can walk.
I still use the stairs in most shops and centres more often than not, especially if I'm only going up or down a couple of floors.
I would definitely not go in front of a wheelchair user, no matter where I was in a queue, because I have the option to climb the stairs, albeit slowly.

No I haven't, why, have you?

maybe you're living with the borrowers, but not all of us are.

i can't think of a single shop lift in any of the nearby towns that wouldn't fit at least 2 wheelchairs/ buggies & several standing adults.

Actually one had just came to mind, but it's in an old & almost empty shopping centre. The lifts are up to the toilets & centre admin (no shops). No escalator only a set of stairs. I've rarely bumped into another person using it. Let alone a queue 🤣🤣

Should have told her to fuck off. I don’t look disabled but I have severe anaemia and just one flight of stairs would leave me exhausted … 2 flights id be in danger of passing out so no, the lift is for everyone. Not just disabled or prams.

Why?

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