that huge buggies should be banned from buses

[donkeyderby]

I was on the bus yesterday, and a woman got on pushing her child in an oversized buggy that took up four fold-up seat spaces.

AIBU to think that if you travel regularly by bus, you should invest in a cheap umbrella-style pushchair that takes only one space up?

That's a bit odd!

I bought two cheap buggies - a graco travel system and a maclaren. I spend under £200 on both of them. Cheaper than a Quinny Buzz I believe. The graco travel system is now on its 3rd baby

I only ever took the big pushchair when I was going to the park which I would never need to get the bus to/from. So not lucky, just planning

I don't have an issue with people with 3 kids with a big buggy but with one DC, it's a bit much on the bus and it's even worse on Camden High Street!

my buzz was £285

And there are def lightweight foldable buggies suitable for newborns for those posters protesting that they don't exist. I have a graco mojo that lies flat, folds small and onehanded and is perfect for PT. Cheap too. There are also mant dif maclarens that are ideal.
Not quite the "hey look at me with my fuck off status symbol buggy, I've got a bay-bee doncha know" of a bugaboo or a stokke though I guess.

you only took the big pushchair to the park - what a waste!!!

My big pushchair was bought for walking places............. occasionally you would find that to get back again you had to catch a bus (for various reasons - notably phone calls from schools asking you to go and pick one my other children up because they were unwell).

Also if I visited friends in the next town, long trek to town, bus, long trek to friends house.

Didn't have money or space for 2 pushchairs at home.

So you're allowed to have a big buggy if you have 3 children, but not it you only have one

I was given my Quinny, so didn't pay anything for it.

Graco Travel System and cheaper MacClarens - neither are big pushchairs though are they??

lol just had a look at the Graco Mojo - that wouldn't have survived 6 months with the use I have given all my pushchairs. Foolishly bought a Citi Sport for DS2 when my Hauck Infinity chasis collapsed and broke, was a bad mistake lol

oh runnybottom they exist...but they lack suspension I couldnt have dds head at 0-6 mouths bobbling around down there.

I have a quinny zapp, Bruin (lightweight umbrella fold) and a chicco lite way...now shes older find umbrealla folds much better (shopping basket, hood, foot rest, etc..)

When she was born we had the graco luxery travel system - that lasted 2 months before I sold it...too big, then landed with a 2nd hand redkite 3 wheeler, lovely pushchair, but broke in end after 6 months, then had sister chicco ct.01 travel system...was okay...now the end result an umbrrella fold, small, compact and lite weight and goes with my dress sense lol. WOuldnt use it for a small baby though. The mojo looks just perfect as a travel system for baby when small, and a umbrella fold style when older..cant argue with that.

To be fair toccata I live in London and a big pushchair is a pita here. It did get a lot of use when I was visiting my parents and walking the mile to the nursery and back - at quiet times of day it was great. And it folded up pretty small so not a problem in my small flat with an umbrella fold next to it. I think it's different when you're outside London but here I think really big prams/buggies that don't fold are a status symbol because they're actually bloody inconvenient. Well I assume so by the rows of Bugaboos I see lined up on Hampstead Heath with locks on them

I did take it on the tube a few times because we were going out for the day and that was awful - I struggled on escalators and this woman leaned on the handle once when it was parked in the pushchair space and nearly catapaulted my LO out!

I have a Quinny Buzz and I live in London. I need a big buggy to because I have an extraordinary large child - he's perfectly healthy, I am 6" 1" and DH is 6"6".

We need a pushchair with high handlebars, it was very difficult for us to find a pushchair that didn't make us stoop.

I use the tube and buses regularly and I am glad that I have big buggy as people are so bloody rude and careless all they see bloody buggy and consider there is a small child in there. I am grateful for the big metal frame that offers more protection than a standard umbrells puschair as people are always stumbling into and bashing our buggy with their bags and they don't give a damn.

Im sitting reading here and it making me somewhat , why does everyone else think they can judge a baby in a pushchair, even tho they cannot sit or walk etc (depending on age)!

Ive read on here countless of times, that OUR children come last in the queuing for a bus, just because they NEED a chair to get to A&B, why is it acceptable here that others wants overcome a child's need for travel!
I physically could not carry my 2st son and my 2 stone toddler to their hospital appointments! (not including WC/SN)

Its ridiculous argument tbh, the bus provides a service for pushchair users, so were going to use those services, Im sure bus companies are not going to invest million in adapting buses to suit WC/pushchair users if it was not a worthwhile and needed y the public!

oh shall we all just apologise for our choice of pram!?

not allowed to bully anyone for ff cos its the mothers choice. well my fuck off status symbol look at me buggy was my choice too.

(swallows massive rant)

YABU. undertheboredwalk said all I really wanted to say on the first page, apart from I think there should be more than one space for pushchair/wheelchairs too. I'm quite happy to move my pushchair for a wheelchair, but when I was on the bus in Edinburgh last year, having done just that, another wheelchair user was unable to get on the bus because the sole space was already occupied.

(Edinburgh has some right steep hills for those that don't know it)

What irritated me in the rush hour yesterday was on the tube - I get on at the start of the line, so the train starts empty (but fills up v v rapidly). A woman got on the train with a buggy and sat in one of the end seats with the buggy, a little foldable thing, next to her. Then she got her toddler to come and sit in the seat next to her. I tend to think that under fives should sit on a parent's lap wherever possible on packed public transport (I always had to sit on my mum's lap under five, and was never allowed to sit if an adult was standing when I was young!), but if the toddler did have a seat of her own then I couldn't understand why the mum couldn't fold the buggy. It sat there taking up loads of room while everyone was squeezed in under each others' elbows.

Flying Duchess - you got lucky then. As I have had several different umbrella/easy fold pushchairs (small wheeled things) and not ONE of them has survived the amount of walking/hanging shopping on it I do.

And all of them (perhaps Citi Sport excluded?) were much harder to push over the distances I cover(ed) than my big 3 wheelers.........and snow - well........

I do not drive, and I will walk somewhere if it is within about 30 minutes walking distance, but other than that I have to use the bus.

I do not see why I should get a cheap little umbrella fold buggy. They tend to have a tiny no use basket, and I need to be able to put shopping somewhere! Also, I did use one once, a friends, and I felt every little bump that we rolled over, do not even want to think of the poor mite sat in the ruddy thing, with tiny little flimsy wheels! And they do not tend to lie flat, not the cheapest umbrella style ones anyway, they do not recline at all, and there is nothing I hate more that my child being asleep, with his chin mushed into his chest, and hearing his every breath!

Well, now I have the two, a toddler and a 8 month old, and I tend to carry the baby and have DS in the buggy. But I've had occasion to use a double pram on the bus, and I hate it! Feel like everyone is looking at me tutting, and it appears some are!

I would much prefer to get the train into town tbh, more space, less time! But my local train station, has no lifts, just steep steps! I would have to go down the steps, onto the platform, up the steps, over the bridge, and down the steps again to the other platform!! With a 2 year old, and 8 months old and a puschair. But that is an issue for another thread!

my buggy my life my child my choice

my total disregard for anyone else

21st century self self self self

I have a huge doublebuggy and no car I have to use the bus and I can't afford to buy a new buggy. yabu

Good point about high handles being needed - and as for Emster begrudging why a mum couldn't fold up the buggy and why the toddler had a seat.

Consider this -

You don't know how long or short their journey was

What kind of day the mum has had

Whether she is ok to stand or not

So cut her some slack I don't think she is the cause of everyone being squeezed under each others' elbows - overcrowding on trains is another isse.

Next time why don't you engage with her and ask her and see - rather than just doing a rant about it.

I don't begrduge a toddler taking a seat on the tube - at all!!! [shock}

Riven, we are extremely lucky here, we done this last year, and now all our buses are easy accessible.

We have a fab policy here with our local bus company that if a easy access bus is not available for whatever reasons, the company provide a taxi for W/C users.

www.simplygo.com/

Just a comment on what Flying Duchess said also, buses can legally only take 1 wheelchair and one pushchair on the buses, (or 2 w/c and 2 P/C IF THE p/c OR w/c space are not in use) its at the drivers discretion to allow others onto the bus, but also they will not be insured.

So even if a pushchair was in that was massive and took 4 seats, and the other side was being used also by a wheelchair or pushchair user. Its irrelevant if the chair was the size of a bus, legally only 2 can get into a bus at any one time!

Do you know your own bus service policy on this (probably a daft question) but if the bus is full with one W/C user and your travelling with your DD then surely the bus company should provide another service for you ALL to travel together, due to your personal security.

I Would also deem is discriminatory to you and your dd for not being able to travel together? as other mothers and daughter can travel together, but due to your circumstances, the buses companies are getting in the way of this. I know this is why our bus company has went to this measures.