Police could be called as a last resort to move parents who refuse to fold away pushchairs to make room for wheelchair users on buses.
Peter Shipp, chairman and chief executive of EYMS, says the firm faces prosecution under disability laws if drivers fail to give reasonable assistance to a wheelchair user to board a bus.Because drivers have no power to force a passenger to move. So they can only ask, and that is deemed by
Mr Shipp says he intends to clarify the firm's position, including possibly changing the firm's conditions of carriage, following rhetoric from a Leeds-based law firm threatening action against companies who fail to ensure places are available for wheelchair users.Lovely! That'll help the perception of the disabled, won't it?
He said: "This is a difficult one for us.
We are sympathetic to both parents who struggle with pushchairs and wheelchair users.
"We have to rely on the co-operation of passengers."And if manners and regard for others still held sway, that'd be no problem.
But he's up against two entitled groups here, both the disabled and ... mothers. Particularly a certain type of 'the world owes me a living because I've reproduced' mother:
Mr Shipp's comments have angered some who insist they need space for pushchairs.
Emma Smith, 18, of Southcoates Lane, east Hull, who was waiting for a bus in Holderness Road, yesterday lunchtime, said: "I think it's disgusting. Mums need to use the buses as much as disabled people.
"I have been asked to get off a bus before so a disabled person can get on. It's wrong."Is it? You chose to need that pushchair. The person in the wheelchair didn't.
9 comments:
Whilst it's true that the mother chose to have a child and therefore a pushchair (this statement obviously doesn't apply to professional mothers) it could also be said that there is no more room on the bus so first come - first served should apply.
If this means that a disabled person cannot get on the bus then welcome to the world where disabled people wanted to be treated just like everybody else.
I don't travel a lot on the bus.
However I do so at a couple of times a month at least and I have never seen this ever.
We once had to do this with our son when he was in a pushchair and did it without complaining
Two shrouded Somali ladies. Very large pushchair. Very large pram. Meet extra large wheelchair with user in bling and yardie helper. I love victim Bingo on the 43!
The problem could be , if not solved at least mightily eased, if Bus Companies took a leaf out of the airlines' handbook and starting charging parents with pushchairs, say, a fiver extra for transporting their 3 wheeled,schimano braked,McPherson strutted Bratmobile. How many Mother's would suddenly rediscover the papoose/kiddy rucksack or light weight, foldable-with-one-flick 'stroller' buggy?
I don't think most wheelchair users have much of an Entitlement feeling to be honest (and it's wheelchair users in general we are talking about here not the 'disabled' per se). Most of the younger wheelchair users I know (my own 23 year old son, a spaz, included) don't have a feeling of 'Its my due' rather 'I am going to TAKE what I NEED and you can fuck off back to whatever home failed to teach you basic manners'. Being a wheelchair user in this country means constantly having to fight for very basic 'rights' and EXPECTING NOTHING...and very often not getting anything.
An example,if you park your car half on the pavement so that a wheelchair can barely get past-if at all-and your average cripple these days will die trying to get past...at the cost of your paint job! You wouldn't believe the damage a carbon fibre wheelchair can do to car body lacquer- it can be hundreds of pounds worth of a lesson in consideration for others...as a couple of our local rice-cooker modders found out to their costs.
Let's add some bicycles to that mix.
Bunny
The link to Mail article about the mother called Jack, sorry love but if you are on a low income and have a choice between feeding your child or having tattoos, the child comes first. As Cait bloody Reilly one of the commentators underneath said she was a victim, she had a degree in library studies and was working as an intern. Note to muppet who said that, she has a degree in geology and turned down a 100k+ job in Oz because she liked working as a volunteer in a pen museum.
Pen Museum? Pah! I'd turn down A MILLION ENGLISH POUNDS a year to work as an unpaid intern here: http://www.barometerworld.co.uk/
If its got wheels, it belongs on the ROAD, NOT on a fucking bus!
"...it could also be said that there is no more room on the bus so first come - first served should apply."
In a survival of the fittest society maybe. But (excluding the ones who play on disability), my generation was still brought up to offer help where needed...
"I love victim Bingo on the 43!"
LOL!
"...if Bus Companies took a leaf out of the airlines' handbook and starting charging parents with pushchairs, say, a fiver extra for transporting their 3 wheeled,schimano braked,McPherson strutted Bratmobile."
My god, I can imagine the screams of Outrage! right now... :D
"Pen Museum? Pah! I'd turn down A MILLION ENGLISH POUNDS a year to work as an unpaid intern here"
Everyone should have a hobby... ;)
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