Wheelchairs versus buggies court ruling

She's made a choice about having children - a wheelchair user hasn't made a choice about being a wheelchair user. That sounds harsh but it won't be forever - unlike the wheelchair user. Taxis, online shopping, help from you....??

My daughter has a little one in a buggy and is having a second baby soon. She also suffers from a very bad back condition and would find it impossible to lift little one and shopping and fold a pram up to carry on bus, so what's she supposed to do??

Kitty I dont know of course why you look after your dgc 3 days a week but wouldn't it be possible to have an easily foldable buggy for her that is sturdy enough for you. Do you really think that you should be able to have priority over a wheelchsir user who has no other choices? There's a difference between taking a seat and using a wheelchair. space.

I am registered disabled and walk with a stick, with the prospect of being in a wheelchair in the future as problems with my spine continue. So I am glad of this decision. BUT....I also have a two year old granddaughter who I look after 3 days a week. I don't have a car so I have to go places by bus. She travels in her pushchair, not a huge one but not one you can fold up like an umbrella- I need it sturdy as sometimes I lean on the handle for support. And it's useful to have the basket underneath as I cannot carry the bags and that's where I put my fold up walking stick. It wouldn't be possible for me to take her out to fold it up, I couldn't carry the bags and/or her as I would need my stick in one hand. And she couldn't sit on my lap as its too painful, it's bad enough trying to get the pushchair onto the bus in the first place! And then I feel guilty if someone older or someone who looks less able than me gets on and I don't /can't offer them my seat. If I didn't sit down I might fall down when the bus lurches. Now I will have to worry about this as well when I get on a bus. Final word tho is that I do get annoyed when mummies put their empty pushchairs in the space, with the child on a seat next to them and then other mums can't get on with their pushchairs! There seems no fair solution. How I envy the people who can go places in their cars.

This really does seem to be a them and us situation. Surely it is a matter of common decency and common sense. If a pushchair is in the space and a wheelchair is trying to get on is there somewhere for the parent to move to. If not is the mum going somewhere urgent or just perhaps shopping. Likewise with the wheelchair user. I'm sure if a parent is trying to get to a hospital appointment the wheelchair user would be happy to wait if they were not in a rush and, visa versa.
I do know that in this particular case the wheelchair user was meeting his parents for lunch. Was the parent going somewhere urgently or was she going for a stroll round primark. Was there a space for her to move her pram into. I am aware that the court ruling stated that there will be circumstances where it will be reasonable for a passenger to refuse to vacate the wheelchair slot and that there needs to be a balance between the needs of wheelchair users and other vulnerable passengers, including parents with babies in prams/buggies.
I think that means could we all be a bit more compassionate to all our fellow passengers

I sometimes used to carry my baby in a sling. No buggy required! Otherwise I had one of the umbrella fold buggies, as many others here seem to have done.

If it was a choice between my grandchild and my friend's husband with Parkinson's, I know who I'd give the space to and it wouldn't be my grandchild.

I would also like to add an extra line to any new regulations that are brought into force. Not only should buggies be moved or folded but trollies should not block access either.

I think it would help if more space on each bus was allocated to wheelchairs and buggies as we have seen in Denmark and other Countries. I would not want parents with young children to be asked to get off a bus they had got on at an earlier stop.They could be left in the dark or with another child not being collected from school,

Wow, some of you really seem to have forgotten how difficult it is to travel on a bus with a small baby in a buggy, and are really 'sticking it' to today's mum's !

If someone with a buggy refuses to move, maybe the driver will do what happened on my bus once, when a young mum with a buggy was screamimg obscenities and abusing him. (Nothing to do with wheelchair space though).
He simply refused to move until she got off, and when she wouldn't, he called the police, who arrived pretty fast.
Having had to listen to her screaming effing and blinding for several minutes, I was only too happy to corroborate what the driver told them.

Just seen a disabled lady couldn't get on a bus outside the Court where the case took place as a mother refused to move her buggy.

Pushchair should be folded down before getting on the bus it would certainly make parents think twice about the size and complexity of some of pushchairs they buy wheelchair users should have priority as they don't have any alternative

Interesting that the mother with the buggy seems to be staying under the radar (probably wisely). In bad weather if there was no bus shelter a wheelchair user left at a bus stop would be much worse off than a child in a buggy with raincovers.

I don't think anyone would have a problem waiting for the next bus Tricia , we've all done it , if the bus is full. But where is the line ? One bus, three buses , ten buses ? In the rush hour , in London ten is not as ridiculous as it might sound.

I used to leave home at 05:30 to be at my desk for 07:30 even though I didn't have to start until 9am simply to get a seat on my transport of choice - a journey of only 21 miles.

You'd think there would not be many buggies about at that time but there are lots of mums heading to nursery before work.

I don't think the ideal solution is for anyone to have to get off the bus Hurdy but I do believe if the buggy can be folded and by doing that both can travel then it's a no brainier.

Tricia - maybe any entitled parents and their supporters can start a campaign for this ( like people with disabilities had to for accessible buses). And of course we can have basic principles about how we judge priorities - a good start is that only foldable buggies are allowed on buses - as used to be the case for decades.

Rosina the reason there are SOME wheelchair accessible buses is because they were fought for. Many, many buses are inaccessible for wheelchairs - but guess what, mothers with foldable buggies can access them. The question is NOT about people with disabilities ( and not 'the disabled' if you don't mind) insisting on getting on a bus regardless, it's about the fact that there are wheelchair spaces for um let me think wheelchairs to which they have priority.

Devil's Advocate from me too -
Perhaps buses should be designed with a space for wheelchairs, and one for buggies (folded if possible.)
If your space is full, wait for the next bus.
But seriously, if the essence of the argument is who has the greatest need - we're never going to work that one out, all individual cases are different. The poor driver can't be judge and jury, he has to concentrate on his driving.

Hurdy - the issue is about being in a wheelchair, not having invisible disabilities or having mobility problems. And as for your previous post, I wouldn't know where to start so I won't.

"People with buggies are fit to walk"

How do you know? A lot of establishments are now putting up signs on disabled toilets saying (paraphrased) not all disabilities are visible - i.e. not only wheelchair users are disabled.

Not my personal view, but playing devil's advocate - why should one fare paying passenger be required to leave the bus to make way for another fare paying passenger? Would a wheelchair user leave the bus to allow another passenger to travel? Is a user of a "normal" wheelchair, i.e. one who can propel themselves along, in greater or lesser need than an electronically propelled wheelchair/

If disabled people are saying they want to be treated equally then why should special allowances be made for them at the expense of another passenger. What is the difference between a pushchair using passenger and a wheelchair using passenger having to wait for the next bus?

(And actually, I don't know the full facts of the case, so there may indeed be a very good reason in this case.)

Maybe if this ruling had been handed down 5 years ago I could have carried on working.

I drove to the nearest underground station - about 25 mins away and IF the lift was working went down to the platform and got a train ( and a seat) . In those days I could manage the stairs at the other end because on my line there are only 3 or maybe 4 accessible stations.

Once I couldn't manage the stairs I might have tried to carry on by getting an over ground train and then getting a bus.... but I would have had to take my scooter.

The first day I tried - they forgot to get the ramp to get me on the train at my station so the train went without me

The second time , the lift was out of order at the mainline station so I couldn't get down to street level.

The third and fourth times I waited for a bus in the rush hour that could take me , 2 1/2 hours later I went home in tears.

I don't know whether this ruling is the way forward or if the whole design of buses needs to be looked at .

What I do know , is I need/demand the same access to public transport as anyone else. I don't want to force others off the bus .

People with buggies are fit to walk the disabled are not ! I have been on city buses with 3 buggies. Poor driver if he should be asked to help anyone.

I heard that the mother in question had a sleeping baby and a pram with shopping underneath. Now, having bought a ticket, was she expected to get off the bus as she understandably didn't want to wake her baby and could hardly have folded a pram with shopping underneath? I have no time at all for the breed of mother who seems to think that she has become the most important and entitled person in any situation because she has a baby, but this particular case has left me with mixed feelings. There were demonstrators in wheelchairs outside the court saying they should have access to busses - well, they do have, and much more than a few years ago. This question seemed to be entirely about whether a disabled person should be able to insist upon getting on the bus regardless of how many passengers and how they were seated. I feel strongly that every help should be given to the disabled, whose lives are hard enough anyway, but are we talking access, or priority here? Pity the poor driver!

On one occasion when I was desperate for the loo and standing at the front of a queue in a store, I couldn't wait a second longer and went into the disabled toilet. A woman then berated me as it was 'for the disabled only' - before I could defend myself another woman said that it was for disabled access, not exclusively, and there was nobody disabled wanting it right then, and how did she know that I hadn't got a problem? I left at this point as they were going at it hammer and tongs!

A difficult one - every sympathy for the disabled also have a lot of sympathy for the Mums. I remember being very pleased for Mums when our bus local company no longer insisted they woke sleeping babies and collapsed buggies. I could barely manage the buggy, baby, toddler and shopping when I was a traveling Mum. There are not enough seats, adaptable spaces for any group except outside rush hour. In rush hour we also get bicycles on the bus going to the point that the council have laid a cycle path to the station - where they will then lump them on the packed train too. More and more pressure for less and less space on transport. As has already been said adaptable seating/space is the way forward. The group I feel for most is the staff - the driver did not sign up to be Solomon. He can ask but he can't insist - what's he to do then - ours don't ask anything you can smoke, drink, swear and fight on our buses and the driver will just say he has to quite rightly concentrate on the road he can't be dealing with passenger issues en route. So this case has done nothing except confirm the original Mum should have been asked to vacate the space - as she was, the outcomes may not now be any different. I dispare of Society today generally, we all want to legislate as to how people can and should live as we can't trust people to do the right unselfish thing. On our local TV last night after this judgement there was a man arguing very vehmently that he would not take a space for his wheelchair at the expense of a mother and child.... he was after all a man!! You can't please all the people all the time!!

I have conflicting views on this. Wheelchair users should be able to use the bus, but as the grandmother of young twins I know the difficulties pushchair users can face. My SiL is the primary care-giver and uses the bus. They have a fore and aft buggy which is easier on pavements and on the bus, but doesn't fold, or at least not easily. It did ,however, cost a lot of money and would be beyond the reach of some. Getting 2 very small children out safely and folding the buggy would be well nigh impossible. I don't have any solutions but hope that common sense and kindness will prevail.