Wheelchair V Pushchair?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-36534907
What do we think people, should the woman have moved her buggy from the disabled spot?

[ummmm]

Yes. She could have folded the buggy up and had the child on her lap.

[dannyk13]

Definitely yes.

[EDDIE51]

Yes the woman should have moved the buggy. But as the report says the bus company can only request the woman to move not force her to.
I can see all sorts of problems if bus drivers have to start physically removing passengers who refuse to give up disabled spaces.

[ToraToraTora]

I tend to agree but what will now happen is that they'll lock the disabled spaces so no one can make use of them except a wheelchair. So as usual we all suffer for one ignoramus.

[jambutty]

Most definitely.

[Ellipsis]

> I can see all sorts of problems if bus drivers have to start physically removing passengers who refuse to give up disabled spaces.

Aren't there already other circumstances where passengers have to be removed?

[EDDIE51]

^^ Yes if a passenger is abusive or violent, but the driver would call the police and lets them sort it out. No bus driver is going to risk being injured by an aggressive passenger who they are trying to remove.

[douglas9401]

I already have a picture in my mind of someone the size of an East German hammer thrower clutching a child in one hammy fist and a steak bake in the other exercising her right to be an obnoxious tawt.
What we need in this country is a zero tolerance of sullen disobedience and yobbery backed up by officialdom, innit.
Of course she should move her tax credit transporter.

[ummmm]

Tax credit transporter...lol...but a bit presumptuous though.

[douglas9401]

If you accept the rest of it why balk at the money part?

[ummmm]

I'm not accepting the rest it's just child tax transporter raised a smile.

[Ellipsis]

OK so in this case:

"Please Madam fold up the buggy and hold your child on your lap. If you refuse to do so I will have to call the police to eject you from the bus."

> although wheelchair users have priority to occupy the wheelchair space, there is no legal requirement for bus drivers to move other passengers from it.

Makes it sound like the issue isn't the buggy, but the child in the buggy. i.e. the same rule would not apply if it had been say a childless buggy, a large suitcase or a television in the disabled space.

[Old_Geezer]

I think it is a difficult situation. Not that I've been a parent and know how difficult it is to travel with a pushchair. I assume it was already folded up and still needed a place to be put. Surely all customers/passengers have equal rights and whilst I feel provision should be available for handicapped folk I also think a parent should not find themselves unable to use the bus either. Whilst there is but the one area for all uses it isn't really a satisfactory situation. I think the handicapped individual probably has first call since the space is labelled as for use of wheelchairs; but do folk feel a paying passenger struggling with kids should be pushed off the bus because a handicapped person happened to get on ? Maybe buses need to have a storage area in the back too rather than pit one person with a need against the other.

[ummmm]

Buses do have storage areas.

When mine were little I chose my buggy on the ease of folding it. Now they have places where the child can stay in the buggy.

[mikey4444]

Yes !

It is reasonable to expect that disabled people be treated with respect.

[ToraToraTora]

the saucepan was little bo and she didn't want to wake it.

[ummmm]

bo?

[Gromit]

The bus company is required by law to have a disabled space, it does not have to have a pushchair space.
So the problem is that the bus company are allowing pushchairs to occupy the space that it is legally obliged to offer to someone else.

The bus company is in the wrong.
The pushchair owner isn't
And the wheelchair user isn't.

Rather than request the space be vacted for a wheelchair, the bus company has to insist that it is. Most other bus companies have a sign saying wheelchair users have priority and pushchairs HAVE to move.

[Gromit]

// Many bus companies currently operate a “first-come, first-served” policy, allowing passengers who board first to place push-chairs, large luggage or shopping trolleys in the wheelchair space. Wheelchair users are turned away if the space is full. Other bus companies (e.g. Stagecoach and Transport for London) have a clear policy whereby wheelchair spaces must be vacated for wheelchair users. //

There is an ambiguity in the law. Bus companies have to have a space for a wheelchair user, by law. But it seems there is no law giving the wheelchair user priority. There should be, and parliament has to legislate to make priority compulsary.