Prams on buses

Horseunderwater

I am a bus driver, so feel I know a fair bit about this. We are trained to do the following in customer service. Wheel chairs have priority over a pram if the space is dual labeled. If there is a separate area for each then that is who is entitled to first dibs on that seat/Area. Elderly customers should sit in the stickered seats that have the elderly /sticked sticker on it. Able bodied people who can climb stairs if a double are expected to go upstairs or go to rear part of bus. Most buses have another set of doors now to allow rear seated passengers off without the need to trip over a wheelchair/pram. Brakes must be applied to both and I always make sure that the person has engaged them. And yes I did have a pram visit me when I was driving one day. We also hold the baby for the customer so that should they need to undo and put up the buggy or whatever, that they can. It is quicker to do this than to watch a mum trying to do it one handed. We are not permitted to fold up or put up a pram under PCV laws, in case we get a finger or worse caught in mechanism as some one has to drive the bus. And yes I have had to move my share of customers out of wrong seats and had abuse from others demanding those same seats. One threatened me with a walking stick, but I told him that the lady concerned was nearly 8 months pregnant and did he want it on his conscience that if she had to stand and fell and her baby got hurt or worse? I found him another seat nearby and asked him to take that firmly but politely and once we were sorted I got back in my seat and continued to drive the bus. I am female, so I tend to be firm polite and tough. Bus driving is a very odd job as you need so many skills to get by. Best bit was though when we arrived at his stop that he said sorry and had been thinking about what I'd said and had decided that he needed to say sorry both to me and the pregnant lady and everyone who heard him said well done mate and by the end of that journey many customers were talking to him and making bus friends with him. Taking the bus anywhere, can be a good social experience or a bad one. If you regularly drive or travel a route you get to know the regulars and they can in some cases be like an extended family. And yes I always say please/thank you for money proffered. Low floor buses have improved no end in recent years with ramps or kneelers that enable wheeled users to get on or off easily. And most now have proper heating in them. Often have a series of cameras recording what happens in case of problem, which the driver has access to. It is a shame that so many areas have to have the driver protected behind a screen as there are so many customers who think it is OK to stab a driver with a used needle or even a knife. I've done the nightclub runs in Cambridge until 3am in the morning on a Friday/Saturday. Last time was in 2004 though as I moved nearer to home with another company in the village where I live.

Abbafan1972

Our buses have a rear door, but it's for emergency use only. So we have to go to the front of the bus to get off.

There are fold down seats which say, "for buggies and people with heavy shopping", although buggies have to take priority. There is one fold down seat which faces the other way and a bulkhead thing, where a wheelchair goes. Then the first couple of regular seats have stickers saying "for elderly/disabled".

The first pram I had was a travel system, the ones with the car seat in. You can't fold these up with the car seat still in. So I would have to remove the car seat, carry this with baby in and the folded pram. Unfortunately the luggage racks have been sacrificed in favour of the buggy zone and there is only a small bit where they put the free Metro papers :rotfl:So you're better off leaving your buggy as it is.

Doom_and_Gloom - this is awful. How can people be so ignorant and not notice someone was putting their wheelchair in the gap? :eek:

My other pet hate on buses are people that insist on using up 2 seats to put their shopping bags/handbags on.

Katgrit

lauraandclive wrote: »

Not an elderly person, no. You stated the logo showed a wheelchair and a pram. The elderly lady had neither. The girl had a pram.

Its a disabled logo not a wheelchair logo. They're disabled parking spaces not wheelchair parking spaces. They're disabled parking permits not wheelchair parking permits. My friends 14yr old son had a disabled badge before he died last year. He didn't need the yellow hatched areas of the parking space for more getting in or out as he didn't need a wheelchair. He just wasn't able to walk very far without getting out of breath due to a tumour crushing his lungs. The amount of abuse he got on occasion because his parents used "wheelchair" spaces was awful.

Whether the elderly lady was disabled or just old, tired and aching is another matter but I'm sure she didn't choose to be that way. Pity the driver didn't show more courtesy. People "choose" to have children and I'm sure many of you with your all terrain tank prams might change your tune about priorities when you're 87 and your artheritis is playing up.

LisaB85

Round here there are still the old buses without wheelchair spaces or ramps, I think it is terrible.

The mums with pushchairs are ok as there are usually people who will hold child and someone else to help with shopping as they get on and off. Quite often the driver will hold the baby. What is wrong with asking for help? most others on the bus are likely to be parents themselves.

Someone mentioned mobility scooters, just lately I have noticed people with HUGE mobility scooters they are twice the size of normal one and take up the whole aisle in shops.

JulieElizabeth

MamaMoo wrote: »

If it was you on the bus, and I asked you politely to move, all you'd have to do is politely say no. It's not like I turn around and say "oi, you, there's chuff all wrong with you, !!!!!! off up the bus."
I recently got asked, no, TOLD to move from one of these extra space seats by a middle aged woman. She put it like this "I've been at work all day, you obviously haven't. And I'm older than you. I'm 50! Stand up and give me your seat"

Wow, where I'm from (Belfast) people would rather stand huddled at the front of the bus like sardines rather than ask someone to remove their shopping bags from a seat beside them. Same with kids putting their feet up. Fortunately I am rather headstrong and take perverse pleasure in making someone move half a dozen Tesco bags to their lap

pogofish

nellytheelephant wrote: »

This really annoyed me! I've got severe arthritis, I'm only 25, I would be incredibly annoyed if someone asked me to move because they have deemed I don't deserve that seat - I do and I need it!

Hear hear!

Yeah! Just try being a younger - or relatively younger with an imparement on a bus - see how you are automatically treated as some sort of interloper/subhuman if you use a reserved seat. :mad:

However, the Equality Act 2010 requires PT operators and others to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people regardless of any other designation - So in this case, shifting the old lady could be the basis for action or complaint via the EHRC.

Fuzzy_Duck

fluffnutter wrote: »

It's a choice to have kids. Don't act like you're the most important person in the world just because you've squeezed a kid out of your fanny - most women do at some point.

Love this! Very, very true.

Fact is women make the choice of getting pregnant and having kids. Elderly/disabled people do not have a choice. It's all very well saying only the pram can fit in the spot, but it wouldn't be an issue if people would use fold down buggies or wait for the next bus. When I was a child my mum walked everywhere with me in the buggy and my siblings standing on the back of it when they got tired. I can understand sometimes it's not practical to walk, but I'm sure 99% of the time it's a case of them being lazy.

I've seen some shocking things on the bus and I have no sympathy for mothers as they always get their way. I have seen a disabled lady in a wheelchair get on, and literally be tutted at by the mothers who reluctantly moved to the next set of seats to make room for her. Even worse than that I have seen two despicable mothers get on, see a blind lady with her guide dog in the disabled seats, and physically move her from her seat, the whole time talking to her in silly patronising voices as if they were doing her a favour. They shoved her further back and as if that wasn't bad enough the dog has spread out a bit further to the front and one of them rammed her pram across his paws when she got off.

To this day I feel like a horrible person for not telling them exactly what I thought at the time, but I'm a coward and I know I'd have only got a mouthful of abuse anyway. Really though, I expected the driver to say something.

As for elderly people using the disabled seats, I really don't see the problem. The majority of buses in my area don't wait for them to find a seat, so their choice is either sit in the disabled seats at the front or risk going flying on their way to the back. I'm in my 20s so it doesn't take me much effort to stand, and I'm unlikely to seriously hurt myself if I fall down. It's very different for an elderly person and to be perfectly honest if I had the choice of giving up my seat for an elderly person or a pregnant lady, it'd be the elderly person every time. I get that being pregnant must be uncomfortable, and I do give up my seats for pregnant women, but calling it a disability is a p!sstake for people who actually are disabled.

Fuzzy_Duck

Abbafan1972 wrote: »

When my kids were little, unfortunately I've been on the receiving end of this and got on the bus with the pram to find the buggy zone taken up by other people and they just look at you and don't move, despite there being seats elsewhere on the bus. The buggy zone is there for a reason, so that your pram doesn't block up the aisle.

I don't condone the mothers behaviour for one second, a polite please and thank you wouldn't have hurt.

What's all this bulls**t about "it's your choice to have kids". So you would turn round and say to the mother, "it was your choice to have kids, now find somewhere else to sit I'm staying put".

Bollox.

Not at all. We're merely making the point that an elderly lady who has to use a stick to get around didn't choose to be that way- but that girl did choose to have a kid. She should have been compassionate enough to realise it's downright rude to shift an elderly lady who's not good on her feet, and willing to wait for the next bus. She chose to have a child, she chose to have a pram that can't be folded, she puts up with the impracticalities of getting that child and pram on a bus. The majority of women don't need a socking great pram to put their kids in, and they don't need to get on the bus for an easily walkable journey. If they insist on doing so anyway without good reason they should put up and shut up if someone in greater need than them needs one of the front seats.

If I'm on a bus and it's full, I stand up so people less able can sit down. The majority of my time spent on buses is getting up for mothers with prams in fact. I don't mind that, but I do mind them making elderly and disabled people move because they can't be bothered to wait for the next bus.

dreavi

This is exactly why I head straight up the stairs and towards the back. The sorting out of the Priority seats and the Push/wheelchair bays seems like a nightmare.

I remember last week a woman tried to get on with an enormous pushchair and the bus already had two of them on filling the bay. Bus Driver had to tell her to wait for the bext one as he was full, she wasnt happy

KxMx

Two pet hates here with buggies/prams, some mothers park them so they are sticking out in the aisle, when there is room if they make the effort to get the item fully into the space. Driver is also at fault here for not asking them to relocate. Then the mums tut and sign, or ignore everyone else and concentrate on their phones, when the other passengers try their best to squeeze by.

My other pet hate is mum wheeling an empty, no child or bags, buggy into the space and not moving. I have actually seen other mums have to wait for the next bus because the other spaces are taken and the empty buggy parent doesn't move. TBH round here the only times I see parents making an effort to pop child out and fold up buggy is when they either do that or wait for the next bus

I have often sat in the buggy area when the bus is full, but if a buggy wants to get on I always move if there isn't another buggy space or enough room for buggy and parent alongside me. Usually by that time and someone has gotten off so I can move into another seat since I am disabled, you just can't see it.