Tag Archives: wheelchair access

Sal Brinton receives apology from Transport for London after being denied access to bus

By NewsHound | Wed 6th September 2017 - 8:50 am

You would think, by now, that bus drivers would not be so crass as to refuse to ask someone with a buggy to make way for someone in a wheelchair. Unfortunately, this is not the case as Party President Sal Brinton found out on Monday.

Just been refused entry to this bus as driver won’t ask parent 2 move buggy 2 side for me to get on. @TfLAccess pic.twitter.com/nsaXFBFjwo

— SalBrinton (@SalBrinton) September 4, 2017

She later spoke to the Evening Standard about this:

Transport for London has apologised to Baroness Brinton and launched an investigation.

She told the Standard: “The bus was fairly empty, but regardless – if the wheelchair goes in first you can fit both a buggy and a wheelchair in the space… In fact, that’s exactly what happened when I boarded another bus afterwards.

“I couldn’t see the parent, and the driver did not put down the ramp and said they were not prepared to ask the parent to make space so it made it impossible for me and so I had to wait.”

She added: “It made me very angry, and even more so because this is not the first time this has happened… When this happened to me two years ago, I spoke to TfL and they said they would make sure bus companies trained drivers so that this would be avoided. Clearly that was not the case.”

Well done to Sal for highlighting her experience. She’s previously written about the frankly appalling way she and others have been treated on the railways.