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Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
A disabled man has won a Supreme Court case after a dispute with a woman with a buggy over wheelchair space on a bus.
[...] Wheelchair user Doug Paulley brought his case after he was refused entry to a FirstGroup bus in 2012, when a mother with a pushchair refused to move.
[...] The court said the company should consider further steps to persuade non-wheelchair users to move, without making it a legal duty to move them.
[...] However, the judgement fell short of making it a legal requirement for bus companies to compel non-wheelchair passengers to move from the space.
[Continues...]
The case was triggered when Mr Paulley, from Wetherby, West Yorkshire, attempted to board a bus operated by FirstGroup which had a sign saying: "Please give up this space if needed for a wheelchair user."
Mr Paulley was left at the stop because a woman with a sleeping baby in a pushchair refused to move out of the designated area when asked by the bus driver. She said the buggy would not fold.
He had argued FirstGroup's "requesting, not requiring" policy was discriminatory.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Thursday January 26 2017, @03:56PM
Yes, I'm a bit confused by the story, too. What precisely does "She said the buggy would not fold" mean? Does it mean the buggy ACTUALLY wouldn't fold AND that it couldn't be moved to another area of the bus? In that case, yes, I agree that asking the woman to depart the bus with her baby is a bit much. OR, does it mean that's what "she said" as her excuse, but actually the buggy COULD fold OR it could at least have been moved into the aisle or something (which might be annoying for her and for other passengers, but at least would have accommodated everyone). If the latter is true, I can see an argument for being a little more "encouraging" to get her to move. (Whether or not failing to do so would rise to "discriminatory" probably depends on UK disability law, which I don't know much about.)
Also, just a weird phrase from TFA:
Where a driver concludes a refusal to move is unreasonable, he or she should consider some further steps to pressurise the non-wheelchair user to vacate the space.
Perhaps this is a Britishism, but in the US I'm pretty sure we only use the word "pressurize" when doing something like putting appropriate levels of air in a spacesuit or maybe inflating a tire. We'd simply "pressure" a person to do something.
But maybe this is an alternative -- if a passenger refuses to move, just pump them full of helium until they float out of the way!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:01PM
Perhaps this is a Britishism, but in the US I'm pretty sure we only use the word "pressurize" when doing something like putting appropriate levels of air in a spacesuit or maybe inflating a tire. We'd simply "pressure" a person to do something.
But maybe this is an alternative -- if a passenger refuses to move, just pump them full of helium until they float out of the way!
Meh -- the whole situation kind of blows, anyway.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Thursday January 26 2017, @08:12PM
Yes, I'm a bit confused by the story, too. What precisely does "She said the buggy would not fold" mean? Does it mean the buggy ACTUALLY wouldn't fold AND that it couldn't be moved to another area of the bus? In that case, yes, I agree that asking the woman to depart the bus with her baby is a bit much. OR, does it mean that's what "she said" as her excuse, but actually the buggy COULD fold OR it could at least have been moved into the aisle or something (which might be annoying for her and for other passengers, but at least would have accommodated everyone).
Well that's the real fun part - after court cases all the way to UK Supremes... no one knows. That's right, no one has bothered to find out whether the woman _could_ move or not (in fact the evidence she said she could not was the plaintiff's own testimony).
As I understand it, the reason is because the complainant sued at first to force the bus company to throw people off the bus if they refused to vacate "his" space - regardless of whether they were actually able to move or not, so no evidence was ever introduced as to that. He won in lower court, then the appeal court threw it out, and then that was appealed to the supremes.
The supremes have actually _denied_ his appeal in the sense that they have ruled that people cannot be thrown off the bus to clear space for a wheelchair, which was what he asked for, _but_ they also ruled that the driver must ask more forcefully (shame and pressurise - yeah, a Britishism) and the bus co. must have policy to that effect. The fact that it remains unknown whether the person in the space _could_ have reasonably moved or not is the reason why the supremes denied any damages.
All that work and the guy has basically got sod all - no damages, other passengers who want to be a pain now have a supreme court ruling saying they don't have to move, and bus drivers have been instructed by supreme court to be less nice to passengers (as if they needed any encouragement).
At the end of the day, all this is because once he was 20mins late on a bus (and his testimony says this was a rare occurrence). I have regularly used buses from the same operator in the same city and 20mins late was common (an estimate of 30mins late >10% of the time was what I worked on). The guy had a better bus service than other ordinary people, but it wasn't good enough for him...
(Score: 2) by dry on Friday January 27 2017, @02:42AM
Pressurise is the correct English spelling when filling a tyre with air while pressurize is archaic but accepted (Webster usually chose archaic spelling forms to differentiate American from English for patriotic reasons). Pressure is the correct word in this case.