I’m disabled. Not obviously so. I have severe back problems and leg problems. I can stand, but not for long. I can walk, but not very far. I don’t use a wheelchair or electric buggy, and I don’t have a car, so if I go out it has to be in a friend’s car or a taxi. So, today I had a hospital appointment, and I did what I usually do – booked a taxi to get me there. No problems with that; the firm uses ordinary cars, and I always sit in the front seat. Appointment over (don’t have to go again for 3 months) I walked to the nearby bus-stop and got the bus to the interchange (the bus station, as it used to be called). There I walked down to the taxi rank. But something had changed. The firm which has the monopoly there uses taxi cabs, and they had brand new ones. They look like vans, can take quite a few people, and if you’re a wheelchair user they are no doubt excellent, just push the chair up a ramp through the rear door. But for me they’re impossible. You have to crouch and step up at the same time; I can’t. The last time I tried it I fell. And the stool they offer you is no help at all. So I asked if I could sit in the front next to the driver. Okay. But that was no good either. I could climb into the seat, just, but there was no room for my legs (which are long as well as painful). The seat didn’t go back, said the driver. So I had to get out and look at the next taxi in the queue – same problem. I had to walk away, while the drivers chuckled to each other at this peculiar person. I had to walk painfully down the road a hundred yards or so to where there was a bench and a car could stop, and phone my regular taxi firm.
The useless taxi cabs no doubt comply with disability regulations. But those regulations don’t take into account the non-obvious disabilities which afflict many people, particularly the elderly.
I Wish to Complain 