Toronto Transit Authority Believes PWD Shouldn't Ride Buses, Part 2 of an ongoing series

[trouble]

The TTC is putting drivers on wheelchair accessible routes who have never been shown how to use the basic safety equipment provided for people who use wheelchairs.

According to our driver home this evening, he has never been shown how to use any of the equipment required to stabilize a motorized wheelchair on the bus he is driving. He advised us (politely) that our options were getting on the unsafe bus, waiting "maybe all night" while he tried to figure out how to use the safety equipment on the bus, or waiting for the next bus. As you all may recall, our luck with "waiting for buses" has been poor, so we chose the option that was unsafe.

Don's electric wheelchair weights 250 lbs without a person in it. Don, who is 6'10" tall, weighs around the same amount. Can you imagine the injuries that could be sustained by Don, or anyone near him, if his wheelchair tipped over because it was not safely secured? The wheelchair swayed back and forth during the whole trip, and on at least one tight turn I was worried it was going to knock right over into the window. I imagine Don's experience of this was even worse.

Don's disability includes a chronic pain condition that is exacerbated by both movement, and having to brace himself. Right now he's doped up on a full morphine dose just to recover from the bus ride home.

PS: Tried five times today to call Wheel-trans. The line was busy every time.

The TTC is putting untrained drivers on late evening routes. Do you feel safe?

Comments

[meloukhia]

Uhm what? What other important safety equipment does the TTC not bother providing training for, I wonder. The brakes, perhaps?

[trouble]

Gosh, I can't wait to find out.

[capriuni]

The line was busy every time.

Gee. I wonder why...

[sami]

Technically, I do feel safe, but only because I am more-or-less as far away from Toronto as it is geographically possible to get. So much sympathy and sympathetic rage for Don.

Does Toronto have crappy tabloid TV shows like Today Tonight? Maybe you could hook one on the story, or something. Because it *is* safety equipment they aren't being shown how to use, and even if it ends up as "sharing a bus with someone in a wheelchair COULD KILL A REAL PERSON", it'll at least draw attention to this shit.

[jhameia]

D: That's awful. Do they think PWD don't travel at night or something? Fucking bullshit.

[annaham]

Holy shit. I am so sorry, Anna. I hope they pay attention to the access needs of Don and other passengers with disabilities SOON (although, like, having that ALREADY IN PLACE would have been preferable, I'm sure).

<3

[jackandahat]

Your point about "What else don't they know?" is a good point, and I suspect that's going to be your best angle for getting other passengers on your side. Which... is sad, the idea that it has to be put on their terms for them to understand/care.

[amandaw]

I like the suggestion to call a local TV station. One of our local news stations fancies itself "investigative" and is always doing reports on this sort of stuff, trying to find bad products/corrupt workers/etc. This would be made for them, and I can't count how many times their stories have involved "So-and-so never got a response, until we got involved, then all of a sudden their concerns were Very Important and must be addressed."

I wish I could say I'm SURPRISED at all of this, but I'm really not. At all. It sucks.

[susanreads]

I was going to share my fantasy of printing stickers with that "Do you feel safe?" message and surreptitiously putting them on all the buses, but the suggestion above to call a local TV station is much better. If you have an equivalent of Face the Facts in Toronto, that would make a really great megaphone.

[jesse_the_k]

"What else don't then train?" is an excellent hook.

I can connect you to the training video the strap mfgrs create. There's a question you have to answer for yourself: do you want to ride tonight with you securing Don, or do you want to force the TTC to do the right thing.

TTC trialed backwards-facing barriers, where the chair user backs up to a padded wall that's even taller than Don seated. Sled testing showed that in a bus crash, swerve, or short stop, the chair user was better off with the back-barrier than with four point restraints. (The issue being the 4-pt restraints secure the frame of the chair to the bus floor, but the chair frame falls apart in many stress situations. Yes friends, chairs aren't as sturdy as regular car seats.)

[silveradept]

That's startlingly unsafe. So even after having been sued and fined, they still haven't shaped up? How big will the fine have to get before they pay attention?