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MERGED ORGANISATION
MUST HAVE COURAGE
Sir – I have, over the past few months, noted with interest the progress made in the proposed merger of the Disabled Drivers’ Association and the Disabled Drivers’ Motor Club. It was, for me, particularly interesting to read the letter from Myles Coffee, published in the May edition of
Disabled Motorist.
As a former editor of the DDA magazine Magic Carpet, some 90 per cent of my postbag consisted of complaints and examples of abuse of the Orange-cum- Blue Badge Preferential Parking Scheme – indeed, many motions at AGMs were tabled for discussion and action to
be taken.
Mr Coffee, in his letter, also draws the attention of your readers by describing this as “the disabled motorist’s biggest problem over many years”. Thus I am prompted to ask: “How is amalgamation going to solve the problem?”
I believe that what the 21st century disabled motorist wants is an organisation powerful and confident enough to offer its membership facilities as are presently enjoyed by membership of the Automobile Association and Royal Automobile Club – that is an organisation with the resources to come to the aid of the disabled motorist speedily and with the presence of mind to recognise that, unlike the able-bodied, the disabled motorist is extremely vulnerable in a breakdown situation.
I am sure there are those who will scoff and say“impossible” at such an idea but, although a bit before my time, when the DDMC and DDA were founded, people said then, “impossible”, but both organisations were possible and have over the years given friendship and a sense
of belonging to the disabled.
Now, should the merger occur, I pray that those who will lead, will not only have courage but above all, vision as the early founders had, and provide an association that will be truly of service to the membership – in all matters affecting the disabled driver.
Michael B Elmore
Peterborough
SO, WHAT SHOULD I DO ABOUT BANK PARKING?
Sir – I read with great interest (and some amusement) the recent letter about the large boat parked across two disabled parking bays. I am so pleased that with persistence the matter
was resolved. Congratulations to all concerned.
I have a problem regarding parking and I will be as brief as possible. I had always considered it legal for a disabled badgeholder to park on double yellow lines for a short period, provided
no obstruction was caused. Is this correct?
In Market Rasen, near where I live, we and able-bodied drivers were able to park for a short time outside the banks.
Then they altered the pavements somewhat, leaving less parking space, but put in double yellow lines. There is a bus stop bay, but there is still ample room for one car to park right outside the bank.
However, the new traffic warden is putting parking notices on all vehicles parked, including the disabled who get a minimum of £30 fine.
This means that I am unable to use the bank. Now the bank has a sign which enables the bank staff to come outside to serve a disabled customer and I have one of those little black boxes to call for their assistance, but I cannot use it because I cannot wait in this space and am told I must park across the road. The bank employees are not allowed to cross the road to serve me.
I was told to get on to the council, the council pass me on to the county council, they pass me on to the police, the police say phone the bank, and so it goes on – pass the parcel – no one
can make any comment, let alone a decision! What should I do?
Name and address supplied
FLYING INTO TROUBLE
Sir – My husband (who is registered at 90 per cent disabled and an epileptic) and I have also had dreadful problems when travelling by air. When requesting wheelchair assistance make sure your name is correctly written on the request sheet. My husband has often been refused the wheelchair assistance which we have previously booked because he is very often called Mr James – James being his Christian name – surnames and Christian names are often mixed up in other lands. Then we are rudely accused of not previously booking a wheelchair.
We have also had our previously booked numbered seats given to other travellers, being told that they have given them to nursing mothers (who have, understandably, been given priority
for bulkhead seats) but on checking this out in the cabin have found able-bodied travellers sitting in our booked seats and not nursing mothers.
I wrote to the airline concerned and was told that as we had accepted the seats allocated to us at the booking desk we were at fault. We are not psychic and also what were we supposed to do, cause a fuss and refuse to get on the plane? I don’t think so, not when we are thousands and thousands of miles away from home in a foreign land and with a disability too. The stress could have caused a seizure.
Shirley M Hocking
Southampton
ALL AT SEA OVER TOILETS
Sir – I read, with interest, your article about the Arcadia (May 2005) as I have been having with discussions with P&O regarding the provision of “public” toilet facilities for people with disabilities.
My husband (a wheelchair user) and I had our first cruise on the Adonia last year, as we thought it would be a good way for me to have break as well, however it didn’t quite turn out that way, due to the insufficient handrails (a situation which doesn’t seem to have improved) but as a result we were sent all the brochures for the Arcadia. I paid special attention to where the public toilet facilities were on the public decks in the deck plans and was quite concerned by their apparent limited locations. On the Adonia the disabled toilets were conveniently close to the
restaurant and one of the theatres, so we didn’t have to negotiate the crowds to get to them at the end of the meal, it was only the facilities inside that left a lot to be desired. However, on the Arcadia the only disabled toilet facilities seem to be midships on the public decks, so
anyone with a disability is going to have to travel half the length to the ship to get there from the restaurant at one end or the theatre at the other.
With the likelihood there will be lots of people milling about, it will take longer to get there, therefore there could be a queue, which in turn could result in an extremely distressing situation, ruining what could have been an otherwise enjoyable evening. There is also a bar on the smaller top deck, but there is no disabled toilet on this deck, so any disabled person using the bar would have to travel to another deck to use the toilet, which I feel is unacceptable.
We are currently waiting to hear from P&O to arrange a visit/tour of the Arcadia, which we were told could not be arranged until after her maiden voyages.
Lesley A Windle (by email)
TRAVEL INNS WERE AHEAD OF THE REST
Sir – With regards to the comments about Travel Inn/Travel Lodge, I cannot speak about Travel Lodge as I never use them, but I am a regular customer of Travel Inns. As far as I know they had
two wheelchair accessible rooms in each hotel before the DDA came into force.
In fact they were one of the first hotel chains to do so.
I have always been asked if I would prefer smoking or non smoking. So I presume there is one of each. As for hoists, you have to ask the question, How many times would they be needed?
Because of their cost either ceiling fixed or mobile, would it be economical?
There is also the rather large question of health & safety. No company would insure them, either for use by a company employee – if one could be trained and on duty 24/7 – or used by the
disabled person’s carer.
The type of bed is arguable, but once again it’s down to economics. What is the need for different types of bed arrangements. It’s impossible to please all the people all the time. Also bathing, whilst I agree that a wheel in shower is preferable to the small baths without the proper grab rails or a bath lift, these hotel chains are only meant for a couple of nights’ stay at a time not for a week or more.
It is about time we disabled people allowed the Disability Discrimination Act time to work and
progress for a better future by lobbying and campaigning instead of complaining all the time. After all, we are better off than most countries.
Brian Rains (by email)
GLASGOW WANTS YOUR MEMORIES
Sir – Do your readers have memories of living in Glasgow, getting to work, going on holiday, getting to the match?
We would like to meet disabled people who are interested in sharing their experiences of travelling within Glasgow and beyond.
We would especially like to hear from people who: owned a Model 70 invalid trike got around on a Batricar in the late 1980s.
used the Metrocab – the first “accessible taxi” – in the late 1980s and 1990s.
If you would like to be involved or want more information please contact:
Helen Graham, Museum of
Transport, 1 Bunhouse Road,
Glasgow, G3 8DP
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0141 2872641
DON’T GIVE UP – IT’S YOUR HEALTH
Sir – I would be very pleased if you could print my letter For all the readers with ill health and those who are a lot of pain.
I have suffered with multiple sclerosis for the past 12 years and my doctor told
me time after time that there was nothing that could be done for me, and that
no pain would come with this illness.
When I tried to move doctors I found out that there were no vacancies in my area
at all.
So when we got a new doctor I was his first appointment and was pleased to hear him say: “I will send you to hospital to see the MS doctor.” In the meantime I had a minor heart attack, and the hospital doctor said it was the pills I had been taking that caused it. So they changed them, and said I should have seen an MS doctor each year.
Now I am getting a lot better with acupuncture and physiotherapy. It’s like a new life without lots of pain, and I can even walk a lot better too.
I still need a wheelchair outside, but I’m still improving – so, readers, don’t give up; there is help out there for all of us if we just keep on looking.
Bob Mitchell
Notts
UNIVERSAL SOLUTION TO PLUG PROBLEM
Sir - I refer to the letter in Disabled Motorist regarding the lack of a sink plug at the Innkeepers Lodge in Leeds.
May I suggest she invests in a rubber universal sink plug. I have had one for years, mainly due to the fact that many hotels across Europe do not fail to “lose” theirs to their clients! I trust this will be helpful to the lady in question.
Doreen Lane
Kent
HOW TO GET A SPEEDY RESPONSE
Sir – Mr Hayball is to be congratulated in getting the council to act over the boat
parked in the disabled persons’ parking bays. Yet there was, in my experience,
no need for protracted correspondence and telephone contacts.
Plainly here he was facing a breach of statutory duty on the council’s part and
his response to the first prevarication should have been a “letter before action”
in the County Court. Usually, I find it does the trick, but if not, once the summons goes in, the council remedies its idleness.
Ivor Abelson
London
BENEFITS AREN’T THE ONLY ANSWER
Sir – I am 75, registered disabled, and also get Disabled Living Allowance, and
apart from free car tax and low rate care with my mobility allowance, I would
like the gentleman from Windsor (“Age of unreason”, Letters, March 2005) to
tell me what other benefits I can get– a car, I suppose, but it’s not worth the
bother or hassle.
But not Attendance Allowance, which my mother and mother-in-law received –
both got income support, plus rent paid, plus low council tax, and still received
£162 per week in pocket and this was four years ago; oh yes, plus home care
every day for the payment of £10 per week.
I get none of that; I have my own home which my wife and I worked for and went without holidays and posh things. I only get my state pension out of which I pay my full council tax plus gas, electric, telephone, oh and save to have my car serviced; it is 18 years old. But if I could have all these other benefits Mr Boyle is on about, I would be in clover.
Mr Barnes
Norfolk
IS THERE HELP OVER THE HORIZON?
Sir – I have for many years been plagued with the curse of a bad back. In 1979 at the age of 40, I first had surgery when the lower three discs of my back were fused and metal Harrington rods set into my spine to give stability. A further two fusions were performed in 1995.
During most of those years car travel has been a problem, and I have relied on a succession of Talbot Horizons.
These were the only cars I found with sufficiently pliable suspension to give an
acceptable ride.
As my last Talbot is now well past its sell-by date, I have the urgent problem of finding a replacement. Everything I have tested so far gives a much harsher ride, every little road bump or surface ripple being transmitted directly up my spine. The resulting pain can last several days after even the shortest of journeys.
Informed help appears unavailable even from official agencies (Motability, MAVIS etc.). They have merely suggested I consult local car dealers and test drive several cars. Casual suggestions have included the Citroen Xantia (even this was too hard), various Peugeots or some sort of sprung seat.
Others suggest that the shape of the car seat is the problem rather than the
suspension, but in my case at least, I need to be better insulated from the road.
I am sure I can’t be the only one with this problem, so I now hope to appeal
to your readers for help. Many, I am, sure will have had similar experiences,
and hopefully some will have found a solution. If so, I would welcome their
suggestions: a) For the most suitable car with the softest suspension.
b) Reports of any modifications or stratagems that have been attempted (even if not entirely successful) to alleviate the problem.
c) Or a combination of above. A compilation of possible solutions could eventually be published, also perhaps some indication of the unrecognized extent of the problem in the UK.
I A Macdonald
(by email)
IS IT AUTOMATIC TO MISS THIS GEAR?
Sir – Why is it that testers of motor vehicles in magazines appear to have great reluctance to mention automatic transmissions?
As an example, Paul Talbot’s report on the new Vauxhall Vectra in Issue 278 of Disabled Motorist. Here he lists all the excellent qualities of the car but nowhere does he say whether the car has four, five or six gears; whether it is manual, automatic or semi-automatic, which information for a large percentage of disabled people is the most important part.
As many can only drive automatics, the rest of the information is of little interest if, at the end of the day, they cannot drive the car. As this magazine is specially directed at disabled drivers, I would have thought that this information would have been of prime importance.
Apart from this little niggle, the magazine is excellent and full of useful information
and advice. Keep up the good work.
A M Kerr
Buckie
THANKS FOR THE MAG
Sir – Firstly, please excuse my writing; I suffer from osteoarthritis. May I say
how much I enjoy the mag. I am 82 so do not get out much.
K G B Owen
Dorset
I WONDER, IS THIS DISCRIMINATION?
Sir – I write to you regarding the letter:
“Application for a bay is as clear as melting chocolate” (Disabled Motorist,
May 2005). I have been trying to get a parking bay for my Motability car for some time. I have written and had meetings with my local councillor as I find my position almost intolerable; ie my car is parked out of sight, some 50 metres away – when I go out it is a constant worry whether I can park my car on return.
I live in a cul-de-sac where it isn’t possible to park on each side of the roadway. I park in a space, just off the cul-de-sac where there is a notice,“Residents Only”, but that is a joke; anyone wishing to visit the area will – and does – park there. We have residents from another street, where residents have two or more cars, using space in our location.
I am on the phone and writing to my local council, but get the same answers;
if people pay road tax they can park, and of course we don’t have the finance
to pay for disabled parking bays. I live behind the main row of bungalows and
have plenty of space to park, but no access. I will keep writing and phoning,
but can’t help wondering if, being disabled, I am being discriminated against.
Mr J Haslam
Bolton
NO SURPRISE OVER MORRISONS PULL-OUT
Sir – I am not in the least little bit surprised that Morrisons Stores have pulled out of the Baywatch scheme (Disabled Motorist, May 2005). Parking and Blue Badge disabled bay parking abuse was/is rife at our local Safeway store; now it has been taken over by Morrisons the situation is no better – in fact it seems a whole lot worse.
Because the store is undergoing a revamp by Morrisons, the parking area was reduced to about a quarter or less of its size, some of it being taken up by the
workmen’s container stores where they kept the tools and paint etc., and a very
large part of the car park was fenced off while the whole area was resurfaced
over several weeks, which we felt did not really need doing.
But now it has been resurfaced and new bay lines been put down we can see
why it was done – they have squeezed in a few more bays, thereby reducing the
size of the bays (general use bays, not the disabled bay) making it even harder
to get in our out of the car.
Why comment on normal bays, you may ask? Well, because nine times out of ten we cannot get a disabled bay that is empty. There are only a few bays near to the store and most times they are full, quite often with cars without a Blue Badge. This week the store has been shut while they finish off the changeover, and two days before they shut we went to get some last-minute shopping. We walked down to the store as we felt we wouldn’t be able to park anywhere, and we were quite right; we wouldn’t have got parking as there was none! Elderly people with and without Blue Badges were even parking in parent and child bays, of which only two were empty.
As I am in a wheelchair and rely on my son to push, the amount of shopping
had to be quite limited as we hadn’t got the car. It is a regular thing to watch
people drive in and around the car park several times before driving off altogether.
The store must be losing quite a bit of money because people cannot park at all
and go elsewhere to shop.
To make matters even worse they have now installed trolley shelters on at least four of the bays and the paper and garden recycling banks protrude out and make two bays unusable. As for Christmas, Easter and Bank Holidays, we have given up even trying to park at Safeway/Morrisons, the parking is so bad with huge tailbacks of cars trying to get into the car park.
So there you have it; Morrisons aren’t bothered about the Baywatch scheme
award as they know they wouldn’t win it anyway – at least here they wouldn’t,
as no one gives a damn about the abuse except the poor devil entitled to use it.
All those able-bodied people who abuse the disabled bay parking want to think
on; they may need to use such a bay one day and realise who hard it is to stop
when they see bays being abused by people like them.
We are sick to death of bay abuse and I’m sure many others are also. It’s time
something was done to stop it once and for all. Clamp and fine the offending
vehicle with no exceptions at all. After all, other countries do, so perhaps it’s
time we followed them and stamped out bay abuse for good.
And, yes, I have complained, several times in fact, and it made not the slightest
bit of difference; so have many other friends and people I know. We just get
ignored!
Pat Bishop
Powys
42 Disabled Motorist
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