Until January 2011, I had been a regular traveller on London's buses, visiting family and friends, going shopping and making many trips to hospital. I go out less in the winter because when you are 76 the cold gets deep into your bones. Sitting static in a wheelchair, you become colder more quickly and more severely. If a bus is late, an older, disabled person suffers more.
Getting on a bus with a wheelchair involves the driver lowering a ramp that's situated at the rear door. Bus drivers are issued with a red book, their "bible" of instruction, which provides guidance for allowing wheelchair users to travel.
My first experience of being refused access on to a bus demonstrates how drivers interpret the rules differently. I needed to keep a regular hospital appointment and, after a longer wait than usual, raised my arm to signal to the driver of the approaching bus that I wanted to get on. He stopped but refused to lower the ramp. The reason: "You have a motor on your wheelchair." I was stunned. The driver took a photograph of me in the wheelchair then drove away.
I reached the hospital by taking a bus on another route that did take the wheelchair. Before starting my journey home, I asked at the nearest bus station if there had been changes to the red book. I was shown a copy, which clearly stated that I should have been allowed to travel. So I was utterly amazed when the next bus driver, claiming he was following red book instructions, didn't allow me on board. Apologetic, he said: "I daren't take the risk; another driver might." According to him, new instructions had been given a couple of months earlier.
By this time my wheelchair's battery was worryingly low. Calling a minicab wouldn't help; few accommodate wheelchairs. I had my two walking sticks, but no safe place to leave my wheelchair. Desperate, I pleaded with any driver going in my direction. Eventually, I was reluctantly allowed on to a bus. Getting off, severely cold, with my home still half a mile away, I was most anxious about the battery. It rapidly ran flat. Stuck, I again considered a cab but the same issues remained of an accessible vehicle and where to safely leave the wheelchair. I resorted to the indignity of asking someone to push me. After several refusals, a willing lad did. I was in pain from the cold as well as from my illness. My discomfort and anger distressed me.
I complained to the London mayor, Boris Johnson, as head of Transport for London (TfL) and to Maria Miller, the minister for disabled people. They ignored my letters, as did the bus operators. Cock-up after cock-up followed.
A week later, I was repeating my journey to hospital. Another driver says: "Your wheelchair is not allowed on the bus." This time, more prepared, I put my foot in the doorway and told the bus driver Rosa Parks-style that, if I was refused, the bus wasn't going anywhere. A standoff followed. The driver said: "I don't care, I get paid anyway." He wouldn't call his control room. Despite my apologies, some of the now-delayed passengers rounded on me. They forced the driver to call his controller. The controller sought advice and told the driver he must allow me on to the bus. The driver then made repeated efforts to lower the ramp but it was jammed. He had no alternative but to take the bus out of service. All the passengers had to get off. Some became angry with me. "It's all your fucking fault, you've made everyone fucking late," I was told.
When the next bus came along, the driver failed to observe correct procedure to allow a wheelchair user on before the other passengers. As a result, his bus filled up with people standing in the space for a wheelchair and a pushchair, making it difficult to fit on. More abuse rained down on me. The most vocal man, crammed against my wheelchair, expressed hypocritically: "I feel for you, I feel for all disabled people." I made no effort to reply.
The next hospital appointment brought worse driver trouble. Before even reaching the stop, the bus driver waved at me in dismissive fashion. Opening the doors to shout, his loud message was that I was not getting on. To prevent the doors closing, I put my foot in. He quickly got out of his seat and repeatedly stamped on my foot and kicked me in the shin while operating the doors to trap my ankle. Horrified passengers shouted at him to stop. Finally, he pulled the doors open with his hands, then kicked my very sore foot off the step. Back in his seat, he drove away.
I called 999 to report the assault, but they said they had no idea when I would get police assistance. Cold and traumatised, I couldn't wait around. I got another bus to the hospital in a thoroughly confused state, but when I got there I was too traumatised to go ahead with the cystoscopy.
The driver who had attacked me earlier drove the return bus, which was empty. Many people were waiting at the bus stop. Before allowing anyone on, he shouted to me: "Do you remember me? I told you, you can't travel on my bus." A frail woman stepped forward and shouted: "Who do you think you are, kicking a disabled old man?" When he tried to deny it, she said she had seen and heard everything as she had been sitting behind him on my previous journey. Angrily, she reminded him what he had done. He then changed his aggressive tone, claiming there had been no space. She and I denounced him as a liar. Others, too, had seen the entire incident and they contradicted him. This hostile scene lasted around nine minutes. The driver eventually backed down and asked meekly: "Do you want to get on my bus?" He refused to give me his number so I that I could report him to his employer. The woman willingly provided her address. Others, also upset by the attack, said they would be witnesses.
In total, on 28 separate occasions over the last 18 months, I have been refused on to a bus or have had objections from bus drivers. Excuses included luggage and pushchairs occupying wheelchair space. I was left stranded three times in one day. Drivers withhold their numbers. Delayed passengers shout: "I don't care about your fucking rights." Careless drivers stop where ramps are then immobilised. I have been refused the right to get off a bus, told to get off another, photographed, made to suffer discomfort when attending tests, abused, sniggered and shouted at.
Disabled people should not have to face these ordeals when they are travelling. The angst, annoyance, distress and indignity I and others are put through is wrong. I have had enough. I have set up the Ray on Rights campaign and I'm taking the bus companies involved, TfL and the minister for disabled people to court for breaching the law. The Equality Act 2010 obliges everyone who provides a service to the public, including bus operators, to take reasonable steps to adjust their services for disabled people and prohibits discrimination against disabled people in a range of circumstances, such as the use of public transport. The defendants have also breached their duty of care under numerous other laws and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I want compensation and justice.
