I understand what you're saying Jo, they don't think at all.
For instance, I'll be waiting for a bus, by the bus stop, and a car will pull up and park right in front of me, in the bus lane. Thus making it impossible for the bus to pull in right up to the kerb (and so eject the wheelchair ramp). Without the ramp (and the kerb, which reduces the height which you have to "jump" to get on the bus), it's difficult and downright dangerous for me to get on the bus.
In the past, I've pushed up to the car in question, and politely explained the problem to the driver. The response is either "f.uck off!", laughing in my face, or "I'll only be 5 min" (yeh? well it only takes 2min for the bus to arrive, park, load up and be off again without me on board. dur
)
In desperation (and raging like a mad woman) I let the tyre down on a car one day. I wa petrified that the driver would come up behind me and kick me hard in the back or ruin my beautiful, faithful chair), but I did it all the same. Guess what? The pillock drove of on it! I'm thinking I need to make a simple, cheap device that I can screw on to the valve of the tyre and leave it to do it's work. Coz the longer I sit by a car, fiddling wth the valve/s, the more likely I get caught and get my chair busted.
Anyone got a bright idea?
(What I do is, roll up to the bus facing the back doors, do a wheelie and get my foot bar resting on the edge of the on/off platform .
Then with one hand on the hand-rails (on the back doors, I use London buses, other ones may not have these rails, which are bloody handy for w/ch users) I flip the front end of my chair up until the front wheels are on the platform.
Finally, I put both hands on the hand-rails and (using the powerful arm/shoulder muscles that manual w/ch users have) pull myself, and the back wheels of the chair up onto the bus.
So I can get on a London bus parked in the road, and without a ramp extended. But if I get one wheelie or flip wrong, if I flip just a little too much, then I'm over backwards.
Head in the gutter and legs flailing around in the air. Sounds funny, but it's not, and I'm lucky not to have cracked my head open. It's also downright embarassing, and does nothing for your st. cred, or your efforts to pull a girl.
Being picked up and hauled onto the bus like a piece of furniture by strangers does nothing for your confidence either. Too many strangers rush to help (o.k fair enough, their hearts are in the right place, and I can't very well get up again by myself), but do not sto to ask how to pick me up.
Very often, they get it wrong and end up damaging my chair, dropping me and the chair, or probably the worse, they grab me around my chest, so I hauled onto the bus by my tits!(ow!
(yeh, I dress boyishly, but have they never seen a dyke before?
) If they would stop and ask first, I could show them where to put their hands, and where NOT to.
Though there are some peole who realise I'm female., and so are eager to help so thatthey can touch me in intimate places (usually dirty men). This has happened to me seveal times in only a few months.
Any one else had a similar experience? What can we do to stop people who pretend to be helping but are actually violating our bodies? I've asked santa for a stun-gun this Christmas, reckon it might just do the trick!