Move your f-cking buggies from the wheelchair spaces on buses

Perfectly able-bodied people in warm offices dreaming up active travel schemes and their blow-hard defenders on social media know nothing of the reality of trying to access a bus's wheelchair space on a wet Sunday afternoon in Wood Green

As the 41 came to it's halt at Turnpike Lane Station, I pressed the blue wheelchair button, as any reasonable person would. He could see me,  Mr Privileged-Entitled, from the comfort of the priority seat, because he looked me squarely in the eye. I asked him, can you move your buggy from the wheelchair space. It was pissing down with rain and I was getting soaked. I'd left Z with the other Difficult Parent under the bus shelter. But I wanted to get him on the bus and in the warm and out of the rain as quickly as I could.

Mr Privileged-Entitleddid not move. He did not move the unfolded buggy. He just sat and stared at me. Perhaps hoping that if he wished it hard enough the driver would just drive on and leave the paraplegic young man at the bus stop in the pouring rain, getting soaked to the skin along with his parents.

But that didn't happen.

The back doors close to get the ramp out and the driver gives me a nod. He says don't worry, I'll get them to move. He does this by using the automated announcement over the bus tannoy. 

Eventually, Mr and Mrs Privileged-Entitled fold the buggy and place it in the middle of the bus aisle. The buggy in the middle of the aisle makes it hard for us to get wheelchair into the wheelchair space. Mr    Privileged-Entitled then sits in the priority seating opposite the wheelchair space gripping his toddler-sized child for dear life.

Standing over my paraplegic child and dripping water, I ask Mr  Privileged-Entitledif he would move so we can sit down. Wordless he gazes at the empty seat next to him. Could both of us sit down? 

"Fine", he says, "But you seem to be very passive-aggressive".

The theory versus the reality of active travel is never more real than it is for disabled people confronted by the entitlement of the able-bodied people. And this became the topic of conversation between us two Difficult Parents as the bus trundled along West Green Road. This topic of conversation seemed to upset MrsPrivileged-Entitledwho shouted over that she didn't want an argument.

Nor did Mrs   Privileged-Entitled want arguments with the people who got on the bus but were unable to get to the back of the bus because the buggy was blocking the aisle. Despite not wanting these arguments, she did not move the buggy out of the way to stop it forming an obstruction.

We arrive at our bus stop and as we get off, Mrs Privileged-Entitled can't help herself and appears at the door at the back of the bus shouting at us "There's no need to be angry at the whole world".  (Mrs Privileged-Entitled was more aggressive-aggressive than her passive-aggressive partner Mr Privileged-Entitled.