Originally Posted by
flyquiet
I don't think we need to go there. There's been enough slurring on FT of people with disabilities with this exact same insinuation that to repeat the debate is redundant. While non-disabled people do undoubtedly abuse services of accessibility, you just don't know the reason "grandma" needed the wheelchair.
I am quite certain that from time to time people question my disability, and I don't need to get into any pissing contest with anybody about it.
People who need help sometimes do not need help other times, for example, when rushing to a plane after rushing from the car park, they need help; when disembarking after resting for two hours, and expecting to walk slowly once they get into the jet bridge and terminal, they don't need help.
It is less harmful to accommodate someone who does not really need the assistance than it is to disparage, slur, and stigmatize someone who really does need the assistance but somehow doesn't meet your non-professional standards of "how bad they are supposed to look".
I agree in full. Last month there was an elderly woman on a train I was taking and it required a sudden change from the train to the bus due to equipment or track maintenance problems that caused a long delay. The Swedish rail employees refused to help her and said she had to walk on her own and carry her own luggage about a fifth of mile. She could walk but if she had to do it in one stretch and without a wheelchair or a rest on a bench, she'd likely have a heart attack even as we volunteered to transport her luggage to the replacement bus well before asking them to guide her/wait for her or something. The woman even needed a pre-KG kid to hold her hand to help her from collapsing during the walk. While she may have looked fine at the beginning or the end of a wheelchair transport, having her go without a wheelchair would have had her either stranded/further delayed in Southern Sweden (by way of missing the replacement bus service) or ending up hitting the health care system with additional costs if we wouldn't have been persistent to get SJ rail staff to fulfill their duties and get them to do what they should have done without being pestered by me.
Originally Posted by
Doc Savage
It's a fairly obvious problem at a number of airports.
One of the ways to lessen this abuse may be to require family members to go through the normal lines so the time savings aspect is substantially downgraded, I.e., only one family member may accompany the WHCR user.
Not practical, as it ties up a wheelchair and the wheelchair assistant assigned by the airline or airport or other non-passenger party to transport the wheelchair and passenger.