A London bus driver was caught on camera refusing to lower the ramps to allow a disabled wheelchair-bound toddler to board up to ’12 times a week’, a frustrated mother has revealed.
The anonymous parent started recording the encounters and one video, taken at 10:45am on Wednesday, shows her at the back entrance of the 197 bus in Croydon, south London.
She pressed the button to ask the driver to lower the ramp as she was taking her son, Charles, two, to a soft play session in a specialist chair.
The male driver gestures for her to come to the front of the bus, telling her ‘it’s just a buggy’ and asking her to ‘bump it up’ – before driving off.
A second video, taken on their way home around 12:15, shows a female driver who came off the bus to attempt to lift the chair on board.
She got back into the cab when the mother said ‘no’ – and a supervisor told her to lower the ramp and the mother and her child were able to board the bus, she said.
She began filming the incidents because these incidents happen up to 12 times a week since Charles came out of hospital a year ago, she said.
Charles has chronic lung disease and needs to be on a ventilator for at least 16 hours a day. He is fed via a tube into his tummy, and he can’t speak or walk.
He was born weighing just 2lbs on August 8, 2022, four weeks after his twin sister died.
Charles travels in a specialised chair which his mother got from NHS wheelchair services.
His ventilator, oxygen cylinder, suction machine, and feeding pump, which he needs to take everywhere with him, are stored below the seat, his mum explained.
She doesn’t want to bump the chair up onto buses in case the equipment gets hit and damaged, or falls, or Charles’s feeding or waste tubes get dislodged, she explained.
The single parent, who gave up her job as a carer and in admin when Charles was born, said: ‘It’s awful and feels so humiliating when this happens, when I got to the soft play I was crying.
‘Busses are Charles’s absolute obsession, and once this has happened I just want to go home but I can’t, I have to keep going for him.
‘It’s really upsetting to be left standing at the bus stop watching the bus driving off.
‘They just don’t care, all they have to do is press a button. Someone who doesn’t need the ramp isn’t going to ask for it.
‘People shouldn’t be expected to explain their disabilities or justify their needs.
‘It’s discrimination just because it doesn’t look like a wheelchair, and it’s not fair.
‘Some people have hidden disabilities, drivers have no right to ask them to discuss that.
‘It’s hard enough for us to go out, we don’t have long before he needs to be back on the ventilator.
‘Charles has to fight for every day of his life. Once I manage to get us out the door I just need for things to go smoothly, that’s not too much to ask.
‘All I want to do is get on the bus and have a bit of peace, not arguments.
‘By the time we’ve had the discussion they could easily have just put down the ramp, it makes no sense.’
The mum posted the videos on TikTok where they got half-a-million views and other parents of disabled children said they have similar experiences regularly.
Rosie Trew, TfL’s head of bus service delivery, said: ‘Wheelchair users and others requiring use of the ramp have every right to expect to be able to use the ramp on every journey.
‘Any unreasonable refusal to deploy the on-bus ramp is completely unacceptable and we are very sorry for the distress this has caused.
‘We are working with the bus operator to fully investigate the incidents and continue to urge anyone who experiences issues like these to report them immediately.’