One week in the life of mobility restriction and experiences with the general public.

Here is a day-by-day account of the last week or so just to give you a sense how it feels to face the general public and to have to use public transport as a person who often uses crutches when out and about for more than a few blocks.?

Friday.

1.?????Fell over and hurt knee, ankle and hand. Lay where I fell for a fair bit of time, groaning in pain trying to figure out how bad things were and to work up the wherewithal to get back up. Over 10 people passed without stopping or checking in with me. Before you ask: They had seen me enough to stop and drive or walk around me so they did notice I was there. I was wearing bright colours laying on the ground in essentially the middle of a small street. Eventually an old lady stopped who sat with me for a moment but wouldn’t have been physically able to help had I needed it. I managed to eventually get back up, get stuff to patch up my knee and hobbled home.

2.?????Took 2 trains. Outward journey on a packed train it took well over 5 minutes to get someone to free up one of the disabled seats. A few minutes into my pleading and begging, one person stood up. She had a broken arm in a sling but said she was probably OK to stand. I told her to sit right back down and continued begging for a seat. Eventually someone freed up their seat. I was glad I was sitting, and sitting tucked away as there was a rather unruly alcoholic in the carriage who kept bothering folks for 45 min until he finally left.?Return journey was uneventful.

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Saturday

Local. Had to take an Uber where my old self would have walked. No incidents as I was with a group of folks who know me.

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Sunday

·???????Went to an event where the venue was over 4 floors. The lift was broken. I just about managed to see 2 floors. I had been curious about this for months and had planned my day around this so was gutted to not really be able to see and enjoy it. No help offered, no apologies or any acknowledgement from the organizer. Gave feedback. No response.

·???????Had tickets to a thing. Tried to take the bus to get there, bus stop got moved. Schlepped myself to the replacement bus stop. Bus rushed right past and didn’t stop (I indicated I wanted to get onto that bus). Ended up having to take an Uber instead (7x the price of what the bus fare would have been).

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Monday-Wednesday

Not out and about much where people are, no use of public transport. Therefore no incidents.

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Thursday

·???????Work trip. Most trains actually ran, which is a very rare treat (takes 3 trains for each journey). Trip there was uneventful (which rarely happens). Trip back had to negotiate hard again for a seat. I only got that seat because one man basically ordered a lad to get up and free up space. That lad hadn’t gotten up when I first asked.

·???????Tried to get food on the way back, got accidentally slapped in the face by someone while trying to enter the shop. It was clear it wasn’t with intent, but these things are destabilizing (literally) in ways that make things very wobbly and therefore unsafe, particularly when I’m also carrying e.g. a laptop bag or shopping or something heavy. I tried to explain that to him. He walked off without saying anything (about 5 min later he came back and apologized). Before you ask: I was right next to the security guard when the first interaction happened and the security guard literally looked the other way until we were both gone.

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Friday

2 long train rides. Destination station only reachable by crossing a walkway with stairs which is near-impossible for me to manage right now, particularly since the fall a week ago. Got trapped on that solid concrete walkway above the tracks (too narrow for someone to pass me when I’m walking on crutches), right with 2 dogs who were starting a massive fight. I’m enormously afraid of dogs so ended up having a panic attack, which then finally prompted one of the owners to take the dog off the walkway until the other dog was gone and until I eventually managed to get off that walkway at the other side). Later it turned out the platform would have had disabled access, but it wasn’t labelled anywhere nor obvious at all for folks who arrive by train, which makes the whole episode even more frustrating.

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Saturday

·???????On the way into the station building on the way to a thing, someone basically ran right into me, kicked away my crutches and I nearly fell over. I told him politely to please not do that as that makes it very unsafe for me to move around. He completely lost it and started screaming at me how it was all my fault etc etc. All in plain sight of security folks and a station full of people who just let it happen.

·???????On the way back home I got yelled at from a car why the f*** I wasn’t taking the f***ing sidewalk, plus a few other rude disability-related things (that kind of language is pretty standard if the other person shouts from a vehicle). I was indeed walking on the road. Which I always have to do in that specific street as the sidewalk can only be reached by 5 stairs so I’m not actually able to get up there, which I tried to explain but he didn’t listen. Before you ask: The street is big enough for 2 cars to pass each other even if there’s a person on crutches trying to fit between two too-tightly parked cars, I wasn't actually blocking anyone.

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Sunday/Bank Holiday Monday

Was meant to go to 2 things I had tickets for and another thing that was loosely planned. I didn’t feel able to face public transport and the perpetually enraged public so I decided to stay home. I honestly needed a break. As I wasn’t out where people are and didn’t use public transport, there were no incidents.

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That's how it is.

With all of that, that has probably been one of the better weeks in a long time. Most transportation I booked was actually running, which is rare; and a lot of the lifts, escalators etc were functioning. All of that is highly unusual these days.

It isn’t at all untypical to have to beg and plead for a seat. Even when I’m on crutches and clearly struggling to stand. Even when I’m asking. Begging. ?

The callousness and aggression level of the general public is an enormous problem. This week’s examples have been fairly mild, that is probably a best-case scenario for being out and about in England these days. It’s typically much much worse.?The only thing that hit me was an unintentional and the person at least eventually apologized. That also isn’t the norm.

I also get full on verbal and physical assaults. In case you were wondering or trying to conjure up an image what that might look like, the worst behaviour and most of the assaults over the past years came from women, men tend to be helpful- albeit usually too late and not enough (unless they are in a car which seems to extinguish all trace of manners, or if they the actual driver, my only physical assault on public transport by a man was by the actual bus driver himself, all others were women).

If you’ve done the maths you’ll see that for someone like me, a good week means that when I’m out and about, there are still multiple incidents per day. It’s exhausting beyond ways I’m able to voice on a place like LinkedIn.

Why I'm sharing this and what that means for you

I’m NOT at all looking for advice, and I’m not looking for coaching or reflection prompts either (I do this for a living). I pre-empted some of the "but what about..." or "have you tried..." comments I'm likely going to get (these are very rarely helpful if unprompted by the way, so maybe please don't).

And before you suggest that: Calling or texting the British transport police isn’t an option either if you expect any actual help in any sort of timeframe and don't have up to 4 months of a significant amount of extra time to deal with the administrative fallout (and that's if they do nothing/act with a 3 month delay for no reason). In my experience, neither police nor security (nor shop or train staff nor the general public) will step in or help. And with the transport police specifically, my experiences during a full-on assault when I called them were so awful and traumatizing I wouldn’t want to repeat those (and yes I have raised that there, too, and that too was awful to a level I wouldn’t want to repeat and added weeks to the mess caused by who was meant to help).

I don't know what to recommend here, but my experience is it's safer to assume you're on your own when anything happens. Personally, I won't be calling for help again. Oh, that CCTV that is apparently nearly everywhere in the UK? Trust that it isn't working on that day that thing happens on your train carriage (it also takes about a month to get the footage), trains are very badly maintained here.

If you ever do plan to raise anything, come prepared: Keep notes where you sit exactly, at all times. If you're brave enough to photograph your perpetrator with your phone because you think it might help, note that the picture will only be usable if it is fully from the front and the person clearly looks into the camera with the full face visible and in good lighting (you still being half-trapped underneath the perpetrator post-assault is not an excuse for the picture being slightly sideways and the perpetrator not looking into the camera, apparently). Make it clear repeatedly who is the disabled one (for some reason I still can't fathom, in my case they put the OTHER person down as disabled and repeatedly couldn't seem to be working out why a disabled person would attack me. Well...).

I’m also NOT looking for expressions of sympathy or nice words. LinkedIn comments or messages aren’t convertible into anything practical that would make it safer or easier for someone like me to be out and about or to get home safely. So save your breath – unless you actually do something in the real world. Unless you are that person who steps in, who frees up a seat, who calls someone out, who looks around them and tries to make things better or who asks the person in need what would help, and then work with what they say. If you’re wondering how to help, that’s what helps. Please do that.