Lip Service – a definition.
: an avowal of advocacy, adherence, or allegiance expressed in words but not backed by deeds.
That’s a lot of alliteration in that opening statement but it gets the message across. I have come across a few instances recently that have made me stop and think about businesses that pay lip service to accessibility, and how it can be more than just frustrating but sometimes verging on the dangerous. The idea behind todays blog is not to name and shame these companies (even though some of them deserve it) but to highlight an issue that isn’t necessarily at the forethought of an able-bodied person.
Why is it important to me that businesses don’t just offer lip service to accessibility but actively seek to make sure their venues are fit for purpose for those with mobility issues. It is worth noting here that I am not totally wheelchair bound, for the most part I can walk using my crutches but without either my sticks or my chair I can only manage a few steps. Many of the examples I am going to share here come from networking meetings as I am spending a fair bit of my time attending these to help grow our business.
The first week of having the chair I attended a networking meeting, I asked about accessibility, I was told that there might be a little lip to get in through the door but everything else was on a level. The little lip turned out to be a massive threshold, thankfully through teamwork we managed to enter the building to find that the first doorway too narrow and at a bizarre angle, so I had to step out of my chair and let Robin manhandled the chariot through, only to find that the second doorway even narrower still! To be fair this venue doesn’t advertise itself as accessible, although they do have a disabled toilet, it isn’t a new build either except for a few internal doorways the building has been there since the 1960’s, I think. The assurances that it was accessible came from an able-bodied person who didn’t really know the venue that well and had no idea that the “little step” was more significant.
The second venue I have attended recently for a networking event can be considered as a new build with construction finishing in 2001. The Disability Discrimination Act came into force in 1995 (now Equality Act 2010) so you would like to think this building would be DDA compliant. I know I have a wider than average chair at 76cm, a standard chair is 66cm but the doorways at this venue were so narrow that again I had to get out of my chair and weeble wobble into the room. To be DDA compliant doorways need to be 90cm. No matter what you are told – size really does matter. What would have happened if I couldn’t just hop out of my chair to enter a room? I probably would have had to leave and not attend the networking event.
Other instances of lip service I have encountered in my wheelie journey are mainly with businesses not thinking about the day-to-day activities a wheelie needs. Parking has a multitude of pitfalls, aside from someone misusing the system (I’ll just be 5 minutes etc) one is the infrastructure around the spaces. A few places we have visited recently have security bollards around to stop vehicles from moving beyond the space but, it can hamper the car driver and passenger. I have a couple of photos to highlight the madness of having the bollards so close to the parking spaces.
What about when a venue is accessible, things are in place to aid the disabled visitor/user, but other users just make things harder. I don’t think anything is ever done maliciously but more like thoughtlessness. The photos show a few examples of what obstacles I have some across.
I love the fact I can go grocery shopping with Robin, I can get a trolley that clips onto the front of my chair and off I go! That is theory anyway, if I can get access to the trolleys that is. I did find one such trolley, but it didn’t fit my chair, that isn’t surprising really as I have already stated my chair is wider than normal, but had it managed to clip on there wouldn’t have been any room for me! It is like the designer assumed that a stick figure would be in the chair and had the trolley but up as close as it could leaving no room at the inn as it were.
So, what is the point from today’s blog? Awareness I guess, like anything else just look around with a little more care when going about your daily business. Until you have been in a chair it isn’t easy to see what a problem to a wheelchair user could be. I would like to think that by raising awareness of some of these issues, the next time you see something that isn’t right, you could make it right before a wheelie encounters it and struggles.