Disabled transport users are treated like “second-class citizens” in a “national embarrassment”, an MP has warned. A report by the Commons’ Transport Select Committee found there is a “substantial gap” between the rights of disabled people using the transport network and their daily experience.
MPs on the committee were told of incidents of wheelchair users left on planes, taxi drivers refusing lifts to people because they have an assistance dog, and street clutter causing obstructions. People with non-visible disabilities such as autism, dementia and severe anxiety said they are discouraged from attempting to travel by poor reliability and a lack of assistance.
Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, who chairs the committee, said: “It should be a source of national embarrassment that our country’s transport services effectively treat disabled people as second class citizens, denying them access to jobs, leisure, support networks and essential services – denying them their rights.
“This inquiry worked on the premise that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their condition or difference, and that services should be designed to enable disabled people to travel independently, not reliant on others. After all, services that work for disabled people also work better for everyone.
“And yet, those who have been let down and want redress or compensation face a spaghetti junction of complaints processes that either fob them off or lead them on a road to nowhere.
“Even when complaints are resolved, lessons aren’t learnt, changes aren’t put in place, and it’s tempting to think that the small and occasional penalties for failure are accepted by providers as a mere cost of doing business.
“Failures must go from being an everyday occurrence to vanishingly rare.
“In its reforms to transport services over this Parliament, the Government must ensure people with access needs no longer go unseen, unheard and unacknowledged.”
The committee made a series of recommendations, including that the Government should produce a new inclusive transport strategy within 12 months.
The report stated: “The evidence from disabled people shows that there is still a very substantial gap between the rights and obligations that exist in theory, and the daily experience of people who rely on pavements, buses, taxis, trains and planes to get to work, to access services, or for leisure.”
It comes as the Daily Express is backing schoolboy Zach Eagling’s campaign to make public transport more accessible for wheelchair users with our Zach’s Right to Ride crusade.
The 13-year-old from West Yorkshire, who has cerebral palsy and epilepsy, previously campaigned successfully for Zach’s Law to protect epilepsy suffers against online trolls.
He is now calling on the Government to do more to make train, bus and other services more inclusive.
The Department for Transport was approached for a comment.