I’ve just come across an article about disabled peoples’ experiences of using public transport. It quoted the results of a Scope survey, which revealed that nearly half of those asked faced discrimination or abuse on buses and trains.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission claims that public transport is one of the “hot spots for violence and harassment targeted at disabled people”. This is supported by the survey, the experiences of disabled people quoted in the article, and my own.

One wheelchair user described how she and her personal assistant are sworn at week in, week out, by commuters angered at having to move for her.

Although I’ve had lots of unpleasant experiences travelling, I’ve also had many interesting or unexpected ones. Tonight when I got on a night bus I was ticcing ‘fuck’ a lot. The driver said, “You need to be careful with that language.” I thought he was going to tell me off for swearing, but he went on to say, “You might get the other passengers all over-excited.”