This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

Ian Jelf wrote:
This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm

Possibly less surprising if you read "buggy" as shorthand for
"my-other-Chelsea-tractor-is-even-bigger-than-this-2-tier-ankle-breaker".

As for a "buggy" being folded .......................... about as common
as Gordon Brown's apologies.
--
Robin

On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, neverwas wrote:

Ian Jelf wrote:
This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm

Possibly less surprising if you read "buggy" as shorthand for
"my-other-Chelsea-tractor-is-even-bigger-than-this-2-tier-ankle-breaker".

Quite. And what's this 'buggy park'? Do they mean 'wheelchair space'? I do
wish people with buggies would fall down and die. If your children are
small enough to need a pushchair, they're small enough to lift out of it
with ease. If they're big enough that you can't, they should bloody well
be walking. It does nobody except the parent any favours, and certainly
not the children, to keep them strapped in a buggy.

Sterilise the lot of 'em, i say.

tom

--
.... the gripping first chapter, which literally grips you because it's
printed on a large clamp.

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
rth.li...
On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, neverwas wrote:

Ian Jelf wrote:
This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm

Possibly less surprising if you read "buggy" as shorthand for
"my-other-Chelsea-tractor-is-even-bigger-than-this-2-tier-ankle-breaker".

Quite. And what's this 'buggy park'? Do they mean 'wheelchair space'? I do
wish people with buggies would fall down and die. If your children are
small enough to need a pushchair, they're small enough to lift out of it
with ease. If they're big enough that you can't, they should bloody well
be walking. It does nobody except the parent any favours, and certainly
not the children, to keep them strapped in a buggy.

Sterilise the lot of 'em, i say.

tom

--
... the gripping first chapter, which literally grips you because it's
printed on a large clamp.

Yea, they should have started with your parents I think.

In message . li, Tom
Anderson writes
On Mon, 27 Apr 2009, neverwas wrote:

Ian Jelf wrote:
This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm

Possibly less surprising if you read "buggy" as shorthand for
"my-other-Chelsea-tractor-is-even-bigger-than-this-2-tier-ankle-breaker".

Quite. And what's this 'buggy park'? Do they mean 'wheelchair space'? I
do wish people with buggies would fall down and die. If your children
are small enough to need a pushchair, they're small enough to lift out
of it with ease. If they're big enough that you can't, they should
bloody well be walking. It does nobody except the parent any favours,
and certainly not the children, to keep them strapped in a buggy.

Sterilise the lot of 'em, i say.

"Incoming......."!
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
rth.li...

If your children are small enough to need a pushchair, they're small
enough to lift out of it with ease. If they're big enough that you can't,
they should bloody well be walking.

I've often wondered why having procreated gives people the right to invade
everyone else's space with their ridiculous means of child transport. Either
use a foldaway buggy - and fold it up on a bus - or carry the brats.

Ian

On Apr 28, 8:21*am, "Ian F." wrote:
"Tom Anderson" wrote in message

rth.li...

If your children are small enough to need a pushchair, they're small
enough to lift out of it with ease. If they're big enough that you can't,
they should bloody well be walking.

I've often wondered why having procreated gives people the right to invade
everyone else's space with their ridiculous means of child transport. Either
use a foldaway buggy - and fold it up on a bus - or carry the brats.

I don't really see why someone who is putting in 24 hours a day to
provide the people who will look after us in our old age should be
forbidden to travel.

However much anyone is annoyed by very occasionally being delayed a
couple of minutes by a buggy, at least you don't have to look after
their children.

There are probably societies where everyone on the bus would see it as
their responsibility to help, eg hold the child while the mother folds
the buggy etc, but in a society where everyone is on their own, while
others just look on and tut, they'll make whatever arrangements they
see fit, and good luck to em.

When I was a child in the 1960's my mother hauled a pushchair on and
off RM and RT buses, either on her own or probably with the help of
the conductor. (Blimey, I'm starting to see Boris's point about buses
here!). This was normal practice and no-one complained. My mother is
hardly the largest or strongest person either. I also travelled in the
guards compartment of trains as well, and can remember doing the same
thing whne my sister was little in the early 1970's.

Neill

In message
, MIG
writes
There are probably societies where everyone on the bus would see it as
their responsibility to help, eg hold the child while the mother folds
the buggy etc,

Malta is one!

We travelled back from Valetta to Qawra one day on a crowded bus [1]
where a child literally screamed his head off to the point where we were
ready to do the same ourselves but everyone else on the bus just smiled
indulgently and admired the little boy and his impressive little lungs!
I think it's just the Mediterranean temperament and love of families.
As Northern European Anglos Saxons this was completely alien to us!
:-))


but in a society where everyone is on their own, while
others just look on and tut, they'll make whatever arrangements they
see fit, and good luck to em.

Being serious for a moment, London and other places have made good
progress in recent years making space for buggies. The problem seems
to arise when the space is full. Parents or carers have become so used
to not folding the buggy, they feel that they never have to.

Now, I *have* heard stories of drivers refusing to wait *while* a mother
folded a buggy (First 121 or 126 in Somerset, for reference) but for the
most part the problem does seem to be the adults not accepting when a
space is already full.



[1] There seems to be no other sort in Malta!
--
Ian Jelf, MITG
Birmingham, UK

Registered Blue Badge Tourist Guide for London and the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

On Apr 27, 10:50*pm, Ian Jelf wrote:
This surprised me:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8021703.stm

Ditto.

There's a few issues at play here. There does appear to be an
expectation amongst a significant number of buggy-wielding bus users
that they can - or should always be able to - get on a bus without
folding the buggy up. This is daft - those with kids in buggies should
be prepared to evict the little'un from said buggy and fold it up when
getting on the bus. I reckon it's also fair to say that babies in
prams should take priority over buggies - and of course wheelchair
users take priority over both (there is enough space in most buses for
a wheelchair and a buggy/pram though).

The other thing of course is the preponderance of ridiculous overlarge
4x4-style buggy and pram designs. There's no need for these huge
contraptions, especially in London! The fact they are so big is in and
of itself a problem with regards to bus use - it makes them difficult
to manoeuvre when inside the bus (and indeed outside on the street
to!), and also of course means they take up more than their fare share
of bus floor real-estate, which can result in there being less space
for other buggies.

The other issue with these mega-buggies however is that they're a
complete faff to fold up - these are not simple beasts, and thus don't
lend themselves to rapid stowing.

The answer of course is to have a simple back-to-basics pushchair -
easily collapsible with a nifty kick or kung-fu chop to the critical
artery - and then one is free of the burden of the 4x4 monster-buggy
and can be totally flexible.

I know plenty of friends and acquaintances who do - or did - just
this. If they expect the bus to be busy then the pushchair is already
folded up at the bus stop, otherwise they and their tot are poised to
evacuate and fold-up the pushchair if needs be - an action that takes
five seconds - and voila, they're on the bus going where they need to
be going rather than pathetically hanging around at the bus stop
waiting for ages until a bus with some spare floor space arrives.


The Children's Society are being daft. The basic thing is that this is
a side-effect of the success story that is the London bus network.
Parents with buggies should however get real and 'empower' themselves
instead of expecting some sort of silver service..

The TfL spokesperson quoted in the BBC article has it right, I think:
---quote---
Michael Weston, from TfL, said: "I think what we've done is that we've
made the bus network in London very, very accessible and we are seeing
the success of that in terms of a lot of buggy users being able to get
on the bus without folding their buggies.

"There are also a lot of wheelchair users using the bus network, so at
times we ask passengers to compromise and be flexible about how they
use the space on the buses."
---/quote---