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Community Corner

Community Update

BACK TO SCHOOL...trapped by a bus with a wheelchair lift! Have you ever been stuck behind or by the stop sign sticking out of the side of a bus with a wheelchair lift? Does it aggravate the flip out of you? If you are BEHIND the bus, you might better be able to appreciate WHY you are sitting there for so long. If you are directly behind the bus, you can see that the bus driver has to exit the bus and walk to the back, where he or she opens a door to the lift and deploys it. A heavy metal lift does not flip down at the snap of the fingers. It takes a 1/2 minute or so. After it is deployed, it must be lowered to the ground...another 1/2 minute or more. A metal lip on the edge of the lift deploys when the lift hits the ground. This lip does two things...it is there to enable the chair to be rolled onto the lift without bumps or jolts, and it raises back up into it's starting position (a ninety degree angle to the floor of the lift) before the lift is raised with a wheelchair passenger on board, which is a safety precaution against the chair rolling off the lift should anything go awry with brakes, et cetera. This lip will not deploy if the lift did not touch a level surface. If there are dips in the asphalt, the bus driver must unlatch it manually and usually step down on it to make full contact with the ground so that the chair can be rolled onto the lift safely. It doesn't happen very often, but it CAN happen. A wheelchair must be rolled onto a lift backwards, facing away from the bus. Being in front of a chair and maneuvering it backwards by the armrests, or by the frame somewhere near a person's knees or ankles, is awkward and NOT the swift move that it is when you're standing behind a person in a chair, pulling them back by the handles or handlebar. Brakes are usually located on the back of wheelchairs these days, in the form of a tight pedal in the center of the chair. They are NOT like the simple brakes on the sides of the wheelchairs at nursing homes and hospitals. A bus driver or parent has to be a bit of a contortionist to reach it from the side and exhort the amount of pressure needed to push it down into place (or release it) when the chair is in place on the lift. Add more time for the lift to be raised up, for the attendant in the bus to safely get a grip on the wheelchair, release the brake, and pull the child into the bus. So the kid's in the bus...can we go now???!!! NO. What's going on in there???!!! THIS is the part that can take the longest...and since people can't see inside the bus, the wait can feel even MORE like a miserable waste of precious time. However, if you COULD see what was going on inside of the bus, you would know that the bus driver and the attendant are working feverishly (yes, they are on a schedule and feel your pain) to lock the wheelchair down to the floor of the bus. Multiple straps are hooked onto the chair, tightened, and locked into place. The two of them have to wiggle and tug at the chair to make sure that it is as secure as it possibly can be, and if not, bend down and try again to get everything locked even tighter...and just like you, wheelchair kids get seat belts across their shoulders and laps. The attendant and bus driver have to get into place and THEN the sign gets pulled back and everybody can be on their merry way. I am sharing this information because as the mother of a child who boards a bus in a wheelchair, I have had enough of people blaring their horns at the bus during this process. That does not make it go any faster. I have had enough of them screaming profanities at me, calling me a bit@h, and flashing obscene gestures at me when they drive past me after I wave to my daughter's bus as it heads off to pick up the next kid on the route. These are most often the people that were stuck in the line on the opposite side of the bus...the side with the stop sign...who may or may not have a view of the lift and the child on it. That is NO EXCUSE. I am not standing idly beside the bus having a friendly chat with the bus driver at the expense of your time. If you think I am exaggerating about the time it takes to load a kid in a wheelchair onto a school bus, you are very welcome to join Veronica and me any morning that you would like to, and see for yourself. We would enjoy your company. We are on Pottle Avenue, and she does stop traffic. If you find yourself stuck frequently in a "wheelchair bus" back-up, call the SSD, tell them where you are traveling, and ask what the bus' schedule is, so you can find an alternate route or try to miss it. Be aware that routes and pick-up/drop-off times get adjusted and tweaked throughout the year, so be flexible. If you have children or grandchildren that ride a mainstream school bus, use the time as an opportunity to think of your kids and count your blessings that they aren't in a wheelchair. I use every second of it to enjoy my child and count my blessings that I get the extra time with her because she is.

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