I like to travel. Always have, and probably always will. I love learning about different languages and cultures, and 'seeing' them. But disablism: it's still going on around the world. And as it's
Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010 today, it's time to highlight it.
Let's begin.
Hello.
If you're here, it's likely you've come because of the Blogging Against Disablism Day blogfest, so you may not be familiar with me or my blog. Here's an introduction in case you aren't a regular:
I'm Damon, Welsh British, living in the UK in a quaint shire town in the West Midlands, I can see, but not too well as I'm visually impaired. I'm married, love writing and learning languages. I believe in trying to carrying with things as best as I can by myself with my visual impairment, and living as close to a normal life as I had before my eyes problems came, but realise my limitations. I don't like bright light (or often normal light depending on how pained my eyes are), so I often wear shades over my ordinary glasses.
It's been quite a year since
I last blogged on disablism. There's so much I could blog on: I got married, work, service industries (such as banks: seriously, my local branch of Barclays Bank are absolute angels and are amazingly helpful, unlike a certain other UK high street bank), but for some reason this year, I'm drawn to the topic of travel this year. I can't cover everything, but with my poor eyesight I'll give my (blinkered) perspective on it, from my own personal experience.
So what's there to tell? Well, let's talk about getting about in general. Sometimes I don't use my symbol cane (identity cane for US readers), but continue to wear my overly large shades. Even with the white stick well known as a symbol and a tool for visual impairment, people are still fearful or ignorant of it. There are always obstacles, not physical obstacles such as those damned A-boards that shops put outside but obstacles in the mind of people I meet and deal with on a daily basis: some people think that because I have some vision, I must be faking it all together, and ignore that I suffer every day from the eye pain, migraines, and foggy vision apart from the sliver of peripheral vision down my left side where it's all right. I'm sick of being told "you should see that".
Let's turn to local transport, getting about my town. I have had training from my local Blind centre on how to cross the road, etc. and rely on other senses much more, and also how to catch a bus. The problem with bus stops is often that the information is in such small print on the boards that even ordinary sighted people have to peer close. Cardiff Buses at most bus stops have the right idea with readable electronic displays of when the next bus is due, but my town doesn't have such electronic display boards except at the bus station.
What about the cost of local transport? Because my visual impairment isn't serious enough (although it's still more than bad enough that my life has changed, forever), I can't get a bus pass. Bus fares come out of my own pocket. If I don't feel okay with where I'm going, I ask the bus driver to let me know when we arrive at my intended stop. I don't have an issue with that as such, but come sunset, when my lack of night-vision kicks in, I'm truly fumbling around in the dark outside and not able to get to the nearest bus stop when working an evening shift, which not good when to get to the bus stop anyway (regardless of day time or night time) I have to cross a dangerous busy road.
Not being able to get about at night makes transport from work at night a problem. I have applied for some taxi cover to enable me to get to and from from Access to Work scheme for disability via the JobCentrePlus so that I returned to work. This is supposed to help me, as I occasionally have to take a taxi home from work after dark if my wife is not able to collect me due to her own shifts. However, the forms, despite having asked for them in large print at least, have been normal size and are rather complex anyway that I simply have not yet submitted taxi receipts, and have had to fork out extra on taxis rather than the standard bus fare to get home. It's certainly off-putting and I can understand the circumstances behind the oft-quoted figure that 75% of people with visual impairments don't work, probably because the supposed government help is likely a hindrance. Instead my wife has been forced to juggle round her timetable (probably to the detriment of her workplace) to collect me.
Let's travel further afield. I like to get about by myself, and have taken several train journeys alone since the eye problems came on me. I live five minutes from my local train station, but the timetable generally isn't so good with poor connections to the rest of the country, with one train every two hours to the next two towns to the south, for example, and only hourly to the big city to the north. These are much better once on board the train though, as they announce the stations as we approach them. As for payment, I don't use a disability rail card, as again due to the nitty-gritty of the rules, they say my sight isn't bad enough for them, but my poor eyes are certainly dis-enabling enough for me. I've only had one bad railway journey since my eyesight went bad, and that was in a crowded train where I had to stand in the entrance hall, crammed and pushed by the other travellers. For fifty minutes I held on terrified with a finger and thumb to a handrail somewhere in my blind zone to keep my balance. I hate crowds as they are confusing to my eyes, particularly as I can't tell distance very well, and I got off the train feeling very sick.
Of course, a number of UK train stations and trains are still not wheelchair accessible. I don't use a wheelchair. A wheelchair-user relative was put off ever travelling by train because of the great restrictions told to him by his local station. Apparently things have now improved a little (you no longer need to ask a member of staff 72 hours before-hand to use the station lift for example, you just turn up and push the button instead), but too little too late.
In the air it hasn't been really an issue for me, as I've take four flights since acquiring eye problems, a flight from Birmingham to Dubai, and then from Dubai to Manila, and back again along the same route. I did not request assistance from the airline as I was travelling with my other half, so cannot rate how good airport and airline assistance may be.
Birmingham Airport was fine on the way out, although the airside shopping mall/waiting area isn't clearly planned, presumably to make you linger in the many shops, and the information boards aren't so easy to read. There are also no audible announcements to advise departure, a feature I found lacking in every airport. On board, all was fine, I could make out the films on the personal screens enough to enjoy.
Dubai is a great airport, mostly well signposted, and wonderfully helpful staff everywhere (apart from in the branch of Burger King), but with Dubai a major global hub, as I made my way through the airport, my vocabulary of multilingual swearwords unfortunately rapidly increased, because the peoples from all over the world ignored my white stick and crashed into me and cursed me. This only served to highlight how the white stick is not a universal symbol as I would have hoped and is potentially unrecognised globally.
Ninoy Aquino Airport in Manila is a building that has seen better days, but is fairly easy to navigate. Crowding again was an issue for me, causing me some anxiety, but we got through it fine. People are again helpful, apart from with the crowded conditions at the luggage carousel which moved too fast. Even with my other half's pair of good eyes, it was a struggle to identify cases and remove them from the rapid carousel, and with people crowding in on all sides, there was not enough room to negotiate the suitcases away from the carousel. I used my white stick through until we were out of the airport, and did try to use it once or twice in the Philippines, but on advice that it was not a widely recognised symbol and actual experience of it not being recognised, I did not use it again until we went to the British Embassy in Manila, and had to hang just behind the elbow of whoever I was with.
We had some documentation to get sorted as part of our visit to the Philippines which necessitated a visit to the British Embassy (in the C5 area of Manila). Understandably, with security a major issue at such places, the security guard insisted all items such as mobile phones, PDAs, etc. were left outside with a relative who waited outside for us, but I needed my magnifying glass (which has a battery for a small light in it), and I was going to keep my white stick with me (folded up in a pocket of my back-pack alongside our paperwork). But no, the security wasn't going to allow it. My stick could be an offensive weapon, apparently, and my light/magnifying glass could be 'something else'. I stood my ground. Technically we were on British territory, so the Disability laws of the UK apply, and I was entitled to have whatever disability aids I needed, particularly as I would need to read documents when in the embassy with my magnifying glass, so he acquiesced and let us through without another word.
The trip back was pretty much uneventful, apart from the crowds at Birmingham Airport, back in the UK. Furthermore, at passport checks, my eyes were extremely tired and pained, but the security there insisted with apologies that I took off my shades over glasses to check I was who I was, as per my passport photo.
And here in the UK just travelling up the street at one stage was impossible. We had terrible snows during the winter, which may have seemed fun, but for people with a visual impairment, the snow is dangerous. It's bad enough for ordinary sighted people making their way across the snow and falling on their bums, and more than troubling for vehicles not able to make it up the hill outside my house, but without the vision to be able to make out the subtle differences in the snow, it meant a few days trapped in the house. I didn't want to end up on my arse at the bottom of the hill with a broken leg or pelvis. But some people, as mentioned earlier in this blogpost, failed to comprehend that it isn't easy for those with eye issues, with comments that "you should be able to see my way up the hill." Again, I was being told what I can and can't see, without actually asking me if or what I can see.
It's been mostly short journeys within the UK since the plane trip, apart from a depressing weekend in Blackpool (never again!), and a wonderful trip to St David's in west Wales, and to Cheddar. On Blackpool pier, with the arcades and barkers trying to attract attention to their games and rides, I found it an uncomfortable flurry of light and noise, and had to be guided by my wife a fair bit of the time. One time whilst walking on my own on the pier, I heard the pleas of one stall-holder to try his game. Not knowing where the calling was coming from amidst the noise and light, I ignored it. A few moments later, I heard another call: "Ignore me, then, you Southern blind twat!" Presumably Northern blind twats would have tried the game?
Further travel will follow this year. We're due to head to North America this summer. The United States of America is often praised as a location which is the most disabled friendly in the world, so I will be heading off with high hopes. We had also planned to go to Iceland later in the summer (I've even been learning Icelandic for the trip, and am probably one of the few in the UK who can pronounce
Eyjafjallajökull properly), but we've postponed plans to go to Iceland for various reasons, Eyjafjallajökull
not being one of the reasons!
Finally, I have a quick question on travel insurance: why the hell is it more expensive for disabled people? Sure, I can comprehend the theoretical argument from the insurance industry that disabled people may be more likely to use their insurance policy, but isn't that a form of discrimination against the disabled, by charging them more?
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