Winning the battle one driver/passenger at a time

[Suzined]

I find my disabled placard eliminates a lot of questions regarding use of my Segway. When questioned I generally ask, "Is a wheelchair allowed?" When told yes, I simply say, "This is my wheelchair" and point to my placard. I've found I am now rarely confronted. I think this is because over the past eighteen months of use, I've educated the doubters. That, and familiarity breeds acceptance. When confronted in the past the conversation either was resolved very quickly in my favor--90%--or it meant I needed to got up the chain.

IKEA remains very unfriendly to disabled customers. I made the effort to visit one of their showrooms (not easy) and decided their merchandise is rather shoddy so it is really no loss. I still park as far away from the entrance to buildings and malls just so I can feel superior, leaving the closer parking spots to the unfortunate ABs. It's a ceremonial sort of freedom.

[scotty1024]

So the bus driver got a talkin' to, so no mythical sticker required. This morning though he had the bright idea to implement "Plan B" (his phrase).

Plan B was to strap the Segway down into a forward facing seat area instead of the usual side facing seat I'd pioneered.

The advantage to the side facing seat method is that I only need the side facing seat to be cleared and the seat belt uses a manual ratchet.

To do the forward facing seat you have to clear and raise both the side facing seat and the forward facing seat to be able to get the Segway into (and out off) position. Then strap the Segway down with two seat belts to the Stoke Straps. Which is itself difficult since the seat belts are on automatic tensioning devices that expect the slack to be taken up on them by using the manual ratchet belt. They are meant to keep a wheel chair from moving forward and the front seat belt and manual ratchet are meant to put the tension in the system to keep the chair from rolling forward/backwards.

So they're very unhappy at trying to securely tension the Segway to the seat. We wound up figuring out one of them was actually foobar and needed to be reported to maintenance. We had to then move to the *other* forward facing seat, clear the other side facing seat etc...

Before we could even complete this laborious process I went into Stage 1 Congestive Heart Failure and had to sit down and pant to get my O2 saturation back up while my heart labored to catch up on pumping my blood around. The driver had no commentary on this, didn't even bother to take note. He just declared "Well that'll just have to do." and went to put the bus back into motion.

I managed to inspect his work and discovered he'd left the Segway free to move a couple feet, way too sloppy. It was going to be rolling around and bumping into things and scaring the passemgers (and me.)

I pushed the Segway back to battery with the seat and fiddled with the seat belt tensioners until I could get the belts tight.

About the time we got to the stop for the MS person my breathing and heart rate still hadn't recovered. The driver happily announced he'd "saved their seat for them"

Well as it turned out: he hadn't.

Princess was upset because I was *still* sitting in *her* seat! She's not even disabled, she's MS person's assistant. Seems their seat is the one behind the driver and he'd tried to put me on the other side but alas the equipment failure had resulted in me being in their seat.

I'm still in CHF but she's quite happy to sit around complaining about me and my Segway. This is the woman whom was aghast at how tunnel security had behaved Monday afternoon.

Amazing.

The rest of the route, after my stop, the boarding passengers are remarking "Wow we were beginning to wonder if you were coming..." the bus was running 12 minutes late.

Anyway, I've called him in again to Metro and they promised to have his supervisor paged.

I'm now at work, my resting heart rate is still elevated. my blood pressure is close to my hard line to call 911 and I feel like I ran a 5K before coming in to work.

Thank goodness it's Friday and it's Payday too!

Last night I had a company "political function" to attend and wound up not leaving Seattle until 7:30pm. I had to use Sound Transit for the first time since my wrist injury.

I wasn't happy but I could get a single shot kneeler bus with them or take two older model lift busses with Metro. Fortunately in the days since my last trip Sound Transit seems to have cleaned house. The driver was still a sour puss but we didn't have to call his supervisor to get the Segway on the bus. It was late enough that few people were on the bus so the passengers weren't an issue.

He let me strap the Segway down before pulling away and didn't chase me after I got off the bus. One of my best Sound Transit trips.

The Microsoft campus was still a bee hive of activity (60 hour work weeks) and the sidewalks just as badly maintained as I remembered. Microsoft is a terrible place to ride a Segway. I've got to make things work with Metro.

[scotty1024]

On my way home the tunnel security guy wandered by and apologized most profusely. I humbly accepted and I'm no longer worried about Metro tunnel security, my underground Segway facility is secure. Felt good to get that out of the way.

In addition to first Segway rider on Metro I can now lay claim to first Segway rider in the King County Court House. Another goat rodeo to get in there! Seems some 6ft tall 220lb with greying hair male tried to get in last week and he was denied entrance.

I had my placard, my disabled ID card and my photo ID: they got me in. But I had to suffer 10 minutes of disrespectful BS from yet another security officer whom didn't get a pony.

I even got him started recording on my Sony DSC-T200 explaining how he lets wheel chairs in all the time but no Segway was getting in 'cause they do 12.5 miles an hour! But he kinda realized that maybe it would wind up on YouTube and he changed his mind and told me to stop recording.

About then the blonde lady security person showed up to confirm I wasn't the 6ft tall greying hair 220lb guy (I'm not even close) and they called for management to come down and tell them if my Blue Card meant anything important.

The Sergeant showed up and confirmed that the Blue Card really was a Big Deal and to let me in: but made me promise not to run over anyone.

It was also interesting to me as to what in my Givi bag got Mr. BS excited: bungee cords. I had to leave my bungee cords in a plastic bag at the desk. When I came back from the Clerk's Office they had a new guy on the desk and he was "why did he bag these bungee cords?" <shakes head> <laughs>

The local disabled rights advocacy group has as one of its priorities for this year working with the Washington State courts to improve accessibility. Maybe I could volunteer some time with them...

I've now collected enough data that I can say: 4 out of 5 Starbucks Lady Barista's say I look like I'm having fun on my Segway. Research continues...