Other inaccessibility issues for disabled people

Drive-Thrus inaccessibility issues

I will mainly focus on the problem with blind or visually impaired people but there will be a little bit at the end how it also affects people with at least motor scooters and in one case a wheelchair.

Part A only allowing food to be served thru drive-thrus past 10pm:

The main problem here is that most fast-food restaurants close their dinning room aka lobby doors at sometime around 10:30pm.  So it means that the only way to get food is through the drive thru.  In the United States there's two cases but there was three cases where blind people were suing respectively  Jack-in-the-Box, Wendy's, and McDonald's respectively about how they-blind people wanted to get Jack-in-the-Box/Wendy's/McDonald's  but by the time they got to the restaurant the lobby/dinning doors were locked and when they tried to use the drive-thru they're turned away because they weren't in the car.     Yes I am aware Uber Eats, and Skip the dishes existed, but that's not here nor there.   In the McDonald's case- I believe the blind guy was even laughed at in the drive-thru.  In 2021 a judge threw the blind man's case out.

Part B-Tim Hortons discrimation against people with motor disabilities 

There's been four cases in Canada that Canada's famous coffee chain, has discriminated with people who use mobility devices and because their scooters are so big, they can't take them into the shop to order food or there's no way to get into the shop.  So that these people had used the drive-thru to get food or drink they want.  In one case that happens in my own town,- that the drive-thru of this one Tim Horton's, that told the disabled man to "get out of the drive-thru or else they'll call the police" and the young man's mom  got a copy of the policy which says that wheelchairs are exempt for the "no licensed vehicles" rule in the drive-thru but nothing about motor Scooters. 

Part C: Excuses 

This is going to be a part where I try to rein myself when I talk about the excuses I heard about why its not feasible for people not in a car to use a drive-thru.

I'm goin to cover three excuses I have heard about the various reasons and I call bacon on all of them. 

First excuse  is Robbery.   Some people think the reason that drive-thrus don't allow people to walk-thru the drive-thru is people think it would be so easy to rob the drive-thru cash register. From what I seen, that with drive-thrus from the outside, is that they're taller then you're average person and in most cases the cash register is I'm going to say in the opposite corner of the drive-thru window from where the drive- thru window is open for you to pay and get your food.   So that hypothetically you would need to be a giant and at the same time have long arms. 

 In some part of the Pacific, in either New Zealand, or Australia that some guy tried to rob drive-thru cash register some fast-food resturant down there, and instead he got his arm slammed repeatedly by the employees there and didn't get  any cash through. 

And in another fact that like I said earlier- that since the drive-thru cash register is in the opposite corner to the open drive-thru window -it would technically be easier to steal a cash register's money from a cash register in-store because technically beside a distraction (and making sure its at a time, where the money drawer is open) that you would just need to bend off the counter and steal the money from the drawer.

2nd excuse is safety because companies don't want to be sued if you get run over in the drive-thru of their restaurant. I kind of call a bunch of Bacon on this one as well.  Since what if you're dogging cars in the parking lot just to get to the restaurant to get food is the company afraid of getting sued by those people because if they weren't wanting to get McDonald's they weren't be in the parking lot dogging cars?  And these drivers are the kind of drivers who think yellow light on a traffic light means "Mission Impossible" and not 'Driving Miss Daisy".

3rd and final excuse is that people somehow think its easier for someone on two legs to get away if they did a prank then a people in a car.  To my perspective, its the other way around that's its easier to run away when you're in a car then on foot.   

I mean some time pre-Covid there was some kind of prank where teens were ordering some kind of drink that was Hi-C drink shout something and then throws the Hi-C drink into the drive-thru window, soaking the poor (presumably teen) drive-thru worker 

Conclusion 

I think that the restaurants should just remove this stupid restrictions  and allow people to use their two feet or non-enclosed vehicles to get their food.  I know with Tim Horton's that during Covid, they removed the no-walk up rule for Cargo truck drivers because those trucks are too huge to get into the drive-thru lane.  They should want any money, whether its people on two feet, on any kind of bike (manual or motorcycle), or a four wheeled but not enclosed vehicle aka a motor scooter 

Movie Theatres closed caption devices 

So with movie theatres there's two ways for Deaf or HOH can use to watch movies in theatres.  One version is called Captions like the one which comes with DVDs   The other one is a device I guess you rent for the duration of the movie and its "closed caption" 

But I found out yesterday that for either children or smaller then average person that once its get attracted to either soda cup, or a table- its too high for them to read the captions.  Yes hypothcically you could hold the device in your lap the entire time but you would have to look down the entire time and you wouldn't be able to eat a snack either.

And if the deaf person also has vison impairments and wear glasses-that a simliar  glasses closed caption device can just be chunky 

there's going to be more tomorrow, but I have made a start on them 

Escalators

Up until more recently years most of my life I have seen only wide escalators. So there's was the possibility for people needing wheelchairs to use in times of need when elevators were broken or other people who prefer to use an escalators vs. a elevator.   But now I have seen more and more narrow escalators and that causes accessibility issues.  One accessibility  issue is about 90% of time that the escalators are smack in the middle of a building while elevators that same 90% of the time elevators are hidden away in some far out-place making it difficult for people to find them.    About 80-90% of the time elevators will be broken or out of order  while that only happens less frequentl for escalators which means that if you have narrow escalator a wheelchair user has to come back another day and hope the elevator is fix by them, because otherwise they have no ability to get up or down in a place like a mall.  

And also if you try to take anything then a very smallish bundle buggy on an escalator the escaltor is mostly like to stop working. 

Elevators 

Elevators might be great in some ways (ie you don't have to walk up several flight of stairs for instance) but sometimes they can just as inaccessible as other things in life.  For one thing, they're very often broken and companies can't seem to get around to fixing them in reasonable time which means if their are seniors or disabled people in the apartments they can't go out to get groceries or get some fresh air outside.   Don't get me started on the problem in one of I think its Toto's neighbourhoods where it takes so long to get an elevator that teens coming home would go to the next floor up and take an elevator down to allow some more people on and then take them and teens up)

Another issue is that the elevators might take you to a place you're not expecting or wanting to go.  What i mean by this is that if there's at least 3 levels to a train station, you would expect the elevator to go to the 3rd (bottom) level right?  Or in another situation-since a lot of the Stations (but not all) of the stations for the Commuter Train (which i will go "Goer", from Oliver to Toto,  has a raised platform which allows people in wheelchairs or other disabled devices -to get on and off the  the train's accessible car.- but you would expect all the platforms assoicated with elevators would have a raised part of the platform right?

Now I'm going to talk about number2nd thing first.  Last year Mom and I ended up at least 4 times on a platform in Union Station which didn't have a raised platform that we had to lift either our luggage (the first time) or the bundle buggy (2 other times) onto the train.  And what's worse is the other part of the platform had a wooden version of the raised platform the side we're on didn't. even have that and that would have been better then nothing.  And once in Toto we're going to use the elevator to the accessible platform,  but it was out of order (the yellow strip not caution tape so to speak but something similar- was across it)  so we asked a employee and the employee lead us to the inaccessible platform elevator and we had clearly told her that we needed an accessible so that was another time we had to lug the bundle buggy onto the train.

This isn't my first hand-experience but something I saw happen.  When I went into Toronto for my doctor's appointment-we had to wait a long time to get an elevator because of tons of people with strollers needing to get on.  When an elevator came back up to the platform we're on, there was a woman with crutches in the elevator, and Mom and I and some other people got on.  And then we went down to the concourse and the woman with crutches was looking around.   Mom asked her "what are you looking for?" and the woman said "a way to get down to the next level"  and as far as my Mom and I are (currently) aware there's only two ways to get down: escalators and stairs. 

Public transit

Part A

So in Canada and i assume the U.S. that public transit have both auditory and visual announcements in buses and trains.  But I have discovered some issues with both.  \With buses more then trains but sometimes trains as well, is that visual stop announcements either never get turned on or presumably the driver turns them off.

The other problem I have seem with both buses and subway trains is that auditory announcements are sometimes really garbled so that you can't hear what is being said because whomever is making the  announcements is not speaking clearly. 

Sometimes on buses that the auditory announcements is turned off.  And back pre-Covid it caused a problem for blind member of the day-program.  Lucky I was on the bus to help her.   That I recognized the person from the program on the bus and when we got to a street the woman said (are we at X street yet?) because she had no way of knowing which street we're at due to the auditorily announcements being turned off. I told her we weren't, and i would tell her when we got there.

Part B

In the past topic about elevators, I mentioned the Commuter train from Willow to Toto had an accessible car. Now Most people who use the accessible car are the disabled people.  But there's once a year where the accessible car get over filled with families with strollers. That always happens in late August for Ontario's "travelling fair".   Its so bad sometimes that some disabled folks thinks there should be two accessible cars during the time the "traveling fair" is on.  

Public tables and chairs

I don't know what the average height is for tables and chairs.  But most of us can use most public tables and chairs to sit down.  But I'm being following not that closely a disabled woman who hip wasn't form correctly and she's really short.  So this was from her -so that most times when she's trying to eat something it spills on her or something. 

Counters

Sometimes in older buildings that the counters are up high so its hard for someone who is short or in a wheelchair to get help from people.  Either bank tellers or pharmcists to see the person as well

Elevators part II:

In Toronto due to many of subway stations not having elevators. Heck one stop called "Museum" (its next to a museum) is only getting an elevator this year after having more then 20 years of that stop having 0 elevator) that if a elevator is broken at one stop.  You have to go back on the train (if you're on the platform) or get back on a bus go back 3 stops forward or backwards and they might even need to get on another bus to get to the next working elevator. 

Here some examples from TTC:

someone created a subway map of the TTC subway stops which are accessible

new inaccessible town housing

My Province Ontario is suppose to be accessible by next year (2025).  And something I have seen is a lot of 3 stories townhouses being built.  And from what I can see from a moving vehicle (car/bus) is that the front door is 5-6 steps up from the "sidewalk".  So the only way to get in would be "at the back" or "through the garage".  Which both creates other problems shortly "being "hidden away" from normal world" like disabled people been for most of our lives.

General ignorance about disabled people

Bit of history lesson: 

Since the beginning of human time there has always been disabled people.  Historians are starting to think that Julius Caesar (yes the one Shakespeare wrote a play about) had epilepsy.   We also had in Greek and Roman times 'unperfect" children being left to die out in the woods.    In Middle Ages disabled people were things to be shameful or fearful of  or attribute the "disability" to be "supernatural" work.  So those who were born with disabilities were treated like they're evil and it was a sin (of their parents-ie child out of wedlock) and those were outcasts and homeless beggars (might have been the organization if the rude term "handicapped" because of disabled  beggars being cap in hand" I heard this is a myth).   This was the beginning of the rise of Institutions to hide away the disabled people  and this continue onward through the mid 1900s (interesting in 1953 there was in-home care in LA for Polio patients).   In 1860s after Helen Keller went "blind and deaf and mute"  relatives of the Kellers wanted Mr. and Mrs. Keller to send Helen away to an Institution but they refused.  

Main Part

Now due to the generations between middle ages and the 1950-60s  due to the fact disabled people were hidden away from the "normal people"  it meant that our parents couldn't talk to us about disabilities when we're children, so if we have children ourselves -we are not able to talk to our children about it either.   Molly Burke said in a video with another youtuber  that about 10 years ago she would go into a store with her SD and she would hear a Mom "shushing" a child  and yet the "other day" Molly went into the store with her SD and  she heard a Mom educating the child instead.

So due to the ignorance of our parents and then our own generation-its not really surprising when it comes to the fact that we, the various disabled communities (deaf, blind, wheelchair user, neurodivergent, etc) within the bigger disabled community get bullied as students.  I was bullied, Molly Burke was bullied and so have others disabled students as well.  

That and disability representation in the media (next post)