Wednesday 2 July 2008

A small victory

In these politically correct times it is a brave organisation that has a go at the Disability Taliban or those they claim to represent.

Fortunately in the North East they have hearts of oak and are as brave as lions!

Thus Nexus, the operators of the Tyne and Wear Metro, is threatening to sue the driver of a mobility scooter which crashed onto the tracks at Byker station causing massive disruption to the network.

Nexus is considering the move after the scooter's driver, who was not seriously hurt, "broke regulations" by travelling alone on the transport network.

In April Nexus introduced new rules governing Mobility Scooters following a spate of incidents that disrupted passenger services. As a consequence Mobility Scooters are only allowed on the network when 'accompanied and assisted by an appropriate person on foot'.

Nexus director general Bernard Garner said: "This accident demonstrates the importance of the new rule that scooter users only travel with an appropriate companion who can assist with their safety, and that of other passengers, at all times.

"We're exploring the possibility of legal action to recover our own costs associated with the disruption. The point here is that we believe the person involved was in breach of our updated conditions of carriage because they did not have a companion, and that led to an accident.

"If we cannot establish this with all scooter users then the safety risks associated with these vehicles mean we will have no alternative but to ban them." he added.

Nexus is in the middle of a consultation on the future use of mobility scooters on the Metro, a process being carried out by its own advisory body Transport For All.

The Fact Compiler understands that there is no substance to rumours that Guide Dogs found worrying trains risk being shot.