I am thinking of writing an introduction to interacting with wheelchair users

[kaberett]

Like: guidelines on when it's appropriate to touch a chair; guidelines on asking if help's wanted; guidelines on talking to someone using a chair (and therefore not at standing height) -- with the understanding that people vary. (Largely because I have come up with a rule-of-thumb about touching chairs that I am failing to phrase as a standalone post, so.)

Interested? Got things you'd like addressed?

Comments

[davidgillon]

Thoughts now I'm awake.

Personal space and wheelchairs. People seem to get a lot closer to me in the chair than with crutches, it's as if my personal space is now defined by the strict size of the chair, rather than having the normal gap around me.

As other people have mentioned, grabbing handles and pushing. I almost never have my handles visible, yet I've still had a drunk do it to me, and pushing 180 Degrees off the direction I want to go. I can't help feeling there would be a market for rigging up electric-shocks on them.

The whole wheelchair use= learning disabled assumption, which is just shockingly disablist and lazy. If anything, the wheelchair users I know tend to be smarter than average.

Treating the chair as furniture, leaning on it, etc. Variant on the personal space thing.

Supermarket checkout staff. I can load the stuff myself, even a slab of beer, and I can do it so the loads in the bags match what I can easily lift, but they will insist on helping, and they will load the bags to capacity.

Pedestrians who assume I can move sideways more easily than they can, and that I can stop on the spot if they step out in front of me without it hurting. Also people with backpacks and handbags who don't give a moment's thought to where they'll swing if they turn around suddenly.

People who are convinced the only way to hold a door open is to stand in the doorway - which makes it too narrow to get through.

There's an awful lot of overlap with behaviour towards people with crutches and canes, it seems to me.

ETA: people don't seem to appreciate the cost of a wheelchair, or understand that they're personally fitted and take months to produce, which means they get treated as though cheap and easily replaceable.

And the 'we can lift you down' scenario when the ramp doesn't turn up. Thanks, but I'd prefer you to go find the guy with the ramp (especially when it's 11pm and you have all clearly been drinking). If it comes down to it I can get out and get it down more safely myself.

Which brings us to: Yes, I can walk! So can most of us, to greater or lesser degree. Get over it.