{"id":98870,"date":"2025-05-13T19:42:29","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98870\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T19:42:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T19:42:29","slug":"moment-heartless-london-bus-driver-is-filmed-leaving-disabled-toddler-by-the-side-of-the-road-when-he-refuses-to-lower-wheelchair-ramp-furious-mother-who-says-its-happened-hundreds-of-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/98870\/","title":{"rendered":"Moment heartless London bus driver is filmed leaving disabled toddler by the side of the road when he refuses to lower wheelchair ramp: Furious mother who says it’s happened HUNDREDS of times"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the moment a heartless London<\/a> bus driver was caught on camera leaving a disabled wheelchair-bound toddler by the side of the road after refusing to lower the ramp, as the child’s mother claims it has happened hundreds of times.<\/p>\n

The anonymous parent started recording the reoccurring encounters and one video, taken at 10:45am on Wednesday, shows her at the back entrance of the 197 bus in Croydon, south London.<\/p>\n

She pressed the button to ask the driver to lower the ramp as she was taking her son, Charles, two, to a soft play session in his specialist chair.<\/p>\n

The male driver gestures for her to come to the front of the bus, telling her ‘it’s just a buggy’ and asking her to ‘bump it up’ – before driving off.<\/p>\n

A second video, taken on their way home around 12:15, shows a female driver who came off the bus to attempt to lift the chair on board.<\/p>\n

She got back into the cab when the mother said ‘no’ – and a supervisor told her to lower the ramp and the mother and her child were able to board the bus, she said.<\/p>\n

She began filming the incidents because these incidents happen up to 12 times a week since Charles came out of hospital a year ago, she said.<\/p>\n

Charles has chronic lung disease and needs to be on a ventilator for at least 16 hours a day. He is fed via a tube into his tummy, and he can’t speak or walk.<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A mother has shared footage of London bus drivers refusing to the lower the ramp to allow her to wheel her disabled two-year-old son Charles on board<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The male driver gestures for her to come to the front of the bus, telling her ‘it’s just a buggy’ and asking her to ‘bump it up’ – before driving off<\/p>\n

\"Charles <\/p>\n

Charles has chronic lung disease and needs to be on a ventilator for at least 16 hours a day. He is fed via a tube into his tummy, and he can’t speak or walk<\/p>\n

He was born weighing just 2lbs on August 8, 2022, four weeks after his twin sister died.<\/p>\n

Charles travels in a specialised chair which his mother got from NHS wheelchair services.<\/p>\n

His ventilator, oxygen cylinder, suction machine, and feeding pump, which he needs to take everywhere with him, are stored below the seat, his mum explained.<\/p>\n

She doesn’t want to bump the chair up onto buses in case the equipment gets hit and damaged, or falls, or Charles’s feeding or waste tubes get dislodged, she explained.<\/p>\n

The single parent, who gave up her job as a carer and in admin when Charles was born, said: ‘It’s awful and feels so humiliating when this happens, when I got to the soft play I was crying.<\/p>\n

‘Busses are Charles’s absolute obsession, and once this has happened I just want to go home but I can’t, I have to keep going for him.<\/p>\n

‘It’s really upsetting to be left standing at the bus stop watching the bus driving off.<\/p>\n

‘They just don’t care, all they have to do is press a button. Someone who doesn’t need the ramp isn’t going to ask for it.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

The male bus driver shut the doors in the mother and son’s faces before driving off after refusing to lower the ramp for them<\/p>\n

\"Charles <\/p>\n

Charles travels in a specialised chair which his mother got from NHS wheelchair services<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

A second video, taken on their way home around 12:15, shows a female driver who came off the bus to attempt to lift the chair on board<\/p>\n

‘People shouldn’t be expected to explain their disabilities or justify their needs.<\/p>\n

‘It’s discrimination just because it doesn’t look like a wheelchair, and it’s not fair.<\/p>\n

‘Some people have hidden disabilities, drivers have no right to ask them to discuss that.<\/p>\n

‘It’s hard enough for us to go out, we don’t have long before he needs to be back on the ventilator.<\/p>\n

‘Charles has to fight for every day of his life. Once I manage to get us out the door I just need for things to go smoothly, that’s not too much to ask.<\/p>\n

‘All I want to do is get on the bus and have a bit of peace, not arguments.<\/p>\n

‘By the time we’ve had the discussion they could easily have just put down the ramp, it makes no sense.’<\/p>\n

The mum posted the videos on TikTok where they got half-a-million views and other parents of disabled children said they have similar experiences regularly.<\/p>\n

Rosie Trew, TfL’s head of bus service delivery, said: ‘Wheelchair users and others requiring use of the ramp have every right to expect to be able to use the ramp on every journey.<\/p>\n

‘Any unreasonable refusal to deploy the on-bus ramp is completely unacceptable and we are very sorry for the distress this has caused.<\/p>\n

‘We are working with the bus operator to fully investigate the incidents and continue to urge anyone who experiences issues like these to report them immediately.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the moment a heartless London bus driver was caught on camera leaving a disabled wheelchair-bound toddler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,92,393,4884,257,12,1264,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-98870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dailymail","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-tfl","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114502234632485915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}