.....Wheelchair ramps...

Ok so the whole idea of hopping on the bus is for convenience, speed and simplicity right?
Well perhaps for the average user, but soon comes the time when part of your journey shall encounter a wheelchair user.

Firstly I would like to comment on passengers use of the bell to alert drivers when they would like to get off. For any normal person this bell is pressed once, once this is pressed and followed by the *ding* we all now know that the bus WILL be stopping at the next stop. This therefore saves someone else in having to press the button too as the first person has already done this for them . Why then passengers of the No12 bus then feel the urge to double check this will happen by pressing it again, and then to triple check by further pressing the bell I do not know. However this is also not enough for the No12'ers, no! Just to be extra sure the bell will continue to *ding* until that passenger is off the bus.

The first time I had ever witnessed a ramp being used for a wheelchair on the No12 was only last week.
As the bus was approaching Westminster Bridge, the alarm was sounded. The alarm is the same as a normal *ding* of the bell however it is the *ding* on steroids: *dingdidididdingdidididding*. At first I was a little annoyed that we seemed to have one of those passengers again that took it upon themselves to be the person responsible for making sure the bus DID stop at the next stop, but I was also rather impressed by their finger speed! However I later found out there was no skill involved as this bell was the distinction between a 'step' departure and a 'ramp' departure.

The bus stopped at the next stop, however no ramp had ejected.

'hullllllllow?!' a small voiced sounded between the herds of people.

 As the wheel chair user was not visible to the driver, the driver had assumed that someone had pressed this button by mistake, or out of pure stupidity, as most people aboard this bus took this button as their own easy reach button instead of actually standing up on and sounding the generic button.

After one passenger informed the driver that the ramp needed to be lowered, we were then conducted into the longest bus stop I have ever witnessed.

First of all the bus makes a slight jerk to the right, a few people stumble and grunt angrily to the person next to them who accidentally nudged their shoulders. A few kisses of teeth are heard and a flap of a newspaper to regain focus on the article that was being read before the disturbance.
Next an annoying alarm is sounded, this of course grabs everybody's attention, and we all stare towards to door in action. This alarm sounds for a good 6 seconds before anything actually happens, possibly as a warning to all aboard or most probably just for pure annoyance!
Finally the tip of the ramp appears, and slowly is creeps towards the curb......everybody starts to raise their heads to watch the ramp end approaching the curb, praying that the bus will achieve this in the first attempt and that the driver has calculated this correctly as we have all seen what happens if this is not performed with precision. The buses ramp will start to wave up and down hysterically as it can not find the curb it is meant to latch onto, the alarm goes into overload and the bus then has to reverse and re-align itself with the curb.

Luckily this bus was at the right distance from the curb and 15 seconds later the ramp is attached to the curb and the alarm has stopped. However during this time the situation has been resolved and the ramp is no longer needed......

now I swear to you all that this actually happened.......

within the first 10 seconds a very large man standing at the door with the ejecting ramp had grown very impatient and had taken it upon himself to speed this process up. In one short moment in which he made his decision, the man grabbed both sides of the wheelchair and lifted the passenger off of the bus onto the street and got strait back onto the bus. Without a single comment we all looked at the wheelchair and its occupant on the street and watched them staring back at us in a confused state. During this time the ramp was still making its way to the curb, as this operation can never be over-ridden.

I did not know what to say, I had never seen impatience grow to this degree before nor had I heard the crowds of the No12 bus so quite and without something to say!

When the driver had realised that the ramp was no longer needed with one flick of a switch the ramp flipped strait back under the bus as quick as you could say wheelchair!

Two questions I am sure we all wanted to ask was:
1. 'why on earth is took 10 times as long to eject and attach to the curb, than it had to come back in?'

and

2. What had this impatient large man been eating in order to acquire the strength to do what he had just done? and had this act of impatience been perhaps instead an over eager urge to be friendly?

We obviously all would have though this, however right now our attention was not on this but still watching the wheelchair on the street, still stationary with the passenger still staring at it's human ramp stood in the doorway.

The bus departed accompanied by the *ding* *ding* *ding* for the next stop.