If they didn’t treat it as a general access loo, and if less than… Maybe 1/10 of the people waiting were disabled, it would have been left empty part of the time, though.
So i guess i think that’s the implication of what you said. Unless I’m misunderstanding how you think they should have been handling the situation.
Priority access for disabled people organised by people who are aware they don’t need an accessible loo not using it till the ones who did need it had used it first. Like I said, you can’t judge what other people’s needs are, but you can judge your own. With an theatre interval everyone goes at the same time so it works quite well. And most people who need the access loo are slower to actually get out of the auditorium, so they end up at the back of the queue.
I honestly don’t think I should have to defend prioritising disabled people for using disabled access loos. They are there for a reason, after all.
So, there’s a line of people. Some can only use the accessible stall. Some have an urgent need. Most are in neither of those categories.
How do you propose they use the 8 restrooms? Let’s say I’m in neither category, I’m at the front of the line, and someone exits the accessible stall. What am i supposed to do?
I think that the people who either need that stall or need a stall ASAP should express that need and cut in line. I don’t think i should have to guess if there’s someone behind me who needs it, and i don’t think i should ever leave a stall empty when the line is long.
When I’ve seen that situation , the person at the front will usually wave someone who they can see is disabled to go ahead - although that won’t help if the disability is not obvious. In that case, the person who needs the stall will have to say something.
Either ask if someone needs the accessible loo, and wait to give someone a chance to reply, or just not use it immediately because you know you don’t need that loo. Urgent needs aren’t a good reason - that could mean you jump ahead of the general line, but it doesn’t mean you need extra space or helper bars. I’ve waited to use the general access loos on good days, and also back when I was able-bodied.
I generally like you, but this sort of attitude is the other reason disabled loos here often have an access key for them.
I don’t use public bathrooms very much but, when I have used them, I’ve never seen the stall being used by a handicapped person. So, if need be, I use it because I’m in there 5 minutes at the most. The odds that a handicapped person will be wheeled into the bathroom at that moment, especially considering the fact that I have never observed that even once over many years, are astronomically low.
I’m really not at all clear on why you think the burden should be on the person first in line to ask whether anyone needs it rather than the person who needs it saying so without being asked.
If there’s a person with a wheelchair or a walker or some other obvious sign of disability, sure, I’ll offer the stall to them. But there almost never is, like, maybe I’ve seen that once or twice in my life, and I’ve been in lots of bathroom queues. And there are lots of people with invisible disabilities.
I really think the disabled person needs to make their need known.
Sure, but I don’t think anyone disagrees with this, and under normal circumstances with just a few people waiting everyone can just communicate while they are waiting. With the theater interval, you’re talking about an unusual situation where a very large number of people are trying to use the toilets in a short space of time, and the speed with which disabled people can exit and return to the auditorium comes into play. This is not a typical situation. It seems to me that here it might be best to have a separate line for disabled people. Others wold use the accessible stall only if the disabled line is finished and the stall is empty.
Sorry, but this seems selfish on your part. If people have asked and nobody expresses any need to use the accessible stall, it is not reasonable to just leave it empty when there are a lot of people waiting. It’s certainly not reasonable to expect someone with diarrhea who might be about to poop themselves to leave it empty (when all other stalls are occupied) on the off chance that someone who needs the accessibility might come along and have to wait a few minutes.
Two reasons:
It’s annoying to have to ask every time, especially because you then often (nearly always, if you’re not in a wheelchair) get asked why and have to basically pay for your access to the loo by talking about your disability, and that’s just not fun and is slightly embarrassing. It’s even more embarrassing for people who have colostomy bags.
The second is that, if you choose not to use the accessible loo, that means someone who absolutely does need it doesn’t have to wait, and waiting is generally a bigger deal for them.
Bear in mind, I’m not hard-line about this in every circumstance - I thought the OP was in the right. But honestly, now I’m starting to change my mind, because it kinda sounds like there’s a different attitude towards disabled access loos in the US, and there will probably be lots of other people at the same workplace also using the disabled loo as a general one, and it will become less useful for the people it’s actually aimed at.
People should not be jerks… but what you’re fighting here is the same phenomenon as the “emotional support animal” nonsense. It’s hard for people not to be skeptical when the world is also full of total jerks who will inevitably claim priority when they are not disabled.
…but here you seem to be getting close to asserting that accessible stalls are for the exclusive use of disabled people. That is just never going to work, and it’s not a reasonable solution to the unfortunate fact that there are so many jerks in the world.
Actually, no. If I’m first in line and don’t go into the handicapped stall when no one obviously disabled is waiting and no one further back says anything , then what will happen is that the second person in line would use it. And the questions can just as well happen if I ask if anyone needs it.
I’m sorry if you are embarrassed to say you need it or if people ask questions - but do you really think there would be fewer questions if I asked if anyone needed it and an apparently able-bodied person said they did. I don’t - I’m not at all sure there would be any questions in either case, but I’m certain it wouldn’t differ based on whether I asked or you spontaneously expressed a need.
And waiting is not generally a bigger deal for them - sometimes it is, but there are many reasons why a person might be in a wheelchair or use a walker that have nothing to do with an urgent need to use the bathroom. and many reasons why a person might urgently need the toilet but not need the extra space or grab bars. Surely you aren’t saying that someone who is incontinent should risk soiling themself so that someone in a wheelchair because they broke both ankles doesn’t have to wait?
Yes, a separate line would be better. That’s what usually happens. It did not happen on that occasion and that was the source of the problem.
I wouldn’t say it’s very unusual, TBH. It’s common at small theatres and some gig venues, festivals, and even at some public access restrooms. It’s not common at work (I don’t think the OP did anything wrong).
And sure, if there were separate queues and there was nobody waiting for the disabled loo and lots of people waiting for the general access loos, then the person with an urgent need could use the disabled loo.
That person with the “urgent need” was brought up in the specific circumstance of the one line for both the disabled access loo and the general loos. If you need to queue-jump due to diarrhoea, and there’s one line for both types of loos, it’d be better to queue-jump and go for the option that has eight stalls that everyone can use, rather than queue jump for the disabled loo.
Well, like I said, a lot of disabled access loos in the UK are only accessible with a special key - it’s a called a radar key. Like I said, it’s not just due to disability access that those keys exist, it’s because people abuse those larger loos for other purposes, but it essentially means they are disabled access only. (It can be inconvenient if you need access but don’t have a key, but the staff will have one).
Some places have one stall that’s for disabled people and also for baby changing, and those don’t need keys. At workplaces it’s also generally not needed to have loos with radar keys, but elsewhere they’re common.
So “it’s never going to work” just isn’t true. It already happens.
And yes, the emotional support animal phenomenon exists, though it’s actually pretty rare. It’s far rarer than people with disabilities existing.
This is a rather weird turn to this thread, TBH. I don’t think the OP was in the wrong, and I gave two examples were able-bodied use of disabled access loos was very difficult for me, and there are half a dozen people responding within ten minutes to argue with me, some in tones that sound kinda pissed off.
I can’t even keep up with the number of people arguing with me! So apologies (not to you, but in general) if I haven’t addressed one specific point while being bombarded with questions.
Next up someone will claim even the pilot was in the right! 
Are you talking about separate rooms or actual stalls within the bathroom? Is someone constantly standing there in the bathroom with a key to unlock a stall? That sounds utterly bizarre and I have never in my life seen a handicapped stall locked within a bathroom that someone has to unlock with a key. That just does not exist in the US at all.
And I’m sorry, but it’s on you to say you need that stall and not for others to read your mind. It’s not your personal stall for your use only. They are handicapped accessible not restricted.
No. It’s called a radar key. You carry it yourself. Usually there are staff available if you don’t have a key of your own.
They’re always separate to the general loos. I said: “Some places have one stall that’s for disabled people and also for baby changing, and those don’t need keys. At workplaces it’s also generally not needed to have loos with radar keys.” I am clearly not talking about every single disabled access loo.
And I wasn’t asking anyone to read my mind. I specifically said you should focus on what you know about your own disabilities. Read your own mind, not other people’s.
I do genuinely apologise for not responding to every single post asking something about every single thing I’ve said, but there are a LOT of them very quickly and I’m kinda feeling a little under attack, so I think it’s best that I bow out for now.
But this is irrelevant to the question at hand, unless you are proposing that someone who does not require the accessible stall should never use it. If the accessible stall is the only one available, the relevant question is whether someone else is present who needs the accessibility, or whether I can just go ahead and use it. So somehow that communication must happen.
Nope. I said:
But sometimes, like at the OP’s workplace, it’s not as important. Go for the general access loos in general, yes. And for the disabled access loo, disabled people should get priority, so if there are two people waiting, one of whom is you and you’re not disabled, you should offer to let them go first (you don’t know if they’re disabled, but you know about yourself).
The number of people responding saying that disabled access loos are a free-for-all is making me change my mind, because honestly some people here are kinda acting a bit assholish.
I know it’s cowardly to back out of a conversation, but there’s nothing more I can add, so I really do have to back out for now. Please can people stop tagging me for a day or two and argue about the topic - better than throwing personal insults at me. There have been quite a lot.
Nobody is saying that. What people are pushing back against is your repeated implication that accessible stalls should be for the exclusive use of disabled people, which they are definitely not - and it’s selfish of you to claim them in that manner, when they invariably represent a far greater proportion of bathroom capacity than the number of disabled people who need them. And you seem to take a passive aggressive stance if you have to wait, and resent having to be assertive in communicating your needs.
There are unfortunately a significant number of jerks in the world, and we all have to try to deal with that as best we can. But it’s really not fair on your part to suggest that all non-disabled people should just have to wait unnecessarily long times with a much-reduced bathroom capacity because of the existence of jerks.
The two sides in conflict here are non-jerks vs jerks, not disabled people vs non-disabled people.