Says YOU, who has NO personal experience with it. How do YOU define “perfectly reasonable”?
IT’s a simple system of fairness. If all other stalls are occupied, by all means, USE THE HANDICAP STALL. THAT would be a use of NECESSITY. Because you had NO OTHER OPTION. Just like someone in a wheelchair, or other access-compromising disability has no other option. BUT, if non-accessible toilets ARE available, that should be your (as an able-bodied individual) FIRST choice. I don’t expect ppl to line up outside non-accessible stalls when the handicap stall is available. That is ridiculous. But I DO expect ppl to reserve use of those stalls for times when other stall aren’t available. I cannot fathom how ANYONE can, in all fairness and honesty, argue with this premise. (a side note: unless it’s a tiny establishment, no places have ONE reg toilet and ONE accessible toilet, its always AT LEAST 2 or 3)
If repetition isn’t working, maybe you need a better approach. Something that will convince us to support further accommodations. For me personally on the airline issue, I view you as the guy who always insists on a window seat but then complains that this makes going to the bathroom “a real hassle, man, especially after I down my traditional pre-flight 64-ounce Turbo Chug at the 7-11 on the way to the airport, man…”
Well when you (the general “you”) take things from my writings that simply ARE NOT THERE, how can I EVER convince you of my side of things? It’s a lost cause. So you see my complaint here as “trivial”? Hmm. Let me pose a question to the board at large here…Has anyone ever witnessed the “aisle chair” procedure in action on a plane?
You are not the only person who benefits from the availability of the handicapped stall, yet you demand that everyone for whom it is not an absolute necessity avoid taking advantage of it for the minuscule chance that you might need to use it and do not want to have to wait.
I am finished with this thread, because it’s clear you’re never going to pull your head out of your ass and realize why this is not fair to everyone else.
Tell me! PLEASE! Tell me how only using the handicap stall if it’s the only one available to you (the able-bodied) is unfair to you!!! It’s the only one available to those who have access-compromising disabilities. You have options available to you. Use them. If not available, you are lucky, you have a handicap stall ALSO at your disposal to meet your needs. I ONLY ask that such use is reserved to times when NO OTHER TOILET IS AVAILABLE. IM NOT asking ANYONE to wait for a toilet when one is available, IM DEFINITELY not asking for PERSONAL EXCLUSIVE PRIORITY to the stalls. I dont understand why I am giving that impression. It is simple, UNARGUABLE decency and fairness. Based on this premise, I eagerly await to see an argument from someone on how my requests are IN ANYWAY unfair.
Argh. I really need to get back to work.
See my previous post, a page ago or so. Many people find the handicapped stall more comfortable, less awkward, more convenient than the non-handicapped stall, even though it is still possible for them to use the non-handicapped stalls. For instance, when I broke my ankle, the normal stalls were a pain because I did not have the room to position my leg at a comfortable angle, although if necessary I could use them. There are literally millions of people for whom access to the normal stalls is possible but not preferable, for all kinds of reasons including age, injuries, obesity, bulky clothing, whatever.
People who absolutely need the handicapped stalls, such as yourself, represent a very small fraction of the population - as I estimated above, 0.1%. By demanding that people who would otherwise benefit from them willingly avoid using the handicapped stalls in deference to you, you are asking a lot of people to needlessly inconvenience themselves 99.9% of the time so that they do not inconvenience you 0.1% of the time (from their perspective).
Do you not see how that is selfish?
Well, maybe it’s my fault - I kinda stopped reading after that “bodybuilders need to drink gallons” bit, since this struck me as a “duh” moment. I can certainly understand wanting reasonable accommodation, but your preflight drinking habits are deliberately and knowingly aggravating the problem.
No, just self-indulgent and seeking public indulgence.
I’m prepared to assume it’s a truly uncomfortable and humiliating experience. All the more reason to minimize the odds of needing it by:
[ul][li]Reserve your seat early, get one right next to the restroom.[/li][li]Don’t chug before the flight. If you must chug before the event, get to the event city a few days early and chug after the flight.[/li][li]Don’t fly at all - take the train.[/ul][/li]
I’m sure other suggestions have been floated in this thread. Take them, don’t take them… whatever.
Um yeah and if Im not mistaken that guy SUED.
Again, you completely missed what I said. I don’t know how to make it more clear, so I won’t bother trying again.
As for places that only have one regular and one handicapped stall - my workplace bathroom is in exactly that configuration. I think it’s actually quite common in the workplace.
But the manufacterers are not going to make something “exist” that the airlines didn’t express a specific interest in. The manufacterers arent going to build them at MY request, no I’d have to convince the airlines to make such requests.
Well then we obviously are missing EACH OTHER’S POINT. Because I offer up my premise clearly and simply to be picked apart and you pass.
Overall winner of the 2007 Caveman Classic huh.
You look pretty handicapable in the picture, Jamie.
:o Oh man, wasn’t expecting that! Thank you. 
You’re not going to get it by whining.
Also, have you attempted to contact any aisle chair manufacturers? If not, then you don’t know what they will or won’t do. It’s possible that no one had ever considered making such a chair, possibly for reasons others have stated. Or maybe they just never thought of it, and a self-propelled chair might be their next big money-maker and an edge on the competition.
I’ll type this slowly so that you can understand it:
The airlines are not to blame here. You need to take it up with the chair makers.
Well I’ll type equally as slow: we disagree. But BOTH do need to in concert with any new changes. I’ll give you that.
YES, from the perspective of someone actually in one of them. Admittedly I haven’t been taken to the washroom in one (note the other options that many people have mentioned), but I have certainly been hauled up and down aisles a great many times in one to get on and off aircraft. I’ve been hauled up and down steps in one quite a few times (when for some reason or another the plane was parked on the tarmac and passengers had to use stairs). I was left in one for half an hour or so at a gate at Shannon airport when there was a crew change (necessitating making all the passengers get off). What is the big deal??
I might agree that your problem is more than trivial, but given all the options that have already been suggested, your problem certainly is minor. You have other options (already discussed) if you can’t stand the “indignity” of an aisle chair. You are asking that people accommodate your preferences, not your needs.
PS In case it matters (it shouldn’t) I usually get put on first and taken off last, but it is not always that way - I have been put on last a few times so everyone got to watch. Woop-de-doo.
Yes. It doesn’t look pleasant. I do not recall the strapping (the person was behind me, the bathroom in front of the divider), but I was on a flight where this was used. The patient was truly invalid and is obviously more in need of being secured than you are (which is none). But I fly a lot - I have no doubt that I’ve been on 100 airplane flights, and this chair isn’t used often.
I will say that airplane aisles are a pain to navigate for everybody. However, I do agree with you in your basic complaint - if you don’t need to be strapped in, then they shouldn’t strap you in at your request.
I have also thought that some airline, somewhere, would be smart enough to pre-board not only people who need assistance, but also those people who sit in the same aisle. I remember one flight where a rather large man was in a wheelchair, escorted on the airplane for pre-boarding, then couldn’t move to allow his seatmates in.
So… Am I the only one who thinks this thread is ridiculous? The OP’s ire may have started off a bit unfocused and perhaps misguided, but it seems like his complaint essentially boils down to “Those goddamned aisle chairs suck, and I’d like for there to be a simpler way for me to piss on an airplane without all of the shenanigans.”
Well, he seems to be arguing that the world owes him another way to piss, otherwise the world is treating him like less than a human being. I think that’s the part that most people object to.