'Round these here parts, all the of bus’s front seats tell me (who likes to sit in the front seats) that I am obliged to give up my seat for the elderly or disabled. All well and good, not my bus, etc. But, it cites a governmental regulation. (I’ll write it down next time I ride.) What gives? Is this not discrimination on the basis of age, sex, gender, or disablity? Is that not supposed to be avoided by the federal government?
My bitter, cynical, depressingly good at guessing side points out that the elderly and disabled are both strong, united voting blocs, and are thus likely to have governmental support that the merely carrying something heavy would lack. So, what gives with this law?
if you weren’t going to rot in hell for your religion threads, this one definitely does it.
You better hope your mom doesn’t read your post, or she’s going to pinch your arm.
all kidding aside,
this seems somehow related in theme to affirmative action and the like. It is discrimination in the interest of fairness, equal opportunity.
Sometimes you have to give a leg up to people who can’t do it for themselves.
I do wonder if their political power as voters has led to such legislation however.
hehehe - try it in France, where they bossily tell you to whom to give up your seat (pregnant women, the elderly and the war-wounded, and perhaps more),= but the striking thing is that they carefully put these groups in order of priority, causing me to envisage interesting debates between ladies who are enceinte and the mutiles de guerre*
“But I am pregnant, you inconsiderate old person”
“Huh - fine - pregnant, you say:? Well, c’est magnifique, mais c’est n’est pas la guerre”
To be fair - I have not been there for a LONG time, so I might be wrong.
However, could I assume perhaps that you have no real objection to giving up your front seat to those whose need might be greater, but primarily object to being told to do so?
Basically, it says that public transportation providers have to provide a “handicapped only” seat, the same way Kroger has to provide a “handicapped only” parking spot, and that the handicapped folks get legal dibs on that seat the same way they get legal dibs on that handicapped parking spot at Kroger.
The rationale for the “public transportation” part of the ADA is that not being able to use the bus infringes on the civil rights of the handicapped–they have the right, as taxpaying Americans, to have seats on public transportation that they can use. And since “handicapped” in legal terms means not only folks in actual wheelchairs, but also blind, deaf, and elderly folks, not to mention people with heart conditions, they get legal dibs on the “handicapped” seats, too.
And–you think you’re being discriminated against–poor Tiger Woods has to walk, but Casey Martin gets to ride in a golf cart.
I always give my seat up for a geezer. Or a gimp. Or someone who is hugely knocked up. I am or have been all those things, and it’s just common courtesy. But sometimes people need a little nudge. However, I use the pregnant parking space at Walmart, even if I’m not pregnant, because I just don’t see how it can be fair, depending on how far along you are in your pregnancy. The sign should say “Parking for Third Trimester Pregnancy Only”. But that’s me.
DDG did an excellent job explaining to you why you have to give up your seat. Sounded like a good idea to me. Or are you debating why the disabled get all the good seats on the bus/el/subway? I’m sure you could figure that one out to, if you really tried.
The handicapped as taxpayers clearly have a legal right to the special accomodations made for them on public transportation… but… what if the bus is full? Do they have a right to force people off a crowded bus to get into their special area, or must they wait (as anyone else would have) for the next bus?
The more interesting question in my mind is the elderly one. At first it seems pretty simple: elderly people are generally supposed to get more utility out of sitting than young people. But when you think about it, that doesn’t exactly hold up. First of all, it’s not always true: plenty of old people have good posture and backs: plenty of young people have bad posture and poor backs (though they might not know it) meaning that sitting will do them much much more future good (in terms of less problems with their spines) than the elderly people.
But it’s worse than that due to one oft forgotten fact: all old people were once young people. That is, it seems a little strange to transfer seats from young to old, because you’re in a sense just transfering a seat from someone to their future self. That transfer may or may not agreeable to a given person. But it’s strange to force the transfer onto people (aside from the fact that giving up seats when young is no guarantee that others will give them up for you when old).
And there’s a catch: old people are guaranteed their turn at having been young (because its already happened). Young people have no such assurances. That means that an old person might end up with a seat when old, while a young person might end up with no seat, AND die before they can become old and claim their fair share of seating. That’s pretty unfair!
It’s a weird question, indeed, but one worth thinking about.
Aha! but it’s a trick question; since he clearly will have a peg leg, be missing an eye and have a hook for a hand, he is entitled to sit there and merely needs to brandish his cutlass and shout “ha-harrrr me hearties!” if anyone dares to move him.
??? So… because the effective utilization of a reserved “Pregnant” parking space in front of a store requires some application of intelligence, common sense and fair play by people (women specifically), you say “It’s not fair” because the restrictions aren’t tight enough, and hog the space for yourself even if you are not pregnant, and to hell with the really pregnant women that might really need it
I had a problem with the law too when I commuted by bus daily. It was legislating (what to me was) a common courtesy, which was wrong. You either want to be courteous, or you don’t; you shouldn’t tag a $100 fine on being inconsiderate. Also, it was based on the assumption that a young person is completely able-bodied and capable of standing for long periods of time, when that’s not always absolutely true. There were assorted smaller gripes as well.
But there was little I could do about it. It was law. Also, this was in Hawaii, where the elderly make up a large part of the population, and had I voiced my opinion, I probably would have been beaten down in a rain of canes and walkers. Don’t get me wrong-- I never resisted giving up my seat, nor did I chew out anyone for making me surrender my seat. I just didn’t like the idea that as a young person, I had to stand, despite my hour-long-each-way commute, my heavy backpack, bum ankle, and occasionally having my violin in tow.
Now that I’m not a student and I get around by car and live in a city with a smaller elderly population and a better bus system, I have perspective (or distance, take your pick… heh). I understand why the law’s in place; I think I was just unfortunate to have had the short end of the circumstances. It’s one of those things you have to swallow and get over. I still don’t agree entirely with the law, but it benefits enough people to make my disagreement moot.
How about common courtesy, having even a minimal sense of deceny, and even the very slightest of manners.
Back when I used to regularly ride the Metrobus/rail I witnessed several occasions where an ablebodied person was sitting in the handicapped/elderly spot and refused to give up the seat to an elderly person, until they were shamed into it.
—Hey, let’s have a Social Security thread! You know, or not.—
The issue might have some relevance to SS, but it’s also an interesting issue here. I think it’s quite relevant given that people DO seem to forget the reality in the case of discussing things like SS, acting as if old people and young people were simply entirely different groups in the same order as poor people and rich people.
—As for the original issue, I say just get your lazy little butt out of that seat and let Grandma take a load off. What would your mother say?—
Who cares? Anyone can appeal to cheap pity: portraying things as an issue of poor creaky grandma and lazy young-un can always win a case. The problem is whether that case covers every reasonable possibility, and fairly represents the situations people deal with. Common courtesy is often a good guide to social acceptance and even sometimes good social equilibriums: but that shouldn’t preclude people inquiring as to its potential faults, because from time to time it proves wrong or mismatched, or even ignorant of general equilibria issues.
I think the basic courtesy is to give your seat up to anyone who obviously (or, barring that, their own explination) needs it more than you do, regardless of why that might be. I rarely sit on buses or subway cars anyway (it’s actually better for my back to stand), but I think people can come to their own judgements about (and the people around them can come to their own judgements about) whether or not a person is being reasonable or unreasonable, and take appropriate action, whether it be shame or whatever. But those judgements shouldn’t be based on poorly thought-out ideas.
I don’t think a blanket policy of defference to age (or even some handicaps, especially for those of us who’d like to otherwise be treated as normal people unless we really do need it and make this known) is the right way to go with common courtesy. Someone who has just walked two miles with heavy bags and is riding on a 45 minute trip home might well need a seat far more than an elderly person in good shape who’s only riding two stops, and people who are truly interested in courtious, as opposed to lazily applying stereotypes as shorthands for the values supposedly enshrined in courtesy, might well figure that out by themselves. Pretending that all members of various general categories have exhaustive, non-overlapping rankable characteristics is only marginally less questionable when done by age and handicap as it is when done by race or gender.
I’m an old coot and hope to get older. I am still in relativly good health, walk quite a lot and can remain standing for long periods of time before my back gives out. I don’t want any one giving me their damn seat because I don’t think of myself as old and frail. Except for prolonged shopping excursions with Marcie–department stores provide about one chair per million customers and it seems to be my luck that it is constantly occupied by some young guy who looks through me as if my back didn’t hurt at all.
Look, an unwritten, unenforced policy such as tipping at restaraunts that even chronically rude people like me do out of social inertia I would have no problem with. The government stating that I must give up my seat to people in categories A or B is what cheezes me off.
are you open to the notion that this opinion might change as you get older?
would this opinion change if you got hit by a falling piano and were rendered paralyzed from the waist down?
on a boat?
with a goat?
in a house?
with a mouse?
i guess the real question is one of belief that the government has the responsibility to protect it’s most vulnerable citizens, and are the handicapped and senior citizens that vulnerable?
i would contend that common sense isn’t
that common courtesy also isn’t
manners, politeness, none of that can be counted on to be sufficient.
)
