Other inaccessibility issues for disabled people

Drive-Thrus inaccessibility issues

I will mainly focus on the problem with blind or visually impaired people but there will be a little bit at the end how it also affects people with at least motor scooters and in one case a wheelchair.

Part A only allowing food to be served thru drive-thrus past 10pm:

The main problem here is that most fast-food restaurants close their dinning room aka lobby doors at sometime around 10:30pm.  So it means that the only way to get food is through the drive thru.  In the United States there's two cases but there was three cases where blind people were suing respectively  Jack-in-the-Box, Wendy's, and McDonald's respectively about how they-blind people wanted to get Jack-in-the-Box/Wendy's/McDonald's  but by the time they got to the restaurant the lobby/dinning doors were locked and when they tried to use the drive-thru they're turned away because they weren't in the car.     Yes I am aware Uber Eats, and Skip the dishes existed, but that's not here nor there.   In the McDonald's case- I believe the blind guy was even laughed at in the drive-thru.  In 2021 a judge threw the blind man's case out.

Part B-Tim Hortons discrimation against people with motor disabilities 

There's been four cases in Canada that Canada's famous coffee chain, has discriminated with people who use mobility devices and because their scooters are so big, they can't take them into the shop to order food or there's no way to get into the shop.  So that these people had used the drive-thru to get food or drink they want.  In one case that happens in my own town,- that the drive-thru of this one Tim Horton's, that told the disabled man to "get out of the drive-thru or else they'll call the police" and the young man's mom  got a copy of the policy which says that wheelchairs are exempt for the "no licensed vehicles" rule in the drive-thru but nothing about motor Scooters. 

Part C: Excuses 

This is going to be a part where I try to rein myself when I talk about the excuses I heard about why its not feasible for people not in a car to use a drive-thru.

I'm goin to cover three excuses I have heard about the various reasons and I call bacon on all of them. 

First excuse  is Robbery.   Some people think the reason that drive-thrus don't allow people to walk-thru the drive-thru is people think it would be so easy to rob the drive-thru cash register. From what I seen, that with drive-thrus from the outside, is that they're taller then you're average person and in most cases the cash register is I'm going to say in the opposite corner of the drive-thru window from where the drive- thru window is open for you to pay and get your food.   So that hypothetically you would need to be a giant and at the same time have long arms. 

 In some part of the Pacific, in either New Zealand, or Australia that some guy tried to rob drive-thru cash register some fast-food resturant down there, and instead he got his arm slammed repeatedly by the employees there and didn't get  any cash through. 

And in another fact that like I said earlier- that since the drive-thru cash register is in the opposite corner to the open drive-thru window -it would technically be easier to steal a cash register's money from a cash register in-store because technically beside a distraction (and making sure its at a time, where the money drawer is open) that you would just need to bend off the counter and steal the money from the drawer.

2nd excuse is safety because companies don't want to be sued if you get run over in the drive-thru of their restaurant. I kind of call a bunch of Bacon on this one as well.  Since what if you're dogging cars in the parking lot just to get to the restaurant to get food is the company afraid of getting sued by those people because if they weren't wanting to get McDonald's they weren't be in the parking lot dogging cars?  And these drivers are the kind of drivers who think yellow light on a traffic light means "Mission Impossible" and not 'Driving Miss Daisy".

3rd and final excuse is that people somehow think its easier for someone on two legs to get away if they did a prank then a people in a car.  To my perspective, its the other way around that's its easier to run away when you're in a car then on foot.   

I mean some time pre-Covid there was some kind of prank where teens were ordering some kind of drink that was Hi-C drink shout something and then throws the Hi-C drink into the drive-thru window, soaking the poor (presumably teen) drive-thru worker 

Conclusion 

I think that the restaurants should just remove this stupid restrictions  and allow people to use their two feet or non-enclosed vehicles to get their food.  I know with Tim Horton's that during Covid, they removed the no-walk up rule for Cargo truck drivers because those trucks are too huge to get into the drive-thru lane.  They should want any money, whether its people on two feet, on any kind of bike (manual or motorcycle), or a four wheeled but not enclosed vehicle aka a motor scooter 

Movie Theatres closed caption devices 

So with movie theatres there's two ways for Deaf or HOH can use to watch movies in theatres.  One version is called Captions like the one which comes with DVDs   The other one is a device I guess you rent for the duration of the movie and its "closed caption" 

But I found out yesterday that for either children or smaller then average person that once its get attracted to either soda cup, or a table- its too high for them to read the captions.  Yes hypothcically you could hold the device in your lap the entire time but you would have to look down the entire time and you wouldn't be able to eat a snack either.

And if the deaf person also has vison impairments and wear glasses-that a simliar  glasses closed caption device can just be chunky 

there's going to be more tomorrow, but I have made a start on them 

@Disneywoman Thanks for sharing this, my friend.

@calmMango9611  there's going to be more either today for this topic or tomorrow I'm need to figure out my thoughts.

Escalators

Up until more recently years most of my life I have seen only wide escalators. So there's was the possibility for people needing wheelchairs to use in times of need when elevators were broken or other people who prefer to use an escalators vs. a elevator.   But now I have seen more and more narrow escalators and that causes accessibility issues.  One accessibility  issue is about 90% of time that the escalators are smack in the middle of a building while elevators that same 90% of the time elevators are hidden away in some far out-place making it difficult for people to find them.    About 80-90% of the time elevators will be broken or out of order  while that only happens less frequentl for escalators which means that if you have narrow escalator a wheelchair user has to come back another day and hope the elevator is fix by them, because otherwise they have no ability to get up or down in a place like a mall.  

And also if you try to take anything then a very smallish bundle buggy on an escalator the escaltor is mostly like to stop working. 

Elevators 

Elevators might be great in some ways (ie you don't have to walk up several flight of stairs for instance) but sometimes they can just as inaccessible as other things in life.  For one thing, they're very often broken and companies can't seem to get around to fixing them in reasonable time which means if their are seniors or disabled people in the apartments they can't go out to get groceries or get some fresh air outside.   Don't get me started on the problem in one of I think its Toto's neighbourhoods where it takes so long to get an elevator that teens coming home would go to the next floor up and take an elevator down to allow some more people on and then take them and teens up)

Another issue is that the elevators might take you to a place you're not expecting or wanting to go.  What i mean by this is that if there's at least 3 levels to a train station, you would expect the elevator to go to the 3rd (bottom) level right?  Or in another situation-since a lot of the Stations (but not all) of the stations for the Commuter Train (which i will go "Goer", from Oliver to Toto,  has a raised platform which allows people in wheelchairs or other disabled devices -to get on and off the  the train's accessible car.- but you would expect all the platforms assoicated with elevators would have a raised part of the platform right?

Now I'm going to talk about number2nd thing first.  Last year Mom and I ended up at least 4 times on a platform in Union Station which didn't have a raised platform that we had to lift either our luggage (the first time) or the bundle buggy (2 other times) onto the train.  And what's worse is the other part of the platform had a wooden version of the raised platform the side we're on didn't. even have that and that would have been better then nothing.  And once in Toto we're going to use the elevator to the accessible platform,  but it was out of order (the yellow strip not caution tape so to speak but something similar- was across it)  so we asked a employee and the employee lead us to the inaccessible platform elevator and we had clearly told her that we needed an accessible so that was another time we had to lug the bundle buggy onto the train.

This isn't my first hand-experience but something I saw happen.  When I went into Toronto for my doctor's appointment-we had to wait a long time to get an elevator because of tons of people with strollers needing to get on.  When an elevator came back up to the platform we're on, there was a woman with crutches in the elevator, and Mom and I and some other people got on.  And then we went down to the concourse and the woman with crutches was looking around.   Mom asked her "what are you looking for?" and the woman said "a way to get down to the next level"  and as far as my Mom and I are (currently) aware there's only two ways to get down: escalators and stairs. 

@Disneywoman I am grateful for them. I hope they do not get rid of them, anytime soon. I do not understand why Canada is so anti-friendly towards people with disabilities. They never used to be. How times have changed. I know this, because when I was in elem school, this was back in the 1980's, my class took a trip to Canada to see the CN Tower, and we had lunch. Back, when I went they were very helpful towards me. I have a learning disability. The staff at the train station, help me get on and off the train. I have some coordination issues. Now, through you, I am hearing very anti-accepting of disabled people, and it is scary. These are really uncertain times we are living through.

@calmMango9611  I mean there's some help,  but not a lot of help for disabled people.   I mean my province (the one CN Tower is located in) is suppose to be accessible by 2025 but that doesn't look likely.    

Public transit

Part A

So in Canada and i assume the U.S. that public transit have both auditory and visual announcements in buses and trains.  But I have discovered some issues with both.  \With buses more then trains but sometimes trains as well, is that visual stop announcements either never get turned on or presumably the driver turns them off.

The other problem I have seem with both buses and subway trains is that auditory announcements are sometimes really garbled so that you can't hear what is being said because whomever is making the  announcements is not speaking clearly. 

Sometimes on buses that the auditory announcements is turned off.  And back pre-Covid it caused a problem for blind member of the day-program.  Lucky I was on the bus to help her.   That I recognized the person from the program on the bus and when we got to a street the woman said (are we at X street yet?) because she had no way of knowing which street we're at due to the auditorily announcements being turned off. I told her we weren't, and i would tell her when we got there.

Part B

In the past topic about elevators, I mentioned the Commuter train from Willow to Toto had an accessible car. Now Most people who use the accessible car are the disabled people.  But there's once a year where the accessible car get over filled with families with strollers. That always happens in late August for Ontario's "travelling fair".   Its so bad sometimes that some disabled folks thinks there should be two accessible cars during the time the "traveling fair" is on.  

@Disneywoman I am from the US. I have heard that sometimes, the voice does not always work, the way it should. I wonder if the US and Canada use the same company for their voice notifications.

Thanks for posting this.

Public tables and chairs

I don't know what the average height is for tables and chairs.  But most of us can use most public tables and chairs to sit down.  But I'm being following not that closely a disabled woman who hip wasn't form correctly and she's really short.  So this was from her -so that most times when she's trying to eat something it spills on her or something. 

Counters

Sometimes in older buildings that the counters are up high so its hard for someone who is short or in a wheelchair to get help from people.  Either bank tellers or pharmcists to see the person as well

Elevators part II:

In Toronto due to many of subway stations not having elevators. Heck one stop called "Museum" (its next to a museum) is only getting an elevator this year after having more then 20 years of that stop having 0 elevator) that if a elevator is broken at one stop.  You have to go back on the train (if you're on the platform) or get back on a bus go back 3 stops forward or backwards and they might even need to get on another bus to get to the next working elevator. 

Here some examples from TTC:

someone created a subway map of the TTC subway stops which are accessible

addtional note.. does anyone know if this is a problem elsewhere?

new inaccessible town housing

My Province Ontario is suppose to be accessible by next year (2025).  And something I have seen is a lot of 3 stories townhouses being built.  And from what I can see from a moving vehicle (car/bus) is that the front door is 5-6 steps up from the "sidewalk".  So the only way to get in would be "at the back" or "through the garage".  Which both creates other problems shortly "being "hidden away" from normal world" like disabled people been for most of our lives.

General ignorance about disabled people

Bit of history lesson: 

Since the beginning of human time there has always been disabled people.  Historians are starting to think that Julius Caesar (yes the one Shakespeare wrote a play about) had epilepsy.   We also had in Greek and Roman times 'unperfect" children being left to die out in the woods.    In Middle Ages disabled people were things to be shameful or fearful of  or attribute the "disability" to be "supernatural" work.  So those who were born with disabilities were treated like they're evil and it was a sin (of their parents-ie child out of wedlock) and those were outcasts and homeless beggars (might have been the organization if the rude term "handicapped" because of disabled  beggars being cap in hand" I heard this is a myth).   This was the beginning of the rise of Institutions to hide away the disabled people  and this continue onward through the mid 1900s (interesting in 1953 there was in-home care in LA for Polio patients).   In 1860s after Helen Keller went "blind and deaf and mute"  relatives of the Kellers wanted Mr. and Mrs. Keller to send Helen away to an Institution but they refused.  

Main Part

Now due to the generations between middle ages and the 1950-60s  due to the fact disabled people were hidden away from the "normal people"  it meant that our parents couldn't talk to us about disabilities when we're children, so if we have children ourselves -we are not able to talk to our children about it either.   Molly Burke said in a video with another youtuber  that about 10 years ago she would go into a store with her SD and she would hear a Mom "shushing" a child  and yet the "other day" Molly went into the store with her SD and  she heard a Mom educating the child instead.

So due to the ignorance of our parents and then our own generation-its not really surprising when it comes to the fact that we, the various disabled communities (deaf, blind, wheelchair user, neurodivergent, etc) within the bigger disabled community get bullied as students.  I was bullied, Molly Burke was bullied and so have others disabled students as well.  

That and disability representation in the media (next post)

Disability representation in the media (TV/film)

Two biggest problems with disability representation in the media.   Until the 21st century it was very rare (outside of a movie like the Miracle Worker) to see disabilities in the media.  Now its more common (as of the 90s) to find them but still two things that we really need to fix.

First topic is that despite their being disabled actors out there trying to find jobs.  Like all jobs its very rare for these disabled actors to get jobs.   Molly Burke a blind Canadian youtuber said she has had more then once audition for a role of a blind woman and it has come down to her and one other non-blind woman and its always goes to the non-blind woman.  Once the show she was auditioning for was based upon her!    

I heard on the news when CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) came out the other year Mariee Matlin had to fight for the people playing her on-screen deaf husband and deaf son to be actually deaf and not be hearing actors playing a deaf character.  

And of course a big problem was in the TV show Glee- that the character of Archie (?) was not sitting in the wheelchair properly. 

The next thing we have to fix is the fact what little representation there is out there is generally based on stereotypes.  The main ones being that never do you see disabilities being a spectrum it only goes from being completely blind/deaf/wheelchair user/neurodivergent    A Common stereotypes for blind people is 1)they touch stranger's faces when they meet, and 2)they wear sunglasses indoors.   Even though there's other disabilities that might make one sensitive to light.   

With deaf people the general thought is (beside the thought of "if you speak louder the deaf person might heard you") is that the deaf person would have gotten or was thinking about getting a hearing aid or cochlear implant so they could "hear again"

With wheelchairs the problem is (beside treating them like they're infants or children)- is that they're not able to get out of their wheelchairs ever-or at least not without help.  There's plenty of wheelchair users who can stand up or walk around they're called ambulatory wheelchair users. But when that happens in real life, ambulatory wheelchair users are accused of "being faker" and "not really needing" the wheelchair. 

The other one is the one I only discovered in the last year and that is in media that if the character has or gets a prosthetic limb (let's say leg in this case)-they literally go to bed with it on.  

Then there's other overall stereotypes.

1. Temporary disabled characters which to be fair were fine back in the 1700s and 1800s (18th and 19th century) the Three  examples are Clara from Heidi, Colin from The Secert Garden and "Tiny Tim" from A Christmas Carol  In first two books the main character (Heidi/Mary)  meets and befriends the disabled character and due to "magic" (from either  a mountain for Heidi or a garden for Colin) are able to walk by the story's end.   Its unclear how "Tiny Tim" gets better,I'm going to assume its due to a surgery Scrooge pays for.   Just found two examples of Media temporary blindness-M.A.S.H.'s Hawkeye who in one episode gets blind and assumed cured by the end of it or at least by the next episode.  The same thing happens in Law and Order: SVU to Detective Stabler  

2. Disabled people as Villians- outside of not real mental illness in some of the Batman enemies (Joker), or something like Darth Vader in Episodes IV-VI of Star Wars.  Some of the earliest "disabled villians" just happen to be Pirates.  The most notable examples are Long John Sliver from Treasure Island  and Captain Hook from Peter Pan.   I do want to make a side note, there might be some redeeming qualities  of Long John Sliver (or at least he's grey?) but this isn't the place for them.

3. Helpless.  I don't have an example of this Some people think Quasi from The Hunchback of Notre Dame is this or a victim (or both).  In the book not only is Quasi have a hunched back but he's also is deaf due 2 ringing the bells @Notre Dame de Paris.

4.Inspirational- The main problem is a blind superhero like Daredevil has like 100% super hearing and has the ability to fight baddies.   I don't really  view Tiny Tim as this trope 

Accessible Parking Spaces

There's Four problems with accessible parking places (Not including able-people using them but I'm not talking about that today).   The first problem is that a lot of the time regardless of weather or not the accessible parking spot is near the door- I seen at least twice that one accessible parking space is right next to the cocreate barrier of the parking lot (at one Transit station and at one grocery store). 

Another one is where I am,  I seen that a lot of accessorily parking spots are so close together there's no possible way for people in wheelchairs to get out of them because there's 0 space to allow a ramp to get out to go down on either side of a van.  Its doubly impossible if one side has a concreate barrier.

Another problem is that either shopping carts are left in the middle of an accessible parking spot like smack in the middle of it  or in places where's there's spaces between accessibly parking spots I'm going to call them a "buffer zone"- that not just shopping carts are left there but:  Motorcycles, Police cars, truck delivery folks all like to use the "buffer zone" to park their vehicle in.    For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about when I meant buffer zone here:

The last one is something I hate my own Appa (father) for doing.   Is when able-bodied people park way too close to the accessible parking spot. Most of the time on reels I see the ramp comes out on the left hand side of the vehicle (behind the driver) so if I'm right next to the driver of an accessible vehicle- the person (a passenger) can't  get out due to cars like my Appa's being in the way.  And yet my Appa can normally park anywhere else in the parking lot on most Thursdays-but he always insists on parking next to the accessible parking spot-not thinking about the fact about disabled people coming to this store.  Presumably there's other people who like parking right next to the disabled parking spots.

Accessible Bathroom Stalls

There's two problems with accessible bathroom stalls.  I'm going to point out that unlike disabled parking spaces anyone can use them-not just disabled people.     There's two problems I see with the bathroom stalls.  I'm also aware there's invisible disabilities out there as well

The first thing is people like moms with small children needing to use the accesible stall because either their children can't be on their own or it just happens to have the change table in it.  So it means that if a disabled person (wheelchair, or something) arrives after a mom goes into the stall-they have to wait for them to come out.      Another version of it is other non-disabled people using the stalls for various reasons-once Mom and I thought in a an airport someone was changing their clothes in an airport washroom-and was in the accessible stall.   To be fair-I did use an accessible bathroom once-but my excuse is  I was dealing with a bundle buggy that particular day and since I needed to take it everywhere with me. and I can't really take our big bundle buggies into a normal stall-its too big.  Something like my friend's bundle buggy-i might be able too but not this one.

The other problem is in smaller or at least older buildings.  The change table is smack Infront of the door to the accessible stall.  So sometimes there's occasions where you go into a washroom and whomever last used the change table left it down.   I remember once in Tim Hortons in Achilles when I still was in contact with a different friend I will call them "Jane" who had to use a wheelchair (she didn't use too) and she had to go to the washroom-and I went into the washroom w/ her and smack in the way was the change table being down so I had to put it up so Jane could get to the door. 

Another problem is sometimes the "accessibility" stall is not big enough for someone to fit through.  Or even be able to stand up in to move to the toilet.  (so doubted it would be big enough for a caregiver or a service dog to be in).

Part of the Accessible Stalls.  If a retail business has an accessible stall/washroom- about 70-80% of the time  the business use it for storage. Which means someone who needs it has to go elsewhere to go to the bathroom.

1,2,3 testing

DAS Pass,  Disney Parks, USA

DAS Pass in the USA parks had until May 4th at Walt Disney World or June 9th at Disneyland  of this year ,  the DAS Pass  has been allowed for people with all disabilities in the Parks.   But due to so-called abuse (surprise, surprise),  they changed the system for it being for only "people with autism* or other development disorders"  and not for people with mobility or other issues.  I think the theory is that someone using a wheelchair or a mobility scooter, can "stand" in line in the rides' wait line, vs.  someone who is autistic who gets impatient very easily without thinking of problems like the potential for other  disabled people not being able to regulate their body temperature or they might not have enough "Spoons" to be able to wait in line for a long time if they have chronic illness.

Apparently with the DAS pass that when it was avaible for everyone who was disabled-who could use it they could pre-select the rides with a call back time-similar to the old Fast Pass system. 

@Disneywoman Omg this is a very valuable resource, thanks for compiling this <3

@Disneywoman One silver lining to the above: it discourages us disabled folk from indulging in unhealthy lifestyles. That's not to say it's all okay, but as we already know, the Standard American Diet is indeed SAD. Those big cups of soda from the fountain are full of sugar & empty calories; drive-thrus sell slop full of fat, salt, preservatives & flavor enhancers to get customers hooked on the product. Obesity-related diseases are the leading factors of high mortality in the US: > 600,000 deaths a year. As a disabled person myself, while I know accessibility issues are real & need to be fixed, when it comes to fast food restaurants & convenience stores we ought to avoid them as much as we can in any case. Nutritionless swill only makes our disabilities worse.

@slowdecline48  I get where you're coming from.  But as long as they only have it once in awhile they shouldn't need to get help from a 3rd person whether its family, friends or a employee to be able to enjoy something the rest of society can do by themselves-either by using a Coke-Free Style machine or by using the drive-thru.   Oh and regarding the Drive-thrus according to Article III of ADA that if disabled patrons can not get normal access to the drive-thru that the business must find some other accommodation for them but for both McDonald's and Jack in the Box lawsuits,    that the respective restaurants refused to put in any accommodations for the blind customers. 

IN the McDonald's case the plaintiff suggested that McDonald's offer free delivery through Uber Eats (but McDonald's claim they would "operate at loss" doing that) and the other idea the plaintiff suggested was that he 'gets a special phone number and code" so he can order over the phone and get it at the locked door.  But McDonald's claimed it was "too much work" for the skeleton crew they have at 10pm and onwards.  

The other one refused to do an alterative accomdation like allowing blind people to call using the phone and pick it up at the door.   

So it means a)blind people need to use friend, or family member  who can drive to enjoy a late-night snack if they want a snack after 10pm.  or b)go without their snack or meal or whatever the reason is they went to the restaurant. 

Re representation of the disabled in entertainment media: Am not sure how to fix that issue. Federal & state restrictions would inevitably be unconstitutional (1A). Affirmative action-style requirements for, say, a certain %age of movies/shows to feature disabled leading characters or plotlines involving disabled characters would have the same problem. Even if that could be solved (or just evaded--you can interpret the law to mean almost anything if you're skilled in legalistic casuistry), such statutes would inevitably lead to lousy movies & shows that would fail at the box office &/or not get high enough views. Look what happened to certain Marvel franchises & the Star Wars spin-off flicks.

@slowdecline48  When CODA was being filmed Marliee Martin had to fight for the right to have deaf actors play her on-screen husband and son. The director or someone wanted to hire hearing actors to pretend to be deaf.  You wouldn't cast a cat to play a dog or vice versa, why are we still having this new-old version of something that's bad,  its called Cripping up similar to what happened to white people pretending to be non-white 

There's ton of disabled actors out there so we need to have them actually be seen and not as lousy stereotypes, or not as something helpless, or have overcome problems.   We need to have a story that's not "about the disabled person's drama".   

@Disneywoman You keep starting these declarations with "we need to have...". My question is how? What solutions do you propose? We need specifics here.

Also the issues I raised in my previous reply remain unaddressed. Since disabled representation is so important to you, please explain what moviemaking legislation can be formulated, passed & enforced for without running into 1A issues.

(I could also ask, again, how you figure any studio can make a movie worth watching when it prioritizes any kind of representation--by quotas?--over telling an interesting story through film, but no one can solve that problem. The Marvel franchise proved it)

@slowdecline48

1. yes I'm using the world We but I mean WE as a society both the disbaled and the non-disabled working together to make the world a better place for the disabled and not have the barriers we currently have cause problems for them.

2. My job here is to raise awareness of the barriers I don't have the answers to your questions.  There's other more qualified disabled advocates/content creators who can probably answer those questions of how to make rules so that there's adequate non-stereotypic  disabled representation on both the small and big screens.

Thank you...I appreciate your honesty.

Fake Food allergies:

People who pretend to have food allergies either because they don’t like something or because they’re following a fad diet cause a barrier for people with genuine food allergies.   This is a barrier for genuine food allergy sufferers due to the fact that most of them can’t dine out anymore for fear of not being believed by the servers anymore.

The servers get wary of people claiming allergies and then  see them either ordering or sneaking a bit of someone else’s food that has the allergen in it, to the point that they don’t really want to believe anyone who says that they have an allergy.   

As of 2017, there have been a few cases where servers probably didn’t believe the person has allergies, and they were taken to the hospital, sometimes in a coma, even due to being given food that has an allergen in it. 

Due to this fear, it means that people with genuine allergies can’t go out to social functions like birthdays, anniversary’s or other fun activities that might be in a restaurant due to the server might not believe them about their allergy.