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| The
Gateway to Services in the UK |
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Motoring Associations
These offer advice and publish
information on matters of personal mobility - including vehicles and conversions,
insurance and legal requirement. All have local branches or representatives
and encourage local group events:
Disabled Drivers Information Website : http://www.disabled.driverinfo.btinternet.co.uk
Disabled Drivers’ Association : http://www.dda.org.uk
Disabled Drivers Motor Club Ltd : http://www.ddmc.org.uk
Disabled Motorist Federation
Tel: 01743 761 889
The rescue services
offers a variety of concessions and special help and information for disabled
members:
AA (Automobile Association) Tel: 0990 448 866
Disability Helpline Tel: 0800 262 050
Green Flag (formerly National Breakdown Tel: 0113 236 3236 )
RAC (Royal Automobile Club) Tel: 01454 20800
AA Guide for Disabled Traveller.
Rail Services
Fare concessions The Disabled Person’s Railcard valid for 12 months entitles you to reduced rates. If you are a young person accompanied by an adult, he or she travels at the same rate. Details of discounts and who qualifies are in booklet Rail Travel for Disabled Passengers from stations and travel centres.
Special arrangements If you need help in transferring between your car and train or other special arrangements, you should try to give at least 48 hours’ notice of your journey.
InterCity Services Most trains now have wide access doors, automatic interior doors and grabrails and are accessible to wheelchair users by ramps kept at all stations. Most Standard Class coaches have a space for a wheelchair at one end, and space can be made in First Class, given advance notice. There are usually trolley refreshment services, and some trains have wheelchair accessible toilets.
Sleeper cabins are not wheelchair-accessible and therefore not suitable if you need help when transferring to or from your wheelchair.
Eurostar services operating from Waterloo to Paris and Brussels are fully accessible to wheelchair users. Although wheelchair spaces are only accessible in First Class, wheelchair users pay only standard fare plus a small supplement.
Stations RailTrack is improving facilities to make stations easier to use. Many main-line stations have toilets accessible to wheelchair users and are opened with the National Key Scheme. This scheme is used to provide access to over 4,000 public toilets which might be subject to vandalism unless kept locked.
Rail Travel for Disabled Passengers
- from stations, travel centres and travel agents.
Local Transport
A growing number of bus routes all over the country are now served by low floor buses which are wheelchair accessible and much easier for anyone who has difficulty with steps
Over the next few years regulations will be introduced under the Disability Discrimination Act which will require all future public transport (buses and coaches, trains and trams and licensed taxis) to be accessible to disabled people, including wheelchair users.
Many areas already have wheelchair accessible taxis and / or door to door transport services such as ‘Dial-a-Ride’. Travel costs on local public transport may be free or subsidised by the local authority, some of which may have schemes such as taxi cards or vouchers for people unable to us public transport.
For further information about accessible transport and concessionary fares in your area, contact your county council’s Public Transport Information Officer or your local Passenger Transport Executive (PTE).
Access in London guide book for disabled people, RADAR £7.95
Access to the Underground: a step-by-step guide to each station for elderly and disabled people. From London Transport, Tel/textphone: 0207 918 3312
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