Rolling Traveler

When it comes to safety belts, I’m one of those law-abiding people. I would never ride in a car without buckling up and I keep my belt fastened the whole time I’m seated when I’m on a plane. However, it took nearly going through the windshield of a San Francisco bus to persuade me to take the safety precautions for wheelchairs on board seriously. 

The buses in San Francisco don’t have a permanent wheelchair berth. Instead, when needed, some of the seats in the front half of the bus can be flipped up to make space. This reveals a clamp that can close around the wheel when you back into it, provided your wheel is narrow enough and at the right angle. Besides that, there are straps with hooks that should attach to the frame of the chair, front and back, and a safety belt that should go around the wheelchair user. These safety measures plus the wheelchair’s own brakes are sufficient to keep the chair and rider in place no matter how rough the ride is.

It’s a shame the drivers don’t always make you use all those safety measures, especially if you’re a macho idiot who prefers to rely on just the wheel clamp and one good brake.

It was morning, and I was getting the 9 San Bruno to City College for my 9 am Japanese class. The bus wasn’t too busy yet, so there was no-one that I had to ask to move: I just got on, grabbed the hook under the seat, and flipped it up myself. The driver, seeing that I knew what I was doing, let me get on with it. I backed into the clamp, heard it click closed around my wheel, put on my one good brake, flicked the loose brake half-heartedly, and pulled out a book.

Three blocks later, the bus braked suddenly on a downward slope, and I went flying forward, wheelchair and all. There were shouts, there were hands reaching out but failing to grab the chair, there was a handrail that I just missed, and then the chair stopped and jolted me out of it; I came to a painful halt with one hand on the windshield beside the very surprised driver. 

Okay, so I was exaggerating when I said I nearly went through the windshield, but at the time I didn’t think I was going to stop. 

The driver shouted something at me, but I just started to laugh in one of those weird post-panic reactions, and I honestly couldn’t stop for a moment or two. I was put back in the chair with people complaining either at me (for not strapping myself in) or the driver (for not strapping me in) or MUNI (for being MUNI). I still didn’t actually know what had happened, but I imagined that the clamp hadn’t closed properly and/or my brake hadn’t been on fully. 

The truth was a little stranger: the whole clamp mechanism had torn out of the floor of the bus and had come with me as I slid-rolled down the aisle. It was still firmly attached to the wheel.

I was fine, just a couple of bruises and wounded pride. I was even amused by the whole thing, until I started to really think about it. What if there’d been someone standing in front of me and I’d broken their leg? What if it was an elderly person or a kid? What if the chair had fallen on me? If anything serious had happened, I probably wouldn’t even have been entitled to compensation or health insurance coverage, because the instructions to wheelchair users state that we are supposed to take care of strapping ourselves in and use all the available straps. I didn’t even have a good reason not to: I was just being macho and independent. And stupid

That’s how I learned to respect the wheelchair safety belts on buses. Even if it seems like a hassle to be all strapped in, there are times when you might need it. I’ll stop preaching now! Have a great day.

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