I consider myself to be in no way much of a Disability campaigner and Activist. I am not one to march, protest or forever lobby complaints at my Local MP.
I suppose this is because in many ways, I seldom feel disabled. I am fully mentally mobile and can compete and contribute more-than-adequately with my peers during study, or even just regular conversation. At home, I can wash my hair, use the toilet and sufficiently prepare basic small meals that either require no cooking or maybe the simple operation of a microwave oven. My living and sleeping quarters are based on the ground floor; my bathroom boasts several grab rails, a “wet room”-style accessible shower and a specialist “shower-suited” wheelchair; and the kitchen (although installed at a height not suitable to wheelchair users) contains a few small but invaluable gadgets and concessions that make precise manual tasks such a pouring boiling water from a kettle and opening tin-cans and ring-pull style containers just that bit easier. With all that in place, the able-bodied among you may think that it is these sorts of surroundings that truly “bring on home” the limits of my physical being. You’d be wrong. It is the implementation of all these things that allow me to get up in the morning and just get on with it.
It is when I’m taken out of my comfort zone, placed in an inaccessible environment and/or my gadgets and aids are taken away from me that I feel little more capable and of use than that of a not-yet-toddling child. It is only during these times that I feel “disabled enough” and within my right to make noise.
There is one such situation that is guaranteed to turn a simple exercise into a complete saga for me, inducing copious amounts of noise-making: the ignorant misuse of Disabled Parking Bays. I have previously discussed why it is that I need to use Disabled Parking Bays in past posts. To this end, I was most amused and inspired when I discovered that a fellow wheelchair user across the pond had taken matters into her own hands.
Spurred-on to create something similar for use in the UK, I went on a search to clarify my legal standing and discovered the Baywatch campaign started by Disability Now. For our convenience they have already adopted a similar deterrent for those that abuse Disabled Parking Bays. Supporters are encouraged to join in and download and display these posters [PDF] on the windshields of cars found to be abusing the bays. (Of course, care must be taken to damage the offending vehicle.)
Whilst we are on the subject of Disability/Accessibility, it was reported last month that (rather shockingly, I think) 1-in-4 web users are disabled users. After reading the article at JustAddWater, I have made various changes to this site and now my site is compliant with the entirety of Priority 1 of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and partly with Priorities 2 and 3. I hope to improve further on this in coming months.
A full-time wheelchair user since 1998, Claire lives in an adapted bungalow in England with her Partner of 10 years and their two dogs: 
Am I allowed to be jealous of your wet room-style shower? I’d like a big wet room because it’d make shared showers with Karl much easier.
Good on you for accessible-ising your website. I did mine a long while ago but slipped out of the habit of double checking everything. I will eventually get ’round to making my default theme as accessible as possible.
Btw.. did I tell you I think your new layout is super groovy?
LOL, you can be jealous if you want
… I love my wet room, I’d be shafted without it! It took 5 years from idea proposal to physical realisation and a lot of stress and wrangling inbetween, but it managed to get finished barely a fortnight before I landed my arse in a wheelchair fulltime, fate or what?!
Oh and thank you (about the layout), I’ll take that as a massive compliment, (especially as judging from your reviews etc, I know I’m very likely to get an honest response regarding theme changes and such
).
Talking of themes etc, I’m busy playing with your new skin-thing…Comments will no doubt follow
Ditto Jem re: the accessibility. I have a lot of respect for any webmaster who takes the time to do so.
You may or may not know that I’m a Disability Services Mgr, so reading this — well, I can’t agree more. I’m frequently having arguments with staff — STAFF, people who should know better — about parking in the disabled parking spaces. It’s always wonderful to read likeminded people, particularly when they’re viewpoints are so much more personal than mine. Besides — you don’t have to be a disability activist to have an opinion about something; or have the courage to try and change things when they’re blatantly wrong.
V xx
* their viewpoints.
Dear lord, I can’t proofread anything!
Don’t worry about the proofreading Vixx — I’ve just had to edit my new post 3 times in the last 10 minutes!
As for staff parking in disabled bays, I’m all too familiar with that — see my comments here, save me repeating myself.
And you’re right, I guess I don’t have to be an activist to attempt to change things, however I sometimes worry if this would be considered a “half-arsed” effort on my part… I don’t do things in half-measures you see, its either one extreme or the other. *rolls eyes*
Well, those posters are considerably more “PC” than the ones they used to carry at the Disabled Motorists Federation..heh.
I quite fail to see the word “ar*ehole” on them…
LOL…Fantastic…I don’t suppose you have any copies of those you could scan?
Admittedly, I was rather relieved when I saw Baywatch’s version…I was having considerable trouble trying to come up with my own wording and what I did come up with wasn’t that polite!