And it applies to the UK as well as the US, we've had the Disability Discrimination Act, and now the Equality Act, since 1995, and wheelchair users still can't get into every other shop on my local High Street, including ones extensively remodeled within the last six months by an national name brand (and therefore legally required to make access provision) - Costa Coffee, I'm looking at you...
It seems like there are no "teeth" to these laws; that it depends upon lawsuits for anything to happen. And bringing a lawsuit isn't something most people want or are able to do.
I argue that, in the UK at least, that was a deliberate part of the design. Put the responsibility for enforcement on the people with the least resources, whether physical, fiscal or just plain spoons, making sure most transgressors will never be challenged, and that way the business community won't whinge too much.
Great article. The tourist town next to mine recently repaved its old, uneven footpaths (sidewalks). Great! But they did it in such a way that every single shop now had a ten centimetre step up from the footpath into the doorway and told the shop owners to pay to have ramps put in. Five minutes of planning could have avoided the whole debacle and now, of course, everyone is blaming everyone else and nothing is getting done.
A similar thing happened where I live. The sidewalks in this area were paved not long ago, but only some of them. There are these empty potholes along the sidewalk just outside in front of the building where I live, and nobody has ever filled them in with some sort of gravel, or covered them with a manhole cover. I suggested to some people that we should just think up a way of covering these holes so that people don't get hurt, and my landlord is going to try and do something about it. Some people don't even think of these things until somebody gets hurt, if at all.
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(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-04 06:14 pm (UTC)And it applies to the UK as well as the US, we've had the Disability Discrimination Act, and now the Equality Act, since 1995, and wheelchair users still can't get into every other shop on my local High Street, including ones extensively remodeled within the last six months by an national name brand (and therefore legally required to make access provision) - Costa Coffee, I'm looking at you...
(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-04 10:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-05 12:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-05 03:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2015-01-06 02:42 am (UTC)