A Dundee mother has hit out at the city’s taxi drivers after claiming she was deliberately ignored because she was with her disabled daughter.
Linda Duff has accused some cabbies of “sheer laziness” after she and daughter Claire (20) were forced to make their own way back from the city centre last Thursday after taxi drivers failed to pick them up.
Mrs Duff, who lives in Clepington Street, believes drivers purposefully ignored her requests for a pick up after noticing Claire, who has cerebral palsy, in her wheelchair.
Despite encountering many good drivers over the years, Mrs Duff said she has endured problems of getting taxis to stop for her and her daughter.
She believes many have simply claimed to be wheelchair friendly as a means of gaining a licence, and feels as though some drivers view disabled passengers as an inconvenience.
She said, “You couldn’t believe the difficulties we have getting someone to take us. They shouldn’t be on the road.
“It’s an electric wheelchair and we can’t get it on the bus. They all jumped on the bandwagon with wheelchair-capable taxis as a way of getting their badges. It’s sheer laziness.”
The mother and daughter had been at a conference at the Queen’s Hotel, making a brief trip into town to pick up some shopping before travelling home.
When a booked taxi failed to arrive, Linda and Claire, a student at Dundee College, then headed to the bus station to hail a car at the adjacent rank. However, Linda said numerous drivers claimed to have booked jobs lined up, picked up other waiting customers, or simply drove on.TiredAfter growing tired of the wait, they eventually made their way through the city, an hour and a half after attempting to catch their first taxi.
Linda added, “Normally Claire would have been at college but we decided to go to the Partners in Advocacy event and go into town afterwards. I encourage Claire to go out always have done but a lot of the time disabled people are treated like second-class citizens.”
The chairman of Dundee licensing board committee expressed his concern, adding that such behaviour from drivers would not be tolerated if found to be true.
Urging any disabled person who feels they may have been ignored by an operator deliberately to come forward, Councillor Rod Wallace said, “It’s extremely disappointing to hear this. The whole movement has to look at the Disability Discrimination Act and have recognition of a disabled person’s needs.
“We often get people singing the praises of our drivers and we don’t want a few bad apples to ruin that. It’s unfortunate that the lady didn’t get the details of the taxis as action could have been taken.
“It’s part of the taxi driver’s licence that they pick up disabled passengers. If people are experiencing this then we need to know and there is a process that we can go through.”