Taxi Driver Online

need a bit of advice here please!
i am currently off work and will be for a few weeks!
I picked up a wheelchair bound customer and proceeded to push him up the ramp, he fell from his wheel chair at the top of the ramp into my taxi.
i tried to catch him but in the process fell off the ramp into the street.(yes it sounds like a scene from a comedy) but i fracture my right arm and got a few bruises to boot!
luckily the customer was ok.apart from a huge bump on his head!
i have since spoken with the health and safety and was told i shouldnt be pushing wheelchairs up a ramp!!!!!!!!!!!!
they basically told me i should have a tail lift for wheelchairs!
i think we pay more than enough for wavs without this!
any body got an answer?
and im on holiday so not really out of pocket but what if i was off for a month???

tell health and safety you aggree with them but your council wont license such vehicles.

then you will find the health and safety authority isnt the health and safety executive but your councils environmental health department.

that should put them off a few months, before they tell you.

be more carefull next time.

carefull!!! it wasnt me who fell out the chair!
i do plenty of wheelchair work and am always carefull but there wont be a next time!
just going to refuse to do them!
after i get a doctors line that is!!

I would get everything in writing from the council. They may say this and that over the blower, but get it confirmed.

The doctors letter would be good, but put the onus back on the council. Ask them why they have insisted you make un-safe manouevres.

But as for the tail-lift, I think that will become common place in the future.

This will make you check they have on the chair belt in future.
And if they do not want to belt themselves in or do not have one on their chair,do not transport them.
I have been in the trade for years and never transport without their own belt.
In saying that have seen,hospitals,old folk homes and other going out and about with no chair belt around the disabled person in the chair.Crazy.
We have to clamp,belt etc the chair customers,before setting off,so they should do the same.

Safety Sam(also known as Bam)

Essex County Council only accept Tail-lifts on school contracts now.

However, Essex County Councils BUS division only purchase minibuses with wheelchair ramps, because they say that tail-lifts clog up the streets, take too long to deploy, and require that the passenger is first pushed into the road prior to loading.

If only life were simple.