(no subject)

[sebastienne]

Am I being thick, or do Eurostar really think that people in wheelchairs could not have any possible need for legroom?

Comments

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

I suppose it depends how bulky wheelchairs are. It looks from the plan as if the wheelchair booth takes up the same amount of room as a seat, and therefore that the user would have the same amount of legroom as anyone else, but I don't know if that's actually the case.

[jacinthsong.livejournal.com]

OH. I only just saw the 'n/a' which I assume your post was about. RIGHT, I feel stupid now...er, I don't know what that's supposed to be about. :/

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

Huh. Interestingly weird, this. I think it's because it's unmeasurable, or at least that it uses a technical definition of "legroom" which doesn't apply without a fixed chair in place.

Eurostar trains almost certainly conform with both British and French regulations - I don't know what the French ones are, but the British ones are in SI 1998/2456, and mandate a fixed minimum number of wheelchair spaces. The regulations for those spaces (s.16) simply defines them in terms of floor-space area (min. 130 x 75cm) plus other stuff like the rear support and no obstructions. I can't seem to dig up the relevant regulations defining how big seats ought to be, but from memory, you get a defined length of legroom in those - looking at those numbers on the Eurostar site, 850mm for a cattle-class seat, it's presumably measured from the back of your seat to the back of the one in front.

But with a wheelchair, you don't have that defined "seat-back" to measure from - how much legroom you get varies both on where you put the chair in the "slot" and on the physical characteristics of the chair. So in order to avoid the rather confusing requirement of "you must have yy amount of legroom, measured from an entirely arbitrary point, plus zz space behind it" they require that the wheelchair space itself, as a unit, is large enough to contain seat-space and leg-space for a reasonably-sized wheelchair.

(I cannot believe I just read disabled seating regulations for half an hour. Oh, well, it'll come in handy one day)

[sebastienne.livejournal.com]

That makes an awful lot of sense.

But I like my discrimination conspiracy theory better..

[chrisvenus]

I'm afraid I'm with shimgray. Even before I read their explanation I had thought "Well, how can you measure legroom when you have no chair? or reference points for the leg room?".

Sorry, I think you need to find more evidence of shape shifting lizards. :)