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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • I get the sentiment but you’re glossing over two important things; 48.11% of people voted to remain and there hasn’t been a second referendum.

    Half the country wanted to remain, the other half are racists and/or idiots that believed the outright lies peddled by the leave campaign. Latest polls suggest 60% would vote to remain today but we’re not being offered the chance to vote on that. Voting labour in general elections doesn’t mean we get to rejoin the EU.










  • Yeah I paid for alien blue pro or whatever it was called. Then they killed the app and gave me a year of Reddit premium (my memory is shit, idk the proper name). After a month or so I switched to Apollo, Reddit’s app was just so shit. I left when Apollo died and now only use dystopia (an app designed for blind users) for the infrequent times I visit Reddit. No adds. It’s almost read only. But it’s ideal for visiting niche subs that aren’t on lemmy without giving Reddit clicks/seeing ads.





  • I’m mainly bed bound. I cannot maintain my blood pressure when upright, even when sitting, I faint regularly unless prone. I still have to go to the hospital and doctors regularly however - that is in fact the only place I do go, excluding visiting my dying mum 100 miles away.

    I’m on chemotherapy - I’m immunosuppressed and very vulnerable to infection. I’m also prone to chest infections and have to keep warm. I have cold urticaria - I’m literally allergic to the cold. I have severe Raynaud’s disease - again I have to stay warm. I have severe arthritis, the cold makes this much more painful and restricts my pitiful mobility further.

    Nice assumption, but no I can’t afford a car either. I swap in my disability benefit in for a car on the “motability scheme”. It leaves me with a whopping £100 a week to live off of. I could have an electric scooter instead but I have nowhere to store it and it’s not suitable for someone so vulnerable to the cold. My car is a self charging hybrid. I would love an electric car but I rent a flat - there’s nowhere to charge it.

    My point is not moot, because manual wheelchairs can fit into the majority of places. I cannot just walk in when I arrive, I need my wheelchair.

    We only have the one compact/small family car for our household, plus my manual wheelchair. Getting an electric scooter wouldn’t, couldn’t replace the car so getting one (with some hypothetical money) would be even worse for the environment.

    I don’t actually live in a “motornormative” culture. I grew up in London and live in Birmingham. There’s trains, buses, trams, electric scooters and the tube, which the vast majority of people I know use over cars. Your questions (and assumptions) are pretty ableist tbh, and all I’m trying by to point out that disabled people aren’t the enemy. “Not everyone can walk or cycle” is a true statement. Let’s focus on the people that can walk and cycle instead of the small minority of us already penalised by society for having the misfortune to be sick or disabled.




  • Nothing in that video matches your claim. It shows disabled and elderly people can benefit from walkable cities and non-car-centric road planning, just like everyone else can. But I, like many others, CANNOT walk, cycle or use public transport, no matter how inviting the infrastructure or how much I dislike cars.

    Could I use a mobility scooter? Sure! But not in the cold and wet and not when I can’t afford one. I could use it in addition to my car to get out on nice days or for short journeys to my local town but not instead of. And what am I meant to do when I get to the shops or cafe or whatever? Mobility scooters don’t fit in shops/cafes/restaurants unless they’re new buildings, which in the UK they’re invariably not.

    Insisting that everyone can just use alternative means of transportation is untrue and unhelpful to the cause. A small percentage of people will always need cars, just like we’ll always need ambulances. Let’s focus on the abled bodied people who don’t actually need to be driving instead of blindly insisting that everyone is the same and one solution fits all.



  • I’m a disabled person living in a city in the UK. We have a scheme that allows me to swap my disability benefits for a car or mobility scooter. The cars deemed suitable for disabled people using a collapsible wheelchair are “compact/small family cars” and that size is perfectly adequate.

    My most recent car is a seat Leon - a self charging hybrid. The mobility scheme I mentioned is really pushing fully electric cars and I’d absolutely love one. But being disabled often means being poor and like many other disabled people I live in a rented flat. There’s no EV charging at my block of flats. There’s no EV charging in my local town. I cannot afford to move, I can barely afford to survive. There are just SO many obstacles that aren’t being addressed in the UK it’s beyond frustrating.


  • I agree with your point as a disabled person - and here in the UK we kinda have this system. My car is registered disabled and therefore I can drive into LEZ, ULEZ and CC areas for free automatically. It’s a literal life saver when I survive off benefits, physically cannot use public transport, but I’m treated at hospitals in the very centre of London.

    But the term “handicapped” is outdated and is considered offensive by some. Perhaps stick to “disabled people” instead.