A WHEELCHAIR user from Middlewich has been left helpless after a new law has seen her constantly left behind at bus stops due to pushchairs.

Victoria Perez, 36, who lives on Ventnor Close in Middlewich, suffers from Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD), short sightedness and weakness of muscles and uses the bus up to eight times a day.

However, Victoria is now being regularly left behind due to a new law which was introduced in December meaning that parents with pushchairs do not have to move for wheelchair users.

Victoria said: “Since the new rule came in it’s so hard to get a space on the bus, sometimes I’ve had to wait for four buses before I can get on one.

“If there is a mum with a tiny baby in a pram then that’s fair enough, I am happy to wait and in the past I have said ‘no you get on I’ll wait for the next one’, but now there are parents with four-year-olds in pushchairs stopping me from getting the bus and that is not fair.

The Disability Discrimination Act previously gave wheelchair users priority over pushchairs on buses meaning that bus drivers could order parents to move.

However, after a ruling in the Court of Appeal in December, bus drivers now have no power to move other passengers.

Many people assumed that the ruling would not change matters a great deal, expecting basic human decency and etiquette to come into practice, but Victoria says that has not been the case.

She added: “Most of the time these pushchairs can be folded up easily to make space but they won’t do it and it’s often young parents that are very, very rude.

“They stand there and argue and they are happy to see me wait for the next bus, and often I can’t get on the next.

“I have a friend who is also in a wheelchair and she won’t get the bus now because she doesn’t want to get into a confrontation.”