Cab Company Condemned For Refusing Guide Dog
By Dave Reynolds,
Inclusion Daily Express
December 12, 2006
BURNLEY, ENGLAND--A taxi
company is facing criticism -- along with the possibility of losing its
operating license and having to pay a £1,000 fine -- over its policy of
not allowing guide dogs into some cabs.
When a driver from Four Star Taxis arrived to pick up 66-year-old Brenda
Midgeley last week, he reportedly told her that her guide dog Lucy could not
ride because she would get hair all over the inside of the cab.
When Midgeley and her husband explained that the Disability
Discrimination Act requires taxis to allow service animals with their owners,
the cabbie radioed his managers, who apparently told him to refuse the dog.
Then he sped off, leaving the couple standing in the rain.
"This kind of situation happens too often to blind and partially sighted
people," Bill Alker, a spokesman for the Royal National Institute of the Blind,
explained to This Is Lancashire news service.
"It's absolutely wrong and must stop. Many taxi drivers and cab company
operators are flouting a good law that was introduced to help blind and
partially sighted people get about more independently."
Related:
"Taxi driver refused to carry guide dog" (This Is
Lancashire)
http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/misc/print.php?artid=1067601
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Reproduced here under special arrangement
with Inclusion Daily Express international disability rights news service.
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