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Disablity, discounts and discrimination

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Originally posted by Plain Talker:-

the entrance fee is £2 with no discounts for oap or disabled

Originally posted by Captain_Scarlet

Erm... Why should there ?

 

Mr PT has asked that I put these comments, as a point to ponder, as I did not do so in the response above:-

 

Often, people who are disabled, eg those who need to rely on wheelchairs, or people who are sight or hearing impaired need a "Helper", "Facilitator", "Enabler" (call it what you will...)

to

 

a) reach things that are on the stalls or push the person's wheelchair.

 

b) tell them what items there are on the stall which may be of interest to them, eg if they are blind and/or cannot see for themselves what is on the stall, like if they are in a wheelchair.

 

c) perhaps someone who is a signer/ interpreter is needed for a deaf person. Not all deaf people have lip reading skills or can use hearing aids: some of them need to rely on sign language.

 

Can the stall holder, (who is more than likely a hearing person) understand the deaf person's speech-attempts or their signing?

 

so, therefore, even if the second person doesn't want to go, it is necessary for them to accompany a person who has a disability, which means that the disabled person suffers having to pay a double entrance fee so that their facilitator/ helper can accompany them.

 

This might actually be a direct contravention of the Disability Discrimination Act, as a person who has a disabilty has an extra charge levied on them simply because they are disabled.

 

the DDA says that no person should be penalised financially or otherwise because of their disability.(paraphrase)

 

The fact that they would have to endure a lesser standard of service if they tried to access the event without the facilitator also contravenes the spirit of the DDA.

 

what about if it were put in this scenario...

if you are, for arguments sake, 30 yrs of age, would you think it reasonable that a rule be enforced to say "under 30's have to be accompanied by an adult of 50 yrs old or above; No entry, if you are under 30 and unaccompanied!"

 

or what about this way..

You are a female. You are forbidden to enter the event unless you are accompanied by your father, brother, husband or a similar responsible male.

 

wouldn't you imagine that the under thirties, or the females, in the hypothetical scenarios ilustrated above,would be rioting, at scuh an infringement of their civil liberties? and rightly so.

 

The argument "Simply do not go, if you object to the entrance fees" cannot hold water, as the disabled person may have no other option but to attend that particular event, on that particular day. there may be logistics of transport, obtaining a facilitator, any number of factors.

 

if you go to the sheffield theatres (Crucible or Lyceum), as a wheelchair user, you have to bring along a facilitator, in the case of an emergency (fire etc) but, because they "insist" on it, the theatres have a policy that, so there is no financial penalty incurred, they charge a single fee for the two attendees, The facilitator and the disabled person. so if the ticket costs £10, for one seat, it's £10 for the disabled person and their helper, together.

 

PT

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Originally posted by Plain Talker

 

 

or what about this way..

You are a female. You are forbidden to enter the event unless you are accompanied by your father, brother, husband or a similar responsible male.

 

 

PT

 

So you have heard of the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, then :)

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A lot of work has been done in the last few years to prepare for the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) that is now in force, but it seems that a lot of firms are still struggling to get their minds around it.

 

This example is a good one where RyanAir had to be prosecuted before realising that they were discriminating by actually charging extra for wheelchair users.

 

I've noticed lots of the larger stores and buildings have recently installed auotmatic sliding doors or have no doors at all. DDA is the reason why. Lots of small shops and businesses are going to find themselves prosecuted if they ignore it.

 

I have to agree with Plain Talker about discounts and helpers. In a way it's the same as RyanAir, just not so obvious. Of course it's open to abuse (look at the blue badge system), but it's not the disabled that are abusing it, is it?

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Originally posted by Plain Talker :-

or what about this way..

You are a female. You are forbidden to enter the event unless you are accompanied by your father, brother, husband or a similar responsible male.

 

 

PT Originally posted by 1Man&hisBMW

So you have heard of the Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, then :)

 

Yes I have studied Islam, (as far as making Shahada in '99) and I know about the rules for a woman having to be escorted by a muharram. and I also know that to make the Hajj pilgrimage, in the holy cities of Maakah and Madina, it is, again, forbidden for a woman to be unnacompanied, again she must have a Muharram with her.

 

(for those who do not know, a Muharram is a close male relative, eg grand/ father, brother, uncle, son, etc, who acts as a chaperone to escort a female. A muharram is someone who is related colosely enough to be in the category of relatives forbidden to marry)

 

Funnily enough, it was not Islamic society i was thinking of, when I made that comment, i was thinking of two instances of UK institutions/ societies where women were discriminated against:_

 

a) the victorian/pre-victorian societies, where women were considered te property of, or "owned by" their men, and

 

b) the working-mens clubs set-up, where women are barred from membership, and forbidden to play games like pool, or purchase a drink.

 

PT

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If its sex discrimination we're talking now, it does still exist.

 

EG. I can't get cheap car insurance from one of these new companies cos I'm a bloke. The local WI won't let me join cos I'm a bloke.

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Originally posted by markham

If its sex discrimination we're talking now, it does still exist.

 

EG. I can't get cheap car insurance from one of these new companies cos I'm a bloke. The local WI won't let me join cos I'm a bloke.

 

Apparently they're stopping all these new fangled cheaper car insurance for women malarkeys cos some trade descriptions group or summat reckons they're sexist.

 

Well duh! Isn't that like, the whole flippin' POINT? :loopy:

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Originally posted by Rich

Apparently they're stopping all these new fangled cheaper car insurance for women malarkeys cos some trade descriptions group or summat reckons they're sexist.

 

 

And about time too!!:thumbsup:

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What!

women get cheaper car insurance because they are better drivers. Its not some random perk, but all worked out by actuaries. I doubt everyone would want to pay the life insurance premiums that smokers pay.

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Well in that case why does my insurance keep going up?

 

I've never had an accident or points in 17 years of driving, and I've only had 2 claims.

 

One for a car that was stolen and recovered, and another where a dozy woman driver ran into the back of my car and wrote it off whilst it was parked!

 

Where's MY safe driver discount? I'll tell you where, in my wifes car!

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Women are safer drivers? Isn't that a bit of a generalisation?

 

35 years of driving without a claim by me, or against me. How can women in general be labelled as safer than that?

 

Hows about "Cheaper insurance for Anglo-Saxon males"?

 

No, maybe not. After all, that would be racist and SEXIST.

 

I have a sister-in-law who has driven for six years and she still can't parallel park, reverse, negotiate roundabouts or navigate in town traffic without putting other road users in peril. That's okay though. She's female so her insurance is cheaper than mine cos she's a safer driver.

 

There's an old saying, 'Women drivers don't have many accidents, but they don't half see a fair few in their rear view mirrors.'

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Originally posted by markham

Women are safer drivers? Isn't that a bit of a generalisation?

We are getting way off topic here but I'll go with the flow!

 

As regards motor insurance for women, the insurers are not offering lower premiums because women are safer drivers. They are doing it because, on a statistical basis, the total cost of claims from women drivers is lower than for men. Some people choose to believe that implies that women are safer drivers. They may be but there may be other factors like the amount and nature of journeys they take, the mix of urban/long distance/rural driving. Maybe they, on average, drive more slowly so they might have just as many accidents as men but because of their lower speed there is less damage and so claims are smaller or not made at all.

Quoting isolated examples of people you degard as a good (male)or bad (female) drivers is as stupid an arguement as the people who argue that smoking doesn't cause cancer because they know someone aged 90 who smoked 100 a day since the age of 3 and someone else who never smoked at all but died of cancer.

 

My intuitive reaction on driver safety is to ask this: when you see cars doing 50 mph on quiet residential roads, what proportion of the drivers are male/female? In my experience young males (usually with 500 watt speakers and baseball caps). As it happens the insurers have spotted this statistic and the young attract very high insurance premiums. I'm not going to man the barricades to fight against that blatantly ageist policy on the part of the insurers.

 

Overall I don't know what factors are the most important in making the cost of insuring a woman lower but doubtless there is some scientific research on the topic.

 

Lower premiums for lower risk are perfectly fair, women also pay lower premiums for life insurance because on average they live longer. In the end it all balances out, a woman buying an annuity will get distinctly poorer terms than a man of the same age because on average the annuity will have to pay out for a longer period.

 

You could even argue that women do already pay the same for motor insurance as men but because women live longer their lifetime motor insurance premium is spread over more years and so the annual premium is smaller.

 

As regards treating this as discriminatory, its a stupid proposal. How will the insurers react? Will they say OK lets reduce the premium for everyone to the lower rate? Of course not, they'll increase everyone to the higher rate. And what a surprise, its a European Directive. It's no more discriminatory than the practice of having women-only clothes shops, and whilst I'm not banned from entering the shop, they won't let me in the communal changing room and they don't have a mens changing room.

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I saw an advert on the TV yesterday for Diamond Car Insurance. They only insure women. I can't help but feel slightly offended by this, and think that if a male equivalent was introduced there would be outcry.

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