Adelaide wheelchair access taxis

[Guest guest]

Today i went to my viola lesson in a wheelchair access taxi (in Adelaide) and

the driver braked suddenly and i was literally thrown 30-40cms out of my

wheelchair and then fell back into the seat. it honestly felt to me as if the

whole chair lifted up off the floor of the taxi but apparently the chair was

firmly attahed to the floor but my actual body lifted up out of my seat and

honestly if it wasn't for the seatbelts that i have in my actual wheelchair

rather than the one that is attached to the floor of the taxi i literally would

have thrown right into the air and would have had a seriously nasty accident

as it is i have a extremely bad back/neck/body and it has completely and utterly

flared the pain its really really really bad in my back and neck. definately not

something i needed. I woke up feeling pretty good this morning in terms of pain

and now its pretty damn high !!!!

Ive just spent almost an hour on the phone to the complaints people and they

actually took it seriously so hopefully this damn driver will be taught a lesson

in safety!!! Sure waiting hours and hours for a taxi or when they do not turn up

at all is bad but when safety is concerned thats a really serious complaint!!!!

I am so upset about this!!! I have enough issues without having to deal with

more problems because a taxi driver is in too much of a hurry to do up the seat

belt properly

As if the accident wasn't enough he then tried to blame me by saying that it was

the customers responsibility to inform the driver how tight/loose they want the

seatbelt. this is a lap belt and they dont work in my opinion the ones that are

present in the front seat of a normal car whatever they are called well they are

a LOT safer and work a whole lot better in my opinion!!! The lap belts should be

outlawed or something!!! Its not my responsibility i am the passenger and its

the drivers job to make sure i am safe, considering how hard he had to brake i

suggest he may have been too close to the car in front or something cause he

definately hit the brakes pretty hard. I wasn't paying attention to the road

because i was a little tired after my viola lesson today and i was looking

forward to going home actually. if you are a passenger you dont have to watch

the road thats the drivers responsibility!!!!

he was in a rush to get to his next job and he said that we were almost home and

there was no point in tightening the seat belt now but we were at least 5 or 6km

from home and he should have stopped the taxi and tightened it for me and made

sure i was OK. He definately turned around and said are you OK? so he knew that

something had happened and i clearly said No I am NOT OK!!!! I am sick and tired

of being treated like crap.

second to all of this there is a ton of road works going on but the accident

didn't occur anywhere near the roadworks and anyways the same driver came and

picked me up last time i had a viola lesson and last time the road where my

teacher is was blocked onto the main road and we had to do a u turn because i

didn't know any other way to go not my fault that there is roadworks in the

centre of the major road into and out of adelaide!!!! so anyways he says to me

do you know any other way of going home last time it was blocked and i am saying

to him ive gone this way several times in the past week and the road is now NOT

blocked!!! but he didn't listen and he said it is blocked and i am like bugger

this not arguing when we got to the end of the side road where my teacher lives

it wasn't blocked anymore and we could turn right!!!! I just get sick and tired

of everyone not listening to me.