Woman's fury over Brighton taxi driver's guide dog snub
Diane Marks and ThomasDiane Marks and Thomas
A taxi driver told a blind woman she was not welcome in his cab – because she had a guide dog.
Disability campaigner Diane Marks said she felt “totally humiliated” by the refusal, which happened outside Brighton Station last week.
As she waited for a cab home after a trip to London, a driver pulled up and wound down his window.
But when he saw her guide dog Thomas, he said he was allergic to dog hair and refused to carry the pair.
Ms Marks said: “I wanted to see his exemption certificate but he wouldn’t show it to me.
“He shut both doors, locked up his windows and locked himself in. Then he just drove off. Nobody standing next to me at the taxi rank said anything.
“I was deeply embarrassed and very humiliated. I felt like a second class citizen.”
An investigation has been launched into the incident, which was raised at a Brighton and Hove Taxi Forum meeting yesterday by disability campaigners The Fed Centre.
But taxi bosses said it would be difficult to find the culprit because Ms Marks had not been able to record his registration number.
In 2010, a taxi driver refused to take a blind man and his guide dog to the Labour Party conference in Brighton because he was afraid of dogs.
And in July last year, a blind pensioner with the same complaint said he was left stranded in the wet and cold by a cab driver in Marine Parade.
But Andy Cheesman from the Brighton and Hove Taxi Forum said similar incidents were “extremely rare”.
He said: “It’s not nice when it happens and of course it’s horrible for the person involved.
“When this sort of thing happens we suggest that they take a registration number – but of course that’s very difficult if you are blind.
“But it is a very rare event. Our taxis travel more than a million miles a year and we receive very few complaints of this nature.”
source: http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/10335732 ... _dog_snub/
