The photograph with this letter was taken from inside one of McGill’s Mercedes-Benz Citaros on the scenic service 901 from Largs to Glasgow via the Clyde Coast, Gourock, Greenock and Port Glasgow. It shows a Mercedes-Benz Vario ‘jungle bus’ beloved of many operators throughout the UK for their ruggedness and reliability.
But hold on I hear you ask, when was this picture taken? The answer is 27 June 2018, a full three-and-a-half years after such buses no longer met the Disability Discrimination Act requirements that were then starting to come into force.
So how is such a bus still able to be operated today on a frequent, registered local bus service in Greenock? The answer is that there are two loopholes in the DDA legislation. One is that buses with 22 seats or fewer are exempted and the other is that coaches are exempt until 2020. So some operators in the Monklands in North Lanarkshire and here in Greenock simply downseated their Varios and 709Ds or, more commonly, reclassified them as ‘coaches’.
The Scottish double positive expression ‘Aye, right’ applies to the term coaches here. No standing passengers are allowed on coaches, but who in authority is going to visit Greenock to verify that the rule is being upheld?
