Adriene accompanied us on our Chinese New Year trip to Ipoh with Frosty and Patches in tow. She came back from Japan to spend the festive season with her family here in Ipoh, too. We began our journey at around 10.35am. Traffic was a little heavy but smooth-flowing. Police decoys were placed below some flyovers to drive the message home to speeding drivers. I was given a scare by one of those. No, I was not speeding but the sight of a policeman pointing the radar my way was unnerving. Nevertheless, we made good time and arrived at 1.15pm.

Ipoh is not only famous for its delicious taugeh (beansprout) chicken, pretty girls and picturesque limestone hills. Wuan pointed out to me that Ipoh drivers are not very considerate and can be unforgiving at times. That I found to be too true as they are not fond of giving way like the drivers in Kuala Lumpur do. All the while, I thought Penang drivers were the worst in Malaysia. That aside, I hope to explore a some of Ipoh’s famous landmarks and delicious food while we are here.

The general election is just around the corner. So blares the mainstream media day in day out for the past few weeks. That is also what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi likes us to think. I read in The Star today where he said no any one race will be left behind in the nation’s mainstream development. In another report, he said that “the national development agenda is to bring extensive improvement to the living standards of the people.”

I salute Datuk Seri Abdullah’s statements. I sincerely hope he makes good those promises. Disabled people have been sidelined in all areas of the nation’s development since independence. These deficiencies are so apparent that it does not take much to discover how much disabled people in Malaysia are marginalised in all areas of our lives. Look around and you will realise how tough it is for disabled people to live their lives as compared to non-disabled people.

Disability transcends all ethnic, age and gender boundaries. It does not discriminate whether one is a Malay, Chinese, Indian or of any other ethnicity. Nevertheless, disabled people is the group that is most left behind in mainstream society. That happens because disabled people are not considered part of mainstream society. If anybody dare say this is not so, I ask that he try to live one day in a wheelchair to go to work and move around in the city using public transport.

Mainstreaming disability is the inclusion of disabled people in all levels of the society. Disabled people should not be considered as an aberration of society and that their needs are separate. The barriers that prevent them from being active participants in society should be removed. The problems that they are facing should be seen as the problems of society and not separated and segregated as special needs. Disability is not other people’s problem. It is our problem as everybody, including ourselves and our loved ones, has the potential to become disabled.

The present day government has not done enough to mainstream disability. The existence of the Uniform Building By-Law 34A (UBBL 34A) that was gazetted in the 1990s has been ignored by most local authorities. There is no enforcement to compel developers to include safe and functional accessible facilities in their projects. This deprives disabled people the opportunity to move around public places conveniently. This matter is under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government where Dato’ Seri Ong Ka Ting is the minister. The sad thing is that even some of the newest buildings do not conform to the provisions of the UBBL 34A. The people responsible to enforce it are obviously not doing their job.

The promise to provide accessible public transport was a knee jerk reaction to the protest by the Barrier-Free Environment and Accessible Transport Group (BEAT). The ramps and wheelchair docking systems were so shabbily done that it is apparent RapidKL was never truly interested in running a public transport service for disabled people. BEAT’s meeting with Deputy Minister of Finance Datuk Dr. Ng Yen Yen and Minister of Transport Dato’ Seri Chan Kong Choy did not produce any result although they have promised to look into it. Dato’ Seri Chan, whatever happened to the National Transport Master Plan that was supposed to meet the needs of disabled people? I want to stress that these buses will also be convenient for senior citizens, pregnant women, adults with prams and children. It is not solely for the use of disabled persons.

Likewise, RapidPenang and the people involved in it lied through their teeth when they publicly announced that the buses would be “disabled-friendly.” Second Finance Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop was reported by The Star on March 19, 2007 to have said that RapidPenang buses would be disabled-friendly. In my many trips back to Penang, I have neither seen any accessible buses nor heard from wheelchair users that they have used such buses.

Datuk Teng Hock Nan is another politician who is not in touch with disability issues. He had said that boarding wheelchair users would delay bus schedules. He had also said that a survey has to be conducted first to determine the areas that disabled people live in and the places that they travel to before RapidPenang would introduce “disabled-friendly” buses but the bus company would service rural routes even if the passenger head count is low. Does Datuk Teng not know that disabled people live all over in the state of Penang and that we want to go to places that other people go to? Why the double standard in serving disabled people as compared to people living in rural areas? Just in case you are not aware, Datuk Teng, I would like to inform you that the statement reeks of discrimination.

The Persons with Disabilities Bill was passed in the Parliament recently. Minister of Women, Family and Community Development Dato’ Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil admitted that this piece of legislation is non-punitive in nature. What that means is that if you discriminate against me based on my disability, there is nothing in that piece of law that says that you cannot do it or that you can be taken to a court of law for doing it. So what is this law for? Frankly, I have no idea.

For this impending 12th General Election, I will throw my support around any political party or individual who promises to work towards making Malaysia an inclusive and fair society for everyone. This person must respect the dignity and rights of disabled people based on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. If UMNO and Barisan Nasional want the votes of disabled people, the parties must first remove Datuk Badruddin Amiruldin from the list of candidates. He is offensive and has no respect for disabled people.

Candidates putting themselves up for election must be serious in making the education system, public transport and built environment accessible, among others. This is important as the first step to improve our standard of living which at best had been below the national average for decades. He must also provide the necessary support system to severely disabled people for them to live independently in the community.

He must never treat disabled people as charity cases by dishing out small token of money and consider it helping us. Disabled people do not need charity. We want a commitment in the equalization of opportunities so that we are on a level playing field with the society at large in matters of education, employment and accessibility. We can be productive and live independently with the right support and infrastructure. Most of all, the candidate must do this from the sincerity of his heart. I know of politicians who work with disabled people simply because they want the publicity.

Incumbents and aspiring politicians should take note and not ignore the potential support from disabled people during this general election. We are not one disabled person with one vote. We have families and friends who understand our grouses and support our causes. We have the ability to make those votes count for candidates who are serious in resolving our problems. The message is very simple: Work for us and we will vote for you.

I woke up very late this morning as I totally was exhausted from the road trip to Ipoh, then to Penang, back to Ipoh and finally back to Kuala Lumpur. One of the things that I usually do right after I get up is to read blogs. I headed over to KY’s blog and found this very interesting photo he put up with an equally interesting entry on it.

Sunway Pyramid is not a favourite weekend haunt for Wuan and me as we usually prefer Mid Valley Megamall, The Gardens, One-Utama or Ikano and The Curve. These places all have accessible parkings. Ikano, notably, has one of the best accessible parking of all the shopping complexes which is of the correct size and situated just next to the entrance.

At Mid Valley Megamall, there are number of parkings at Level P1 which are labelled with the wheelchair logo. There are three more at Level 3 multi-storey parking complex with the same labelling. However these are standard size lots reserved for disabled people. Where parking for disabled people is concerned, Mid Valley Megamall does not adhere to the accessibility standards. Moreover, these parkings are regularly used by inconsiderate non-disabled drivers who are too lazy to look for vacant parkings elsewhere.

Car parks for drivers who use wheelchairs are called accessible parking and not handicapped parking or disabled parking. The standard width of a normal parking lot is 1.80 meters while an accessible parking has to be 3.6 meters. There is logic to this. If a driver who uses a wheelchair parks in one of those normal lots, he will not be able to open the car door fully. There also will not be enough space for a wheelchair between cars. In short, normal-sized parkings is useless to a wheelchair user as he cannot get out of his car.

These accessible parkings should preferably be reserved for drivers using wheelchairs rather than for passengers in wheelchairs. Accessible parkings are very limited in numbers. A disabled driver who cannot park in an accessible parking will have nowhere else to park. If we were to use the normal-sized parkings, we will not be able to get out as some of us travel alone and need that extra space to fully open the door and assemble our wheelchairs there and then. On the other hand, a disabled passenger can be dropped off at the entrance while the non-disabled driver can go look around for the normal parking lots and park there.

Image courtesy of KYSpeaks.

Back to KY’s photo. We can see that this black Toyota Vios with the car registration number WPK 6393 parked his car smack right in the middle of two accessible parkings. Truth be told, I usually do the same thing at the Mid Valley Megamall’s Level 3’s accessible parkings. That is because the three lots that the complex management reserved for disabled people are of the standard size. If I were to park according to the lines on the ground, the cars beside the driver’s side could be too close to mine and I could be stranded without a way to get into the car.

In KY’s photo, it is apparent that three normal sized parkings were made into two. That is the standard width for accessible parkings. There is more than enough space for a disabled driver using a wheelchair to fully open the door and place his wheelchair there if he were to park properly. There is no justification whatever for any driver, disabled or otherwise, to park like that. It is not only inconsiderate but this act deprives people who really need to use those two parkings.

Perhaps this person has a problem with his eyesight. If that is so, such drivers should not be allowed to drive not because they are inconsiderate but because they are a danger to other road users. Perhaps he had a stomach ache and needed to get to a toilet fast and those were the only parking he could find. If that was so, I hope he did not soil his pants. It would have been so embarrassing to be walking around Sunway Pyramid with a stain at that strategic spot. Or perhaps he was just being an idiot. We will never know.

KY suggested that I beat up this fellow with a stick. I am not that violent lar, KY. Besides, there is no law to penalise drivers like this as there is really no law that states that non-disabled drivers are not allowed to use such parkings. The Ministry of Transport and local authorities are not doing anything to change the situation to make it easier for drivers who use wheelchairs. Having said that, a little consideration by non-disabled drivers in not abusing such facilities will go a long way in making life easier for disabled people. Is that too much to ask for?

This person who parked his car indiscriminately in KY’s photo should pray hard that his will never ever genuinely need to use accessible parkings. Disability does not discriminate. Anybody can become disabled at the blink of an eye. It happened to me. It can happen to just anybody else. To people who think it is all right to deprive disabled drivers of such facilities, think about what I have just said the next time you think that parking at places reserved for disabled people is an excuse for your laziness. You may just really need that parking one day. Thanks to KY for highlighting this issue.

In a short while, Wuan and I will be going on a long road trip again. I am going back to Penang to get some legal matters sorted out. The long stretches of undulating landscape bores me. Six hours straight on the road is a pain. The only consolation is the familiar food that I am going to get to enjoy. I have become a visitor to my own hometown like a tourist coming in for the sights, sounds, smells and savouries and then leave without any qualm. I feel a little lost right now. There is this ache, this emptiness whenever I think of Penang. They say home is where the heart is. But where is home?