Heading to the supermarket to get some groceries should seem like an easy and simple task, right? But for Charlotte Croft, who lives with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), had a nightmare experience accessing her local supermarket while trying to use its in-store mobility scooter.
This is an overview of my first experience as a wheelchair user, requiring a mobility scooter in an Asda store in Ipswich, and it’s fair to say the experience was less than impressive!
As an able-bodied individual, you very rarely pay any attention to things such as accessibility in supermarkets or could even locate the wheelchairs available at all supermarkets. This was me for the first 26 years of my life, until a freak few months left me becoming a wheelchair user and requiring walking aids at all times.
I’d had several experiences shopping as a disabled person before I even realised these electric mobility scooters were available at all supermarkets for you to hire for free. For those that have not tried to battle with crutches and heavy bags or wheeling yourself in a manual chair around an entire shop, let me tell you it is extremely difficult, tiring and very unenjoyable, and I have yet to be able to buy more than a few essential items per trip.
Therefore, I assumed, perhaps wrongly, that they were there to aid people with the daunting task of food shopping. However, my experience was less than adequate and I was quite outraged at what an ordeal it was.
Getting access to a mobility scooter in a supermarket
Firstly, these chairs were located at the entrance of the store, as you walk in from the car park. This seems adequate since most users have very limited mobility. However, I soon realised that the keys required to even start the chairs were located at the customer service tills, meaning I had to walk directly into the middle of the shop and stand in a queue before I was able to get the key, to then walk (or hobble) back.
This was the first red flag I encountered. This in itself makes no sense and means people with limited mobility are asked to walk to and from the counter before being able to hop on these mobility scooters. This is completely unbeneficial to those with limited mobility and defies the point entirely.
Lack of battery power in supermarket mobility scooters
The next issue is finding one that actually works and is fully charged. There were only about four lined up in a row and the first two I tried wouldn’t even turn on. Then, we finally got one going.
In fairness, one of the good things about them is they are fairly straightforward to use and self-explanatory. You simply push the throttle forward to move, and the minute you release them they stop entirely. They are nimble around corners and easy to manoeuvre. When, or if, you can find one that’s fully charged, as I was about to find out, they are of a decent speed.
The one I jumped on indicated it was charged to a decent amount with the green light. Nevertheless, we weren’t even halfway around the shop (a really quick shop too it wasn’t like I was going down every aisle), and I could feel it slowing down, slower and slower until it stopped completely. No word or warning, it just kicked out.
Apparently, the battery was already dead. This again, I found completely impractical. As I said, I hadn’t even been down many aisles, so the idea of doing a full shop on them is clearly small.
After about five minutes of finding a shop assistant, I was told to wait by the vehicle while security brought me another. We were right at the other end of the shop, so as you can imagine this was not a quick process.
In the meantime, another shop assistant came over, and simply remarked that “this was always happening”, as they were old and rubbish, as he quoted “they had been there since I started over 20 years ago”.
Again, this was such a painstaking event, that I wanted the ground to swallow me up. It was one thing to be stared at by others due to needing a wheelchair in the first place, but it was another to play sitting duck whilst someone wheeled another mobility scooter over to us.
It was embarrassing, but more so super inconvenient and impractical. It slowed my shopping process down, the opposite effect of what it was supposed to achieve. Eventually, a new one was brought over, which this time thank god, worked enough to get me back, through the tills and I could return it to the entrance.
Inconvenience and exhaustion
I felt more exhausted than ever and It genuinely seemed like it was more hassle than it was worth. I could have walked around with my crutches in quicker time and with less hassle, albeit in more physical pain, and it seemed that little notice was taken by the shop and how much inconvenience they had caused me. It is fair to say, I do not wish to relive this experience, to the point where I feel like another shop may be more accessible to me.
I now pledge to try other supermarkets to see if this is a one-off issue, or simply that shops just cannot fully accommodate people with additional needs. Yes, there are other means for me to get around such as my own manual wheelchair or crutches, and I am the first to speak up and admit that I am new to this, so it may be something that becomes easier over time. However, this experience was less than desirable and has left me feeling doubtful about the accessibility of that certain shop.
Response from Asda
Crip Life™ contacted Asda to make the supermarket aware of Charlotte’s experience accessing the store’s mobility scooters and request a comment.
A spokesperson from Asda said: “Whilst we do regular checks to ensure the mobility scooters in our stores are in full working order, we are sorry to hear about this customer’s experience at our Ipswich store. Our colleagues are always happy to help customers who require further assistance, and we would welcome this customer into the store to discuss how we might be able to better assist them in future.”
We also understand from Asda that staff do regular checks to ensure the mobility scooters are in full working order, if any issues are reported to them, a job is logged for them to be fixed, or if necessary, replaced.
Asda claims the security desk at the front of the store typically holds the keys to the mobility scooters, and so authorities at Asda have raised this issue with the Ipswich store to understand why they were not there on this occasion.
You can find out more about Charlotte’s experiences of living with a disability by following her on Instagram and TikTok.
Have you experienced similar issues accessing supermarkets with a disability? Let us know in the comments box, on social media or contact us to share your personal story.