Woman in wheelchair fed up with drivers telling her not to roll on the road

A Winnipeg woman who uses a wheelchair says an upsetting encounter with a motorist highlights the way people with disabilities face more than just physical barriers in their daily lives.

Jess Turner was rolling in her motorized wheelchair down a quiet stretch of Balmoral Street on Tuesday. She was on the road, which she says she often does because the sidewalks are in such a poor state, when a man in a vehicle pulled up beside her and told her she shouldn't be on the street.

"Instead of taking a moment to sort of pause and consider why I might be on the road, this person felt the need to sort of call me out and tell me that I don't have the right to share the road with him," she said in an interview with CBC Manitoba's afternoon radio show Up to Speed.

Turner is an accessibility adviser at the University of Winnipeg, as well as a member of the province's accessibility advisory council and helping to draft Manitoba's accessibility standards.

Encounters like the one on Tuesday happen often, Turner said. She recalled one experience in a grocery store parking lot when another man in a vehicle, who claimed to be a former police officer, chastised her for not using the sidewalk.

"I was really dumbfounded by this comment because we were in a parking lot at the time and we share that public space. I had every right to be there in that moment."

When faced with these reactions, Turner says she has tried to explain her reasons for not using the sidewalk, but these conversations do not usually go well. Even more than the physical barriers she faces on a daily basis, she says it's these "attitudinal" barriers that make it difficult for her.

"I struggled a lot with mental health as a result. I live with anxiety on a daily basis. There are a lot of days that I don't want to be out in public, because I'm just waiting for the next incident to happen."

The fact that Turner and other people with disabilities still face many obstacles when trying to move about in the community — from uneven sidewalks to automatic doors that don't work — sends a negative message, she said.

"The fact that those barriers still exist say that disabled people aren't expected to be out in the community. We don't have the right to live and work and enjoy community spaces as much as our able-bodied or able-minded contemporaries."

She wishes people would take more time to think about what life is like for people with mobility issues.

"Just take some time. Maybe try to put yourself in our shoes. Maybe sit down and have a conversation with me to figure out why I do what I do."

With files from Danelle Cloutier and Cameron MacLean