When moving to Lyon two years ago, Camélia, who comes from Isère, directly downloaded the applications that connect VTC drivers with customers to get around town. “For me, it was finally independence, the possibility of going from point A to point B for my personal journeys in the snapshot”, she says.
But reality soon caught up with her. “One in four races is canceled when I order,” blows the 29-year-old. The reason ? She has been in a wheelchair since she was 5 years old, suffering from brittle bone disease, and the drivers refuse to take her on.
“The car arrives, sees me and continues on its way”
When she signed up on the app, specifically on Bolt, she asked teams if her disability was an issue. “They told me that there was no problem and even specified that I was not obliged to mention that I was a person with reduced mobility (PRM) for each trip”.
Without a visible option for the drivers, Camélia still prefers to warn the drivers by message to avoid embarrassing situations. “Sometimes the car arrives, it sees that I’m in a wheelchair and it continues on its way without stopping. Or, they call me to tell me that the race is canceled and I start again to try to find someone who will accept me. »
A situation that she ended up integrating. “It’s a fact, when you’re a person with a disability, everything is a hassle on a daily basis, she continues. Shopping, finding suitable accommodation, having a car, public transport. So VTCs, too. “She is so imbued with it that it is those close to her who remind her” of all the times “where she has been the victim of discrimination. Her father, Nourredine, cites “many unexplained refusals” and “injustice” for his daughter.
Over a million views and thousands of supporters
Usually, she does not [prend] no head,” she said. Except, two weeks ago, where she decided to post her ordeal on social networks. In a three-minute video, she shared with her community of just over 6,500 people on TikTok, his daily newspaper, which totaled more than 1.2 million views in three days. “The driver went too far, exclaims the Lyonnaise. In addition to refusing the race, he humiliated me by making sure that I pay a cancellation fee and not be penalized. »
This driver of a Toyota vehicle, SUV style, justified his act by saying that the wheelchair could not fit, that he was going to break his car, we hear on the video. The young woman specifies that she does not need help to get into the car and that it is not an electric wheelchair, which folds up “in two seconds” and that it is even removable. “He is very small, he even fits in a Twingo! It is no more restrictive than a large suitcase, ”she supports, listing solutions such as lowering the seats. “It’s the first time I’ve heard that in 29 years,” she said.
“You just have to order an ambulance”
The drop too much, “it was the thoughts that rocked me,” recalls the Lyonnaise. That evening, he advised her to call “an ambulance to move”. “There is indeed a service adapted for people with reduced mobility, for journeys to the workplace or medical appointments, but going to see my friends is complicated. It would be steps and steps, a preliminary organization for ten minutes of car. If I order these races, it’s because I have no choice. »
In contact with a Bolt official, she received a reimbursement of expenses and several races offered by the company. But since the events, she “dodges outings” and says she is “traumatized by VTC applications”.
“What I want is not promo codes, it’s that these kinds of events don’t happen to anyone anymore. People don’t realize it and they lose their humanism. I would like to see them in my place. Luckily not everyone is like that. Besides, I didn’t expect to receive so much support by posting my video. »
A device for people with reduced mobility “in the coming months”
On other applications, such as Heetch, this “PMR option” exists and on Uber too, a device has been set up “but Lyon is not Paris”, underlines the young woman who is struggling to find drivers. She points out: “Because we have a disability, we don’t have the right to turn to a shared mobility service? I feel different and I am constantly reminded of it. »
The platform in question, for its part, ensures that it does not “tolerate any form of discrimination” and “take this situation very seriously”. “We have opened an internal investigation to understand what happened with this driver with whom we are in discussion,” said a Bolt spokesperson. He specifies that the company cannot impose races.
To move forward on this issue and be more inclusive, he promises “training on this subject”. “Without taking their defense, they are often afraid and do not know how to go about it, develops the spokesperson. We are in contact with an external partner so that they can benefit from awareness raising and thus have instructions if they have to take care of a person with reduced mobility”.
At the same time, Bolt is in the test phase to deploy a new category of vehicles adapted to PRMs with, in particular, access ramps. This system could be put in place “within the next few months” without forgetting Lyon which represents “the second market after Paris” for the Estonian company.