Pregnant commuter forced to sit on floor of train
5-month mum-to-be doesn't qualify for South West Trains ‘pregnancy pass’
A pregnant commuter was forced to sit on the floor of a packed train because no-one would give up their seat.
Victoria Poskitt, 40, felt woozy and on the point of collapse when she informed fellow passengers of her plight in the hope of getting a seat.
But she says she was ignored and resorted to sitting on the floor for the rest of her journey from Surbiton to Waterloo.
Victoria, who is just over 5 months pregnant with her first child has since asked South West Trains for a special ‘pregnancy pass’ to sit in first class but has been told she doesn’t qualify.
The pass from SWT allows pregnant women to sit in first class if there are no seats, if they are over 20 weeks pregnant and if they have a weekly, monthly or annual train season ticket.
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But as Victoria only commutes in 3 days a week she doesn’t buy a season ticket and so doesn’t qualify for a pass.
Talking to the Evening Standard she said: “You have to have a pass [to sit in first class], and because I travel 3 days a week, not 5, I don’t have a pass, I pay by Oyster... I thought they might be willing to make an exception, particularly after I told them about what happened, but after conversations with various managers they’ve said ‘no’, saying policy is policy.
“I don’t honestly know [what to do next], I keep trying with South West Trains, I’m throwing myself at their mercy because they could make all the difference to the last few months of my pregnancy.”
A spokeswoman for the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance said: “We are sorry to hear that Ms Poskitt felt unwell on one of our services. We have the most extensive upgrade scheme of any rail operator to help our customers who are expecting a baby.”
She added that for pregnant women without season tickets, there were priority seats like those on the Tube.
“As on other forms of transport, our experience is that fellow passengers will often give up their seat for mums-to-be and other customers such as elderly people and we are sorry this did not happen,” the spokeswoman said.
What do you think? Did other passengers readily give up their seats when you were pregnant?
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