At the end of April, Lü Fu, a blind person who relies on pediatric massage therapy to make a living, brought a guide dog, named Evay, who was trained in a guide dog center in Dalian, Liaoning Province, to Hefei, Anhui Province, where Lü is living. Yet, Lü encountered many problems, since some bus and taxi drivers barred Evay, causing Lü much inconvenience, even though guide dogs should be allowed access to places their owners wish to go, the Hefei-based news portal www.hf365.com reported.
Lü is not the first blind person to meet these obstacles. In Beijing, many guide dogs are also not allowed on public transportation, the news portal Southcn.com said.
In fact, many cities have published regulations, like the Beijing Animal Epidemic Prevention Regulations and Anhui Provincial Regulations on Urban Bus Administration in 2016, to allow the blind to take guide dogs onto the public transportation, but it is hard to put into practice.
For example, many do not have conductors to check whether guide dog owners have the proper documentation with them, and bus drivers have difficulty in identifying whether the blind person's dog is a guide dog or a pet dog. Also, the bus is a enclosed space, and as they are usually crowded, especially in the rush hour, many passengers do not want guide dogs on the bus.
This reflects the shortcomings in cities’ public services, and requires building more hardware and software facilities to meet the needs of disabled people.
Specifically, transportation departments need to loosen the requirements to the blind, and provide more convenient travel for the blind who take guide dogs according to the regulations. It is necessary to eliminate the misunderstanding of guide dogs, and the same goes for the public.
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