Posted By William Not so much health and safety gone mad, I think its about companies not wanting to leave themselves exposed to any possible type of legal claim. It's more about the compensation culture which prevails in our society and companies trying to abide by the terms of their liability insurance.

Posted By Jay Joshi It appears that this is more of an employer liability/public liability insurance matter impacting on health and safety/disability discrimination than anything else. The outcome will be watched with interest!

Posted By Tabs I agree Gabe, recently there has been several pushes by the police to warn of incorrect pressures leading to accidents. It appears tyre pressures figure in a relatively high number of accidents. Tesco is right, setting a machine is one thing - but we all know taking the pump of the valve can lead to significant leakage. Not sure having to drive to another premises is really 'reasonable adjustment' though. (Can't get to my store's second floor? I have arranged for you to shop elsewhere ...). Most of us have sworn at these air pumps over the years I would guess - not the best of designs really, eh? Maybe make them along the lines of a metal detector size and layout with a chunky cup you can hold down with your foot, to accept the floppy valve?

Posted By Jay Joshi The petrol pump employees are "cashiers", not pump attendents--it is much more than training them--what about priorities when there is a queque of customers etc. only one person? It is not as simple as made out to be. The outcome is bound to have interesting implications!

Posted By Gabe Bob has a point. I think that you will find that any decent tyre fitter, eg Kwikfit, would be more than happy to check the tyre pressures for any person. Disabled or no.

Posted By KayS This sort of legal action winds me up - I agree with Tesco, imagine what would happen if a tyre was to blow or something, and one of their employees was at fault... If the woman really can't do her own tyres, she could maybe have help from social services. How else do other non-able-bodied drivers manage? And aren't you supposed to have suffered a loss because of someone else in order to sue? What did she 'lose'? Tesco don't have to provide these machines, and if the legal action goes against Tesco they'd be well advised to just remove the machines from all their forecourts. Then we can all thank that woman for everyone else having to suffer the inconvenience of using a garage, as well as her. I bet she can't use those portable foot-pumps either, is she going to sue the manufacturers of those as well? This sueing everyone for everything needs to stop because it's absolutely ridiculous.

Posted By Colin Reeves "However, how other many stories have been reported when we haven't been given all the facts, or the facts in the right order." How right you are! Colin

Posted By 247hero OK, I have no arms and want to ride a bike. Bikes R Us (made up, any real bike shops with the same name is a pure coincidence) won't help me because there employees are not experienced in riding bikes for other people. So what am I going to do? I'll use my head, speak to the necessary societies and work with them to make some form of bike that I could enjoy. I won't go to Bikes R Us and threaten to sue them because their employees do not want to ride my bike for me. Likewise if I was disabled, I wouldn't go to a supermarket to get air in my tyres and expect employees to do it for me. Personally I would go to a garage and ask them for some help. Damn right I'd sue them if they refused.(kidding) But cashiers... why on earth should they do it? It's her car, her responsibility to have thought about how she is going to maintain it. Or in the very least her responsibility to find out with the helpful resources I'm sure as a registered disabled person she has access to? But, in saying all this, and the posts above... this really has not a lot to do with health and safety, and more to do with how society is becoming so obsessed with people taking advantage, feeling hard done by and using it as an excuse to try and sue, and others getting so fed up of hearing about them getting away with it. And before I'm wrongly accused of being anti anything or body... I have disabled friends and colleagues that I both care about and respect so please don't tell me I'm wrong. It's my opinion, my perspective on this good debate. Not factual statements! And as I said before, until we actually know the full facts...... Whilst I think of it... I'm 6 ft 8 inches tall so today, I'm going to sue every budget airline for making their planes so small, I can't physically sit on their planes unless I pay for extra leg room! Heightest so n' so's Rant over.

Posted By Tabs 247hero (how modest, hee hee) ... so, I guess you will be smoking in the pub, exposing people to asbestos, failing to pay tax, and generally ignoring any other law you want to? The DDA doesn't make adjustments "necessary if you agree"... The whole idea is to make services (which companies make money out of usually - directly or indirectly) available to ALL customers, within reason. Tesco doesn't provide air out of pure love for you or I. They do it because other garages do so, and they have found it to be a factor in selection of which petrol station we use. Tesco are amongst the most scientific and merciless users of customer trends in the UK. (And good luck to them). Let's hope we hear the full facts soon. As I said before though - it does rather depend on whether air for the tyres is a service or a facility.

Posted By Tabs 247hero, I think you are missing the point. Obviously she IS allowed to take Tesco to court - that is why the case is going forward! As with all the other points here, we don't know if she will get a penny, a pound or more - until the Courts have decided. The fact that it is a small claims court case is significant in the level she might receive. Why I mention other laws is because we can't (and neither can Tesco) pick and choose which laws we will comply with without consequences. She has the right under DDA to expect reasonable adjustments - her disability is already recognized otherwise Tesco would not have set up an agreement with another business. What she is arguing is that it is not reasonable considering the relatively simple step of teaching a forecourt attendant (or another member of the staff at the store) to use the air pump. It had nothing to do with who was working on the forecourt at the time - it was a business decision to deny her help at that location. That *might* be against the law. If Tesco decided not to pay VAT for a year, would you accept they could just apologize when caught out? The court now has to give judgement as to whether it is a service or not, and if it is reasonable or not. My opinion? Yes, she should be able to ask the court to rule on this. She no doubt comlies with the laws regarding driving, paying for goods, paying her tax, etc. So when a law gives her certain rights, why shouldn't she seek enforcement? She didn't write the law, and Tesco didn't sucessfully fight the law.

Posted By Roger White This is almost certainly a service in the same way as the paper towels for drying the child seats on trolleys and plastic gloves for filling at the pump are. It is unlikely that Tesco makes anything out of it given that the compressor and air reciever have to be the subject of a written scheme under the Pressure regs, and compressors are very expensive to run. Despite what has been said earlier in the thread, training IS important, particularly with something like compressed air that can kill. Tesco may well conclude that it just isn't worth the hassle, take all air lines out, and we all end up as losers.

Posted By Tabs Okay, we'll take it up in the pub if we ever get a chance :-) And if we do you can explain why you bring in all kinds of other complications (no arms, bald tyre, bonnet lifting, etc) to a simple case. In my opinion no court would hold someone pumping up a tyre responsible for conducting a road worthiness check.

Posted By Crim If the disabled person has a Motability vehicle she can go to the nearest Motability garage and have the tyres checked and inflated - free of charge. Motability have lots of agencies out there ready willing and able to do this for her. If it is not a Motability car then she has to organise someone herself. There are other garages out there with staff willing to help. If Tesco do not inflate tyres for anyone else why/how can she expect them to do it for her? Most, if not all Tesco service stations are unmanned except for the pay boothes and the staff are only there to collect payments for fuel. They cannot leave their post! Nothing to do with health and safety?