Disabeld parking.

[TieJustice]

What is this country coming to when you see a vehicle parked in a disabeld spot when its some 19 year old in his sports car running into the store or a 4x4 a mother with her children taxi's in other words some one that can walk with out aid or problem but just to LAZY to park just that bit further away.

Why want most shop's fine them, is it just in case they lose a customer ?
It's no fun trying to get a wheel chair out of a car in a normal parking spot so then you have to take up 2 spots and you get people giving you the look of discussed as your car is taking up that last spot.

One thing that you will very rarely see in the USA is a car without a valid disable badge in a disabled spot the fines out there are way higher than the silly £60 fine that no one in a store is interested in, in forcing i would love to see some of the car's parked in a disabled zone park over there 1st there car gets towed then they pay a silly fine from $500.00 pulse then they pay for the towing of there car then the final blow they have to pay for the storage of there towed car or they keep the car and sell it off if you can not afford the fine.

So come on the disabled parking is there for the people that need it not just for the sake of it.

[DennisN]

I've moved this into a more appropriate area of the forum (it's not News and Latest Information).
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[DennisN]

I agree with you 100%. It makes me boil when I see it happening.

But what to do about it? I'm a grumpy, but not fit pensioner and the 19 year olds in sports cars are just likely these days to smack me one, aren't they? The mothers in 4x4s are probably just as likely to.

And there's always the excuse that they are not going to be long enough to do any harm - that's not the point, it's not there for them to use. The cashpoints at my local ASDA are beside the disabled spaces and the number of times all sorts of people pull up, run to the ATM and back again, often blocking several disabled spaces by parking across the ends of them. GRRRR! They wouldn't park like that across the back of a police car, would they?
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[Calomax]

Isn't the problem here that the stores can provide the spaces but have no power to enforce them?
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TT Go Essential

[MaFt]

ditto for parent and toddler parking spaces...

MaFt

[DennisN]

My ASDA displays an enforcement notice and I assume it would work if and ONLY IF they actually do enforce it. The real answer is on the spot clamping and decent price release fees, with a couple of very large nasty enforcement blokes. With disabled badge spaces, it's easy to identify offenders - badge or clamp, simple. For parent and toddler spaces, it's less easy, you can't see a toddler inside the store. With either category, it's difficult because of the cost - all day enforcement involves expensive manpower unless they get the income and manage to make a fortune out of it (which would be OK by me, serve the offenders right!).

I never, ever, park in either of them, but the only offenders I can identify are those in disabled badge spaces. I'm not happy about people who use grandad's disabled badge for their own parking either - it's not right for the top class sprinter to use one just because grandad lends it to him.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[MaFt]

[DennisN]

Don't ask me! - I suppose some cleverclogs southernersoftypants will work out the square footage and work out an annual rental at commercial rates and come up with some sort of idea of an hourly rate.

I'm not interested! What I'm interested in is punitive deterrent rates. And commercially viable enforcement rates. Reckon on two offenders a day getting caught, that's gotta be at least £250 a time and cheap at the price for two lovely big bouncer blokes to intimidate them all. How would you value the problem of a disabled grumpy old pensioner like me being denied access to the supermarket to spend my £2.73 for a packet of something to keep the wolf from the door?

The punishment should not relate in the slightest to such costs - punish and deter is what it's all about.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[MaFt]

parking fines in private car parks are due to a contract being formed (upon entering you are bound by the rules that should be on display) and that you then break. they can only fine (sue) you for damages for breaking the contract - ie if you overstayed by an hour then their only damages are the loss of £1 (or whatever the rate is). if you take up 2 spaces then their only loss is the cost of that other space that they have lost income from. there are no other costs that they have lost. they CANNOT use the wage/salary for the parking attendant as a loss as they would have been paid whether you broke the contract or not.

i'm not sure about street/council parking though...

MaFt

[DennisN]

I'm not talking suing for damages (losses).

The ASDA sign, prominently displayed, says Civil Penalty or something like that. It's supposedly take your number, ask Swansea where you live and post a penalty to you and if you don't pay up, take some sort of action to get it. Very long-winded and I can't imagine them pursuing it.

However, what about a nice big notice saying you are on private land, these parking spaces are provided for disabled persons only, only when displaying a blue badge with a photo of the user, and anybody else using them gets penalised by clamping, with a release fee of a fortune. Whether legal or not, the early sufferers would go through a lot of inconvenience and the local press would no doubt hear about it AND generate a lot of applause for the supermarket - any damages sought by a sufferer would be at worst reduced for contributory activity by parking where he was told/warned not to and at best chucked out. In a large supermarket's case, I'd be tempted to go with it, funded out of my advertising budget!

What's the rules about clamping on private land? - somebody is doing quite well out of that.
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[GPS_fan]

Most disabled bays are only marked for courtesy and are NOT enforceable, simply because they are not accompanied by the necessary signage.

On the flip side of the coin, though, why should blue badge holders get free parking in public car parks??

They have a blue badge because they have mobility issues, not because of financial reasons - yet the unemployed, retired etc still have to pay.

If an individual qualifies for a blue badge, they ought not be in a position to appear on Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing USA because the two should be mutually incompatible!


It is always frustrating to find rows of EMPTY disabled bays, but only a handful of occupied parent & child spaces.

In multi-storey car parks, the disabled bays are invariably on the ground floor, whilst parent and child spaces are several floors up.


This is a touchy subject, which should perhaps be left alone.
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Andy
PocketGPSWorld.com supports Help for Heroes - Read here

[Border_Collie]

[mikero]

For most disabled drivers, the location of the bay is not an issue, nor is its proximity to the store. The main reason is the width of the bay. This means that they can open the car door fully to get in and out of the car. This cannot be done in a standard bay. The other thing about disabled people is that their disability is not always obvious. OK, some may have only one leg but what about those with only one lung? It really annoys me when people complain about the disabled doing their shopping. Are they not supposed to eat? If all disabled bays were in the far corners of the store car park would able bodied drivers still use them?

[DennisN]

Three very good posts. Back in the days when I was in charge of staff issuing disabled (orange) badges, the major criterion to qualify was how far the applicant could walk, hence spaces being near the entrances to shops. I have a feeling that free disabled parking is a "tradition" which has developed from them being allowed to park on yellow lines where it is free. In Keynsham, we used to have free parking in our car parks, even announced it on the town signs as you entered - "Keynsham, Free Parking". Then my boss managed, after two voting defeats, to bring in pay and display parking in all our car parks. Instantly, High Street suffered a plague of (then orange) disabled badge parking which continues to this day - disabled parking absolutely everywhere, causing a lot of traffic flow problems. Like Lost Property says, disabled drivers parking outside the chemist, post office, several ATMs, chip shop, etc, far too often whilst somebody else goes in. That's abuse. But how to stop it? There's not a lot of votes in bashing the disabled (whether they are war heroes or not!).
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Dennis

If it tastes good - it's fattening.

Two of them are obesiting!!

[john877]

Regarding paying in public car parks most councils now charge disabled drivers for this and I think the original thinking of providing this was most disabled drivers are generally on a low income but there is exceptions to this of course.

Also it takes them longer to do everyday things

The system is abused but I think it sums up how our society is going its down to lack of respect for other people and like anything I am sure there is a trade in stolen disabled badges

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