Money Moral Dilemma: Would you park free if it blocked wheelchair access?

unicornstar

jvimum wrote: »

Parents should be able to control their children and put them in a pushchair or hold their hands and walk - we did it in my day!

This really makes me laugh, it's not about being able to control your children or not, it's about being able to get your children in and out of the car safely and with a little bit more ease than you would be able to in a normal space.

Let me explain, I have a double buggy with a baby and a toddler in, I return from my shopping trip and am parked in a normal space with cars either side of me. There is no room for me to put my buggy down the side of the car. I then have to leave the buggy at the rear of my car in the road where the cars drive up and down, while i remove one child from the buggy to put them in the car, leaving the remaining child sitting in the buggy in the road.
Now I may be pessimistic but these days there are alot of people who drive like lunatics, in fact I've noticed there are alot of drivers in these car parks who cannot even observe a simple arrow on the road telling them which way to drive up and down the aisles, and leaving my child in the road even for a second scares the life out of me. But I have no choice as there is nowhere else to leave the buggy and child 2 while i put child 1 in the car.

Now, in a parent and child space (usually) they are wide enough to put the buggy next to the car, out of the road and out of the way of other drivers, therefore the child is safer. I'm not being funny but what parent would not want to use the safest option for their child? I really cannot understand why people begrudge children being safe?


You did it in your day. Yes, in your day things would have been different, child seats in cars weren't compulsory because we weren't as clued up about safety as we are now. It is a fact that standards improve over the years, we move on and become more intelligent. Things change and improve for the better. It is a fact whether people like it or not that it is better for parents to have these helpful spaces. In my grandmothers day most people didn't have cars, there were no such things as televisions, ipods, dishwashers, washing machines etc. Does that mean we should live our lives how they did back then? Just because they got by ok shall we refuse to use things that make our lives easier and safer? There is no logic in your argument at all. You can bet your life that more children would get run over in the days that these spaces didn't exist. In fact blue badges for the disabled wouldn't have existed at one point in the past, disabled people got by without them then, does that mean we should abolish use of them now!?

jvimum wrote: »

Parent/child spaces prevent older, less mobile people who are not immobile enough to have a disbled badge from parking near the shop. With the current arrangement you can be in a great deal of pain from arthritis and still have to walk further than people and their healthy kids.

This is something you should take up with your supermarket. It's obviously bad planning if the parent spaces are closer to the store. Maybe you should ask them why they put them close to the store. I would still park in them even if they were at the far side of the car park simply because of the safety aspect of them. I don't care how far I have to walk to be honest. I'm lucky I have a car to get me there so walking a little way across the car park isn't going to bother me! My kids being as safe as possible is my main concern.

foxxymynx

Some people seem to think that there's an abundance of designated disabled bays. In cities there are no where near as many disabled bays as there are blue badges issued by the local authority.

Andyluke2

Yes I would park there. The car may be being used by an abled body person which might explain why he/she hadn't parked in the vast amount of designated disabled parking bays around town.

:eek:

unicornstar

tara747 wrote: »

In any case, why would you be loading your car seat into the car at a supermarket, surely you would do that before you set off?

Because most of the first size car seats come out of the car and fit on the buggy frame and become the part of the buggy that the baby sits in. That's how most prams work these days. Means you can take a sleeping baby out of the car and secure it in its pram without disturbing it. (which i would have thought would be a bonus for those people who don't like hearing screaming babies in the supermarket!) Some supermarket trolleys even have a space for you to put these car seats on so you can just use the trolley instead of your buggy. As you can imagine it is not easy putting these seats back into the car given the width of them if you are parked in a normal space with a car either side of you (if you are on your own with the baby, eg if you are a single parent, it's not even really an option to reverse the car out of the space to get the baby in cos where would you leave the baby while you do this?)

unicornstar

foxxymynx wrote: »

Some people seem to think that there's an abundance of designated disabled bays. In cities there are no where near as many disabled bays as there are blue badges issued by the local authority.

I can appreciate this, but in some car parks there are hardly any in our town but in others there are about 2 floors worth of disabled spaces only which are nearly always half empty.Its a little bit annoying driving past all the empty space and having to go up to higher floors, doesn't really bother me but I can see why some people might complain. In our town there is actually a shopmobility car park which has a huge amount of disabled spaces and decent access for disabled people.

nathanhill69

Andyluke2 wrote: »

Yes I would park there. The car may be being used by an abled body person which might explain why he/she hadn't parked in the vast amount of designated disabled parking bays around town.

:eek:

Your argument seems flawed as surely this is an assumption / rationalisation on your part - the emphasis is on the word MAY. Logically one has to accept the request in good faith and base your morale decision on that basis. Also, this vast amount of disabled parking spaces posters keep referring to on every street is just not true - next time you're on a high street count how many disabled spaces there are and their location.

Bionic

Stampede wrote: »

I take the information that is posed in the Q .. nothing more and nothing less 'on street parking ( initially it's gone but )......'having driven round eventually you find a space' for I am sure if the Q wanted us to consider that it was a designated disabled space or zone they would have said so, designated disabled spaces are designed by their width or length to anticipate the extra space requirements. Logically we are talking about parallel kerb side parking. The sign ' on the back of the car' clearly says 'boot', not 'doors' not 'tailgate' had it been pay or display or any other considerations the Q would have mentioned them, in fact the Q does say that an alternative pay facility is also available 'at the NCP ' hence why I have tried only to deal with the information given, I have not tried to rewrite the Q or to answer a Q I wished they had asked but strictly to deal with the information given.

Ok but for me your answer clearly doesn't deal with your assumptions in 3,4,6 & 7.

Sorry I should have included the text referred to:
Questions that arise from your perception of the statement:
1. Where does it say the space you've found is '..ordinary on street free parking space..'?
2. Where does it say the car has a conventional boot?
3. The sign requests politely that the user needs a 6 foot gap to deal with getting the chair in and out - why would you assume there is no adaptation?
4. Why do you assume there is someone to assist the driver? (Many disabled people live independently.)
5. Is it possible they are parked on a disabled bay adjacent to your space? (There are many like this).
6. Why do you assume they have parked in an 'ordinary conventional manner'?
7. If you can handle your relatives wheelchair in an 'ordinary conventional manner' - why would you assume that the disabled driver can do the same?

dors01

No I would not park in a disabled bay, I have a toddler and the worst thing ever is having to park in a normal space because someone without children (normally idiots with posh cars who dont want anyone parking close) has parked in a parent and child space.
I know its not the same as disable but very similar, as you need to open the door fully to enable you to get the child into the car and strap them in.

nogga

I do not drive, my wife does,we never did park in a disabled bay,until one morming after it had snowed,she inadvertantly parked in one.When we returned there was a ticket.The warden had scrubbed the snow away,showing a symbol for disabled parking.If we had known we wouldn`t of parked there.Now it`s a case of yes we would park in one.

SusanC_2

jvimum wrote: »

No I would definitely not do that.
I do agree about the parent/child parking spaces. Parents should be able to control their children and put them in a pushchair or hold their hands and walk - we did it in my day!
Parent/child spaces prevent older, less mobile people who are not immobile enough to have a disbled badge from parking near the shop. With the current arrangement you can be in a great deal of pain from arthritis and still have to walk further than people and their healthy kids.

I keep my 2yo under control and hold her hand where necessary in the car park. She is actually very good as I can tell her she has to "follow mummy" and she will walk right by me without me needing to hold on to her. I don't see the connection between that and the space needed to get in and out of the car though. To enable her to climb in the car without denting the car next to us with our door, we require a certain amount of space therefore extra wide spaces help - especially given regular spaces seem to be getting smaller and smaller these days. I actually had to climb into my car from the passenger side recently due to some fool (who had the same carseat as me so should have known better) parking so close to me that I couldn't even fit myself on my own between the cars.