McDonalds in Tavistock - staff abuse of disabled bays

MarkyMarkD

grex9101 wrote:

Still don't agree with the bloody stupid "mother and toddler spaces" (flame me i dare you!)

As father of a six-month old, I can't agree with your global disdain for "parent and child" (not "mother and toddler" - don't be so sexist!). It is very hard to get a child out of or into its seat whilst juggling your shopping trolley, other children, or whatever, and there's every justification for spaces which are wider to allow you safe access to the side of your car. And the reason that they are normally close to the shop is for the safety of children who are shopping with their parent.

Obviously parent and child spaces shouldn't be at the expense of spaces for the disabled, but they are genuinely a worthwhile thing.

Anniek1969

I agree with MarkyMarkD, the parent child bays are a blessing when you have a small child. When you're trying to get your child from the car seat into the buggy the extra space these bays give you is great. As a mum of 3 I do use these bays occasionally although not very much now that my youngest is 3 so I don't have to mess about with the buggy but I wouldn't mind if they put them further to the back of the car park. It's not important to me that they're near the entrance of the store but the fact that they give you more room so you can get the kids in and out without worrying about banging the door on the car next to you.

As for disabled bays it really iritates me when people mis-use them. Thankfully me and DH are both healthy and don't have any disabilities but if there comes a time that we may have to then I would be really angry if I couldn't get a bay because people who weren't diasabled were using them.

Another point though is that sometimes disabled people also abuse the right to park in them. I have a friend who does have a disabled badge although to look at him you wouldn't think there was anything wrong with him. He has problems with his spine and can't walk very far. Quite often him and his wife will pop into the local supermarket for a few things and he sits in the car while she does the shopping. This annoys me as although he is disabled he should only be parking there if he is going into the shop, his wife isn't disabled so it makes no difference to her where in the car park he parks but because he has his blue badge he thinks it's his right to be parked there even when he has no intention of leaving the car.

Our local B&Q has a car parked in it almost every day that we have visited the store (obviously staff) in the same disabled bay but has no badge on it. If I have noticed this then why haven't the staff. It's really annoying as this store doesn't have very many disabled bays. Let's just hope that these people don't ever need to use these bays only to find that they can't get one because of people mis-using them.

wobbley

Turning_into_scrooge wrote:

This subject is actually one of my pet hates. I have a blue badge as i have 2 walking sticks,now,

I don't think you are entitled to a Blue Badge just because you happen to own a couple of sticks!

I'm sure you'll find that you need to be actually disabled and have need for the badge.