Disabled Car Tax

jetta_wales

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Because I was there and you were not. I don't need to be medically qualified to decide that '' fit as a butchers dog '' was / is a good description for people who are in blue badge terms not disabled.

Educate me, which other ' disabilities ' other than unable to walk or experience very considerable difficulty in walking qualify ?

I didn't see :

- any children under two years of age accompanied by an adult driver
- anyone accompanied by bulky medical equipment
- blind people being accompanied
- or even a disabled person being accompanied

People with a behavioural or psychological disorder will not normally qualify, who signed the medical for these ' other type ' people you mention ?

Educate me jonnypb

I would just love to know what your description of a blind person is. How exactly do I look blind? Is it the white stick I don't use maybe? Is it because my eyes look funny and I don't look at what I'm doing? Oh wait no that's not the case either. Is it because I've got a big black wrap around ugly as sin visor thing on? No I wear cat 4 Cebe sun glasses that you might buy for skiing or snow boarding. Is it maybe because I fumble around aimlessly trying to find the handle of my car door? No, the door handle is the black smudge in the middle of the lighter coloured door so I can reach for it fine once I know I've been guided to the right car. Can you tell when a blind person is being led or when they're just holding their partners arm or hand? No you can't and frankly I've always put quite a bit of effort into not looking blind as I should not have to wear a damn sign on my forehead just so ignorant people don't think I'm abusing dissabled parking bays. The majority of those classed legally as blind do have some minimal degree of sight so we will not fit into your sterotypical view of what a blind person should look like!

Richie-from-the-Boro

jetta_wales wrote: »

I would just love to know what your description of a blind person is. How exactly do I look blind? Is it the white stick I don't use maybe? Is it because my eyes look funny and I don't look at what I'm doing? Oh wait no that's not the case either. Is it because I've got a big black wrap around ugly as sin visor thing on? No I wear cat 4 Cebe sun glasses that you might buy for skiing or snow boarding. Is it maybe because I fumble around aimlessly trying to find the handle of my car door? No, the door handle is the black smudge in the middle of the lighter coloured door so I can reach for it fine once I know I've been guided to the right car. Can you tell when a blind person is being led or when they're just holding their partners arm or hand? No you can't and frankly I've always put quite a bit of effort into not looking blind as I should not have to wear a damn sign on my forehead just so ignorant people don't think I'm abusing dissabled parking bays. The majority of those classed legally as blind do have some minimal degree of sight so we will not fit into your sterotypical view of what a blind person should look like!

If as I said you walked unaided you are not blind but partially sighted, stop grinding your relentless axe at every post in every thread you can find that gives you the opportunity to tell people you are blind.

Disabled / Parent & Child Parking Bays

It's feature of Supermarket [ing] their introduction was principally intended to increase their customer base by offering something their competitor may not offer. All bays within the car parks conform to National Guidelines, widening the bays reduces the number of bays available, its nice to have a bit of extra space but it is by no means a necessity.

Disabled parking spaces are designed to be wider and longer to enable wheelchair users to get their essential equipment in and out to enable day to day living, even non wheelchair disabled need the door at 90 degrees to exit their car, the ' preference ' for P&C extra space does not outweigh, nor is it equivalent to a disabled persons need to get their wheelchair out their car. for goodness sake how can you compare wanting a bit of extra space for a carseat - to the ability to get out and actually function is an absolute disgrace. We should all remember that P&C spaces are an added bonus and not a right. For many disabled people a blue badge and a guaranteed parking space is a necessity. Going to to the supermarket / doctors / post office / haircut, and a million and one things that most people take for granted.

P&C bays don't need to be near the door, disabled bays do, this marketing exercise of the part of supermarkets has now come back to haunt them and has reduced the number of places available for all. Why does having a child now render people helpless unless they have a concessionary parking place. If the P&C places were put at the other end of the storefront there would be no way a disabled person would / could use it and a massive reduction in the number of non-parents to mis-use it.

Many people feel that if they are using a disabled bay for a short amount of time they are not inconveniencing disabled customers, they are wrong. The managers / proprietors of businesses, know it is their duty to take reasonable steps to insure those with disabilities enjoy our services on a par with that of non disable people [ Part 3 of the DDA 1995 ]. In my opinion all disabled parking places including those in supermarkets, should be enforceable in law and should regularly monitor disabled parking bays, any vehicle found to be misusing or unofficially taking up a disabled parking bay, should be fined and the money raised will pay for the enforcement costs. Like everything in life you will not change peoples behaviour until you hit their pocket.

Since the introduction of disabled parking / wide bodied cars / and P&C bays the supermarkets have never really tailored their off street parking facilities to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. In the final analysis if a non-disabled motorist has parked in a bay reserved for disabled people or P&C in a private car park, / supermarket, an employee of the store can ask the driver to move their car from the reserved space, but they cannot legally insist on it.

jetta_wales

And how exactly do you know if somebody is a blind person being led or just a couple holding hands or walking with arms entwined?

I can assure you I am not just partially sighted but you would not know that I am being led and neither should you. Not all disabilities are visible and most of us who have been dissabled since birth or childhood have had enough bullying as youngsters to have grown up making considerable effort to not 'look dissabled'. If that means you can't tell who should and shouldn't be using a dissabled parking space just by looking at them then tough luck.

Richie-from-the-Boro

jetta_wales wrote: »

And how exactly do you know if somebody is a blind person being led or just a couple holding hands or walking with arms entwined?

I can assure you I am not just partially sighted but you would not know that I am being led and neither should you. Not all disabilities are visible and most of us who have been disabled since birth or childhood have had enough bullying as youngsters to have grown up making considerable effort to not 'look disabled'. If that means you can't tell who should and shouldn't be using a disabled parking space just by looking at them then tough luck.

I'm 71 years old, a fully recycled teenager, I've been around the block enough to know who is being ' aided ' and honest enough in my #9 post to have said that someone is being helped.

No one was holding hands, it was chucking it down and they were ' legging ' it at a rate of knots to get to the canopy.

SingleSue

Re parent and child spaces....I needed (yes needed) the wide space one of these provided as a parent to two youngsters in a double buggy.

Granted, the two youngsters have autism and other disabilities but trying to get a buggy plus shopping, plus children into car seats and properly restrained in an ordinary width space is a near impossibility. So, when I saw others without children parking in the spaces, well, it annoyed me a tad....I didn't park in the disabled spots when the parent and child spaces were full, so why do it when you don't have children with you in the parent and child spaces.

Aided question - on good days, I would probably look pretty normal (hmmm, not sure though, I'm a pretty weird person!:rotfl:) so can never tell what disability a person has on just a quick glance. It is merely a snapshot and for I and anyone else knows, that person who has just walked unaided and seemingly fine into the supermarket could have been bedbound for the last fortnight and will be so again after the trip...or they could be like me and covering up the pain in the vain hope of appearing normal. My aunt is also pretty good at covering up her sight problem, you would never know she is officially blind but she is.....you would just see a husband and wife walking hand in hand, she is so good at it now that we forget just how little she can see...and she has been known to run when it is raining if she knows the terrain.

N.B I don't have a blue badge or claim DLA and I never park in the disabled spots unless I am ferrying my father to the shop/doctors etc (he has a blue badge). I also do not park in the parent and child spaces where they are wider despite needing a wide space to get out of and back into the car...I just park at the end of a row that has space by the drivers door or to the left of a normal space and cross my fingers that I can get in the car on my return.