Photos of no-blue-badge cars in disabled bays??

theartfullodger

Ghostrider

almillar wrote: »

Well this is a lively debate. Blue badges or not, public or private, disabled spaces should be left for disabled people, even at 3am LeeUK - just park in a normal one!
So photographing the car won't work - what you need to do is see people get out of the car, and if none of them have a disability, then take the photo of them and their car!
(I won't be doing that though!)

Funny you should mention this...

I often visit my local Asda during the early hours of the morning during the week, at 3am there is nobody in the car park, and I mean nobody.

Now me being the pragmatic type will park in a disabled/mother and child bay at that time in the morning, I won't park in the ones closest to the door, but I will use them. I do it because unless by some freak occurrence about 40 disabled people all turn up at 3am then I'm not doing anybody any harm.

Now on one such occasion about this time last year I was challenged by somebody, more of a mutter as she walked past me, but I stopped her and asked what her problem was. She responded that she was going to complain to the manager of the store and see to it I got a ticket and some other nonsense about me being ashamed of myself. I let her go as it was !!!!ing with rain and I wasn't getting wet through just for her.

When I got into the store I decided to hunt down somebody of authority, the CSM, he'll do. I explained to him my position and asked how the store views it.

"Officially, Asda line is you're not supposed to unless entitled to is what we have to say".

"Unofficially", he said, "everybody does it at this time in the morning especially if it's raining it's just a case of using your common sense and the delivery drivers that drop the morning papers off do too as we tell them to"

Thats good enough for me if my local Asda store tells me that using my common sense is good enough, then I will.

I haven't changed, I will still use disabled/M&C spaces at 3am because I know morally I'm doing nothing wrong or precluding a disabled badge holder from using the facility. I would make it clear though that at any other time of day or situation I would never dream of parking in a blue badge bay, i'm not out to deny people they're facilities when they need them.

spike7451

I parked in a disabled bay at a shopping center here a long time ago,over 10 years in fact as Dad has been gone that long, & some woman started to have a go at me when I got out of my car,I went round to the passenger side & helped my father out of the car,then pointed at the disabled badge in the window.Cue spluttering embarrassed apology from said woman.
Dad could not walk too far & was on bottled oxygen thru lung cancer,but he still liked to get out & about for a while.
I myself don't park in disabled or parents parking bays & it annoys me that people unentitled to park there do,I reckon that people are that lazy now that they'd take the bloody car into the shops if they could!

interstellaflyer

I think sometimes the people who decide on car park layouts should do a little homework before they decide how many Disabled spaces are actually needed, rather than provide more than needed just to err on the side of political correctness, I have noticed on several occassions at our local town car park (Didcot Orchard Centre) people driving round and round waiting for spaces to become available yet there are 20 or more empty disabled spaces.

pulliptears

theartfullodger wrote: »

Anyone know any websites which show photos of cars without blue-badges in disabled bays?>??

Purely to draw the driver's attention to displaying the blue badge that they forgot to display, aye...

Artful, I believe the simple answer to your question is The Pistonheads bad Parking thread which can be found here:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=23&t=768257&mid=208712&i=0&nmt=The+BAD+PARKING+thread&mid=208712

wba31

Is it wrong that i use the parent and child bays at Asda when i go with my mom? im 26...

In all seriousness, I used to catch the bus home in Birmingham from Carr's Lane in Birmingham. It's a 1 way street, with a row of Disabled parking only on the right hand side. There are bus-stops on the left hand side of the road. It's ever so convenient for parking as it's free (if disabled) and SO close to the shops. the bottom two thirds of the road were wide enough for the buses at the bus-stops, the cars parked on the right, and for buses to pass through the middle, however at the top of the road, where there are no bays, it's quite narrow. Every day i would watch as people would come and park in the bays if possible, if not on the right hand side of the road at the top of the hill, and just sit there waiting as the passenger would get out the car and disappear off shopping for 30 minutes. Free parking! Traffic wardens grew wise to it though and would walk up and down every 15 minutes or so moving people on.
Occasionally if the warden didnt come down, disabled people would drive round looking for somewhere to park, only to have most the bays taken up by people who cant be bothered to pay £2 to park for 1 hour...

Lum

theartfullodger wrote: »

Wow, I'm now just trying to imagine my partner trying to get that clingfilm off her car should this happen and I wasn't with her, especially since that bay only has wheelchair access down one side.

I hope whoever did that got arrested.

mcculloch29

On the old BBC Ouch! forums disabled parking was one of THE most contentious topics.. so no surprises to me here. I'm disabled, in receipt of higher rate mobility which automatically entitles me to a blue badge. I've never bothered applying for one up to now, as I can walk about 50 yards, though in pain and very slowly.

As I don't drive - though family members do - it wasn't much of an inconvenience, plus I knew I was leaving a bay free for someone who really needed it. Or so I kidded myself.

Then I started to notice who was using the disabled bays. Yes, not all disabilities are visible, but limping past many people with no apparent disability parked conveniently close to the supermarket doors, when we were at the other end of the car park really cheesed me off.

I've just downloaded the application form for a badge. My disability is very, very visible so nobody will ever challenge me. I would never challenge anyone else verbally, however, as an outwardly physically fit mental health service user who is a blue badge holder definitely doesn't need the aggro, and I wouldn't want to be the one to upset them.

My late Dad was a blue badge holder who had worked as a haulage contractor and suffered at the hands of traffic wardens prior to his disability. One of the joys of his later life was to watch traffic wardens scampering up as he parked in a semi-restricted area, only for them to screech to a halt as they spotted his badge...

split_second

Lum wrote: »

It's actually really hard to get a blue badge, by honest means at least.

Maybe we should just buy one of the dodgy ones?

apparently they have some sort of coding on to show the year of birth of the badge holder

not sure if thats true though

sunnyone

split_second wrote: »

apparently they have some sort of coding on to show the year of birth of the badge holder

not sure if thats true though

They also contain the sex of the badge holderalongside the year of birth.