blue badge and police officers

Richie-from-the-Boro

dave030445 wrote: »

Talking only about a obstruction point. how can my car parked there for 20 mins be more of a obstruction then a large lorry 3 times my length and alot wider parked there loading/ unloading for 30/40 mins. the answer is neither are causing an obstruction that's why the council allow it to happen. So why is one allowed and one isn't It was just a job worth copper.

Dave, because the police person decided in favour of the lorry and against the 'jobsworth' blue badge holder. You were offered a simple choice, stop causing an obstruction [on a public highway], move your vehicle or the vehicle causing the obstruction would be removed [at your cost + storage] and you would be charged with an offence of obstruction, with costs if found guilty. In fact if you refused the police request, you could be charged with 'unnecessary and wilful obstruction' which also carries a fine level of 3.

Its an offence regardless of the council, the yellow lines, or even the Blue Badge, the offence is : No person in charge of a motor vehicle or trailer shall cause or permit the vehicle to stand on a road so as to cause any unnecessary obstruction of the road (regulation 103 of the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986). What constitutes obstruction, is decided, quite properly, by the police person. Parking the same car, the same driver, the same blue badge, the same day, the same road, the same place, at the same time might be considered not causing an obstruction because there was no lorry needing your exact space offload to local businesses.

We the public, task the police force to make judgements on our behalf, we want them to make that judgement 'in real time' - 10 minutes earlier or 10 minutes later and no judgement needed to be made - you forced the judgement by refusing a polite request and turning it into an adversarial contest between a blue badge warrior and the law - a contest you were only ever going to lose my friend.

markmarkmark

This has got to be one of the most ridiculous threads ever to have appeared here - "I don't have to pay attention to a police officer because I have a blue badge!"... laughable.

tomtom256

dave030445 wrote: »

Talking only about a obstruction point. how can my car parked there for 20 mins be more of a obstruction then a large lorry 3 times my length and alot wider parked there loading/ unloading for 30/40 mins. the answer is neither are causing an obstruction that's why the council allow it to happen. So why is one allowed and one isn't It was just a job worth copper.

I see you have failed to answer if it's your blue badge and if you were sat in the car using it!

It's also funny that the copper is the jobsworth, when in reality you appear to a jobsworth blue badge holder who believes it is your inherent right to park were you like.

Yes I am a blue badge holder before people accuse me of bashing the disabled. I have never used it to park on yellow lines as there is ample on and off street parking in the area I live and places I visit.

Although my local council is one that doesn't allow yellow line parking, but many do it anyway and I always have to shake my head as they park on bends/junctions and even in area's signed no stopping at anytime. No one ever seems to ticket them though.

No wonder people are fed up with blue badge abuse and this thread appears to some up that certain people do just take the mick with them.

FBaby

Why were you parked there for? A delivery lorry has a good reason.

dave030445

FBaby wrote: »

Why were you parked there for? A delivery lorry has a good reason.

So because he had a good reason to be there he is not a obstruction.
I had a very good reason for being there to. So thanks FBaby you to see that i wasn't causing obstruction. Because I had a good reason not that the jobsworth copper asked.

Richie-from-the-Boro

dave030445 wrote: »

So because he had a good reason to be there he is not a obstruction.
I had a very good reason for being there to. So thanks FBaby you to see that i wasn't causing obstruction. Because I had a good reason not that the jobsworth copper asked.

Dave,

Making decisions, on our own, and being responsible for them, is at the heart this issue. As we get older or ill with certain diseases our decision-making can becomes impaired. Dave you made a very poor judgement, you had choices and would have pre-known the outcome of refusing a request to move by the police but went ahead anyway. Compound that by this now long thread that should have made you aware that you made a mistake, a rational person would have seen that as an obvious mistake and a lucky escape.

Enlightened by those here telling you that you were wrong should have led to a reconsideration of your actions on that day and perhaps a change in your behaviour. Yet you seem to be become overwhelmed with a need to compound your mistake and bad judgement by continuing to believe it was someone else's fault and that you were being persecuted by a nasty police person. An important issue here is not the blue badge, or the obstruction offence, or even the refusal to obey an officer of the law - but a more fundamental issue - should you continue to be allowed to be in charge of a two ton killing machine - a car ?

You might want to reflect on the above Dave - best of luck my friend.

Errata

dave030445 wrote: »

So because he had a good reason to be there he is not a obstruction.
I had a very good reason for being there to. So thanks FBaby you to see that i wasn't causing obstruction. Because I had a good reason not that the jobsworth copper asked.

If a copper tells you to shift, you shift. He's not ordering you to shift for his own amusement, or because he had row with the wife before starting work, or because he wants the space for his mum's motability car.
Seems to me you'd rather be miserable than wrong.

Enterprise_1701C

We run a business. We have previously come across a car with a blue badge in it parked across access to a company that we need to get to. There was no-one in the vehicle so we had to park half a mile away, they had parking behind the building but this vehicle was parked in such a way as we could not access it, an ordinary car may have been able to (just), but we have a van. Having parked half a mile away we then had to lug heavy equipment to the company. We then had to lug it back to the van because the vehicle was there still when we finished. This added a substantial amount of time to the job we were doing, which meant we could not finish the next job that day (company closed at 5:30 with no exceptions), which meant me had to cancel a job we had on the next morning which meant we lost money.

We don't know what happened to the vehicle, the company we were working at took the details and were about to arrange to have it towed by the time we left, they needed that access.

Having a blue badge does not remove the need to use common sense, parking in the wrong place does have consequences for other people too. More and more the attitude of blue badge holders is that they have the right to park anywhere at any time, that has to stop or the backlash will come and it won't be pretty.

Poppie68

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

Having a blue badge does not remove the need to use common sense, parking in the wrong place does have consequences for other people too. More and more the attitude of blue badge holders is that they have the right to park anywhere at any time, that has to stop or the backlash will come and it won't be pretty.

'The backlash will come and it won't be pretty'???

I find your above statement rather interesting regarding the attitude of bb holders as you seem to have insider knowledge of a secret survey completed on bb holders declining attitude and their riding roughshod over British roads.

Could you please signpost me to this survey?
With regards to the car in your story... Was it parked in such away that caused a general obstruction or was it just that you wanted to park there and your van wouldn't fit in the space left...if they weren't parked there and you were surely you would of caused an obstruction? Same goes for the business owners seems they too suffer from parking envy...

I'm also sure if there were no 'No parking' signs displayed and the bb holder was parked without causing general obstruction the business owners would have a date with the court and compensation to pay out...parking envy is not a valid defence...

Mojisola

Enterprise_1701C wrote: »

Having a blue badge does not remove the need to use common sense, parking in the wrong place does have consequences for other people too.

We sat in traffic jam for ages last summer in a seaside town because a BB holder had parked on a bend on double yellow lines on a narrow road - totally irresponsible!