Parking fine from UKPC (private company - not local authority!)

tbw

uktyler wrote: »

Why does the wife need to go shopping?

If you think its acceptable in supermarket car parks, how about in towns, or outside the post office?

Or are you too worried about getting a ticket that can actually be enforced?

Blue badges are available to people that need them. The spaces are for people who have been assesed as in need by medical professionals, not by the driver. If I have a hangover, or a twisted ankle, do I have the right to park in a disabled spot at a supermarket?

My point is that is is not the drivers decision as to weather they are eligible for a disabled parking spot or not.

1. Its up to the wife if she wants to go shopping, not up to you to say she shouldn't

2. My earlier posts made it quite clear that my comments related ONLY to supermarket car parks.

3. I'm not worried about getting a ticket anywhere - if I NEED a disabled space for whatever reason in a supermarket car park I will get permission from CS .

4. Blue badges are abused frequently by the able bodied driver who does not need to use a disabled space because the disabled badge holder is not taken out of the vehicle (and sometimes is not even in the car!). I'm all for restricting the badge use to those who need them.

5. If you have an ankle injury that makes it very difficult for you to walk and you need to visit a supermarket then you will presumably have somebody driving you and able to push you in a wheelchair round the shop . Once they have cleared it with CS then yes, you could use a disabled space. If you are going to sit on your butt in the car while your driver does the shopping, then no, you should park elsewhere.

6. Common sense appears to be in short supply !

7. I'm off to Spain in an hour so don't really much care if you want to go on flogging this dead horse!

BFG_2

uktyler wrote: »

All that will happen now is the supermarkets will have to employ clamping/towing firms to keep the spaces clear for their customers.

#No they won't................because

1. Clamping and towing are pretty much illegal nowadays
2. It would cost them money
3. It would !!!! off lots of people [and their wallets!!!]

BFG_2

roddydogs wrote: »

At our "ASDA" they patrol the Dis Bay spaces and call out over the Tannoy to anyone without a badge.

I thinbk you'll find that everyone just ignores the tannoy, so it's pointless......

Consider.....you've parked in a Disabled bay with no badge, you hear your number plate being called over the tannoy, do you...

A . stop shopping, go to customer services and be told off, then go and move your car, then come back and continue shopping or....

B. ignore the tannoy and continue shopping without a care in the world...

Most people choose option B

BFG_2

tbw wrote: »

..... just because you have a disabled badge on your car should not mean you can park in a disabled space ....

I think this is the biggest cause of the loss of respect for the bays is the number of people who got them for their granny and then use them for their own personal benefit.

I don't need a lecture about how 'you don't have to be in a wheelchair to be disabled' or 'you can't tell if someone is disabled just by looking at them getting out of their car'.

Has anyone any stats on the misuse of the badges??

BFG_2

from approx Jan 2008
New measures to tackle disabled parking fraud will be announced today after growing evidence that the system is too vulnerable to abuse.

The Department for Transport is expected to tighten the eligibility criteria and to make it harder to forge blue badges. Local authorities estimate that up to half of blue badges are being used fraudulently, with the most common cases involving a driver illegally using a badge owned by a relative.
This is hard to detect because an authority must prove that the driver was not picking up or dropping off the relative. But yesterday, Wandsworth council in South London successfully prosecuted a solicitor after using a video surveillance team to monitor his movements.

Mohammed Lodhi, who was a partner at A to Z Law Services in Balham High Road, was given a three-month suspended jail sentence, fined £1,000, told to pay £1,989 in costs and ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid community service.
He had pleaded guilty to seven offences relating to blue badge abuse after being caught using his disabled wife’s badge to park free of charge in designated disabled parking bays while working at his firm’s offices.
He was covertly filmed on six separate days using the badge. At no time was he accompanied by his wife.
When interviewed on tape, he denied any misuse of the badge and claimed that he only used it when travelling with his wife. He elected to have the fraud offences heard at the Crown Court but, when he appeared, pleaded guilty to all charges.
Guy Senior, the council’s transport spokesman, said: “People like Mr Lodhi who manipulate and abuse the system should expect no mercy from this council or the courts.
“Our team of investigators has successfully prosecuted more than 700 parking cheats whose selfish and illegal behaviour deprives genuinely disabled people from parking spaces and brings the whole blue badge scheme into disrepute.”

Wandsworth’s investigators found that two thirds of blue badge misuse was by friends or relatives of the badge holder. Many of the remaining incidents involved stolen badges, which sell on the black market for up to £500.

The investigators uncovered a number of drivers using computer-scanned copies of genuine badges and others who had altered the expiry date or were using badges belonging to people who had died.
Last year, the DfT announced that it was redesigning the badge and adding a holo-gram to make it harder to forge.

In 2006, traffic wardens gained special powers to challenge drivers using disabled-parking badges.
Drivers are obliged to hand over badges for inspection and give an explanation if the disabled person is not present.
The rear of the badge, which cannot be seen from outside the car, contains the holder’s photograph, name and address.
There are more than 2.5 million blue badges in circulation. They can be used in any vehicle transporting or collecting the badge-holder.
Mobilise, a charity for disabled drivers and passengers, has urged the Government to tighten the procedure for issuing badges.
Local authorities rely on a GP’s judgment of whether an individual is eligible, but doctors come under pressure from patients to recommend them for a badge.
The rules state that, to qualify, a person must have a “permanent and substantial disability which causes inability to walk or have considerable difficulty in walking”.
Mobilise wants badges to be issued by a dedicated central authority after the applicant has seen an independent occupational therapist.

marleyboy

People without a Blue Parking badge, should NOT park in a blue badge parking bay, regardless of their reasons, One persons reason is another's excuse.

If people don't like the rules and regulations regarding blue badge permits, they should take it up with the council not the legitimate users of parking badges. Whom, whether you like it or not, HAVE entitlement to the bay, unlike those without a badge who have NO entitlement (whether or not they broke their leg). If someone is struggling for whatever reason due to a disability that requires they use a blue badge bay, they FIRST should ask for a badge, however temporary.

That Badge abuse does go on, is no reason to excuse a non badge holder for using such bays. It's a pretty weak argument for them to use for having done so.

Badges are issued to the person WITH the disability, not the driver, so if it is being misused by someone else, unless the badge is reported stolen, it should be revoked.

The rules are basically really simple, No Blue Badge means you cannot park in a Blue Badge Bay, regardless of why you think you can. If people cant follow such basic and simple rules as that, I question whether they are fit to drive.

BFG_2

uktyler wrote: »

1. Clamping is illegal in Scotland, not in England.

1. I know, that's why I said 'is pretty much illegal' [as opposed to 'is illegal']....lol.I
The reality is that very few reputable companies are now using clamping; I don't believe any of the supermarket chains are doing so, so in essence it's stopped [wrt this thread and esp blue badge spaces anyway].

IIRC it's because it's such a difficult thing to do in a legal manner.....without being sued by the clampee. Also clampers now need to be registered etc and thats more hassle than its worth for many firms so instead they fell back onto sending out the private parking tickets [after getting the addresses from the DVLA].

BFG_2

Bizarrely I don't park in Blue badge slots, but occasionally use the Kids spaces..............not sure why I don't feel guilty, but there you go.

BFG_2

"Local authorities estimate that up to half of blue badges are being used fraudulently,....."

sarahg1969

"Even though she has to park on the other side of the car park, struggle to get a toddler out of the car without damaging the car next door, and guide her kids across a busy car park?"

I've never really bothered with P&C spaces, even with 3 children (two of them under 18 months at one time) and a people carrier. I don't really understand this whole "struggle" thing.

I'd personally never use a disabled space, but I'm pretty sure that a supermarket manager wouldn't begrudge a valued customer with a temporary illness or disability (causing a mobility problem) using one of those spaces. After all, how many people who actually have blue badges REALLY need to use one at the supermarket? At least some of them must be able to manage that few extra feet and a normal-width spaces, but use the disabled bay because it's their right (I know my gran doesn't use them at the supermarket). They too should think about people who need them.