What's the law. Disabled bay.

Half_way

There is no law as such with regards to disbaled bays, or gimmick bays such as parent and child, dog walkers and owner bays, and so on.

In the  case of car parks, the owner of the car park will have to make "reasonable" adjustments to cater for people with protected characterisitics, something more comonly known as a disability.

 not all disabilitys are obvious, and even some of the disabilitys  that you may have though are obvious may pressnt themselves differntly Reasonable adjustments will also be required for passengers .

 To add to all of that not everyone who has a "protected characteristic" ( ie long term disability) and will need to use disabled bay provision will possess a blue badge, for multiple reasons - such as difficulty in fillling in the paperwork to get one, to pride , to its seen as giving in to the disability , to only having a few bad days every now and again, and so on.

And to muddy the waters even further a car park owner doesnt even have to provide disabled bays, other adjustments such as assitied ( manned) parking can be made where a person who requires an adjustment can be placed in a suitable area , parked across two bays and so on.

So in a nutshell if you see what you percieve to be abuse of a disabled bay, dont jump to conclusions

Coupon-mad

JIL said:

Misslayed said:

I have heart failure and my niece has stage four terminal cancer. We both have a blue badge. Neither of us 'look' disabled. 

I'm sorry to hear that. 

I honestly have never jumped to conclusions as to blue badges. 

This man definitely did not have a blue badge,

Nor did I when collecting my mum.

The blue badge scheme is not the only indicator of disability need. In my example, we were legally entitled to use an accessible bay (the Equality Act 2010 is the law that protected me and my Mum).

People usually use accessible bays for good reason, blue badge or not.

Actual abuse of them is rare and in my experience, often exaggerated by people making assumptions (as proven in the images of mostly-empty disabled bays, in the DLUHC call for evidence thread).  Also misunderstandings arise due to people who don't know what invisible disability is and just look for a blue badge, which doesn't even apply on private land, strictly speaking.

The guy may well have been waiting for a disabled person (we just don't know and can't assume) so I wouldn't have given him a second look.

1505grandad

"So in a nutshell if you see what you percieve to be abuse of a disabled bay, dont jump to conclusions"

When I have to use the accessibility facilities (RADAR key, bay etc) the rare utterances are usually made by wheelchair users/carers, obviously think they are the only ones entitled. If they become too vocal I have no hesitation in showing why I need the facility. Can be rather embarrassing (for them) if I have not yet attended to the emergency.

JIL

To be clear, I didn't look or engage with this man.  I came out of the shop pushing a heavy trolley, I went past the front of his car.

I probably looked up, and that's when he started shouting at me, saying he was waiting for someone, he wasnt parked, his engine was running, he was in the car. 
I then had to return the trolley to the trolley bay, where he started shouting again.

I'm sure if he was waiting for a disabled person he would have made this known, as  he covered that I didnt know what he did for a living and he had a low emission car. As well as saying I was a nosey lady.


I didn't actually engage with him, I couldn't see the point. He was obviously having a bad day, but his insistence that he was not parked made me ponder as to can you wait in a disabled bay? 

Coupon-mad

Yes and no.

Morally no.  And idling is pretty much the same as 'parked'.

Bottom line: 

It's private land and that's very different from the rules on-street.  The only applicable law is the Equality Act 2010, although parking firms are about to become regulated to stop their aggressive tricks so the Parking (Code of Practice) Act 2019 will apply next year.

But that law is rightly designed to curb the bad behaviour of parking firms, not drivers. 

35har1old

unforeseen said:

born_again said:

What is the law on engine idling UK?

Vehicle idling is an offence against the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (England) Regulations 2002. The law states that is an offence to idle your engine unnecessarily when stationary. If you fail to turn your engine off after being spoken to you may be issued with a fixed penalty notice.

Broke that one...

On private land? 

You quoting the road traffic act does it apply in a private car park?

fisherjim

35har1old said:

unforeseen said:

born_again said:

What is the law on engine idling UK?

Vehicle idling is an offence against the Road Traffic (Vehicle Emissions) (Fixed Penalty) (England) Regulations 2002. The law states that is an offence to idle your engine unnecessarily when stationary. If you fail to turn your engine off after being spoken to you may be issued with a fixed penalty notice.

Broke that one...

On private land? 

You quoting the road traffic act does it apply in a private car park?

No just someone jumping in with an irrelevant comment!