Rant alert - - disabled parking badges

[slobodan]

They should have 'disabled' supermarkets.
All disabled friendly.
No able bodied people allowed.
The parking would all be the same, except for those that pay for 'Priority' parking.

[flounderbout]

last week a newish BMW 320 alloyed etc parked in a similar spot perfectly healthy young mum gets in disabled badge on display.

Five years ago I would have agreed wholeheartedly with you.

My perspective is rather different now.

My wife has a congenital hip disorder which is normally simple to correct when an infant, but which went undiagnosed for 17 years, meaning that at the age of 32 she has now had 7 major hip replacements, removals and re-replacements as well as a reconstructed pelvis. Meanwhile the failure of one of the replacements has left her with a heavy metal content in her blood about 40 times the safe limit for workers in heavy metal factories, the effects of which are wholly unknown. She has probably spent about two solid years in hospital during the last 15 years or so. Sometimes she is wheelchair-bound, sometimes she walks with crutches or a stick, and sometimes, when times are good, she can walk unassisted. Since she has learnt to compensate for the pain in her hips since she was a toddler, her limp is usually hard to spot, except when the pain is especially bad. But she cannot walk more than a few hundred yards, and if she has to walk even that far she will pay for it over the next week.

Funnily enough she can still ride, which she loves, and that helps her posture, though it can be painful. But she knows that even a relatively innocuous fall could well put her in a wheelchair for good, though she doesn't let that stop her one of the few activities which she can still do and loves, which is either very brave or very stupid, depending on your perspective.

She has a blue badge, and needs one. Apart from a small grant from Motability (the charity) to help towards the additional costs of having to use a car for virtually all transport, this is her only "benefit" - she works a 60 - 80 hour week, made additionally difficult by her lack of mobility.

The usual response people have to seeing her park in a disabled spot with blue badge on full view (either with or without me), is that they look up and down her, and then give her a look of contempt and often derogatory comments or even downright abuse.

Why? Because she is young, and (dare I say it) pretty. And everybody knows that people who are young and pretty can't be disabled. Disabled people are old and/or ugly and probably ought to be in a wheelchair to make it 100% clear. Young pretty people who limp must have hurt themselves playing tennis or skiing.

On one recent occasion a bloke in a BMW refused to move his (blue badge-less) car from the disabled spot Jessie needed to use to get to the shops, on the ground that she "didn't look very disabled to me". She had to come home, in predictable floods of tears.

If I had found that bloke that afternoon, I would quite happily have taken a chainsaw to his BMW, followed by his ignorant and smug fecking face.

The point of this lengthy and emotive rant is that while able bodied people who out of pure indolence or arrogance take advantage of disabled parking are beneath contempt (John Terry in the Bentley/Pizza Express episode is probably the prime example), you absolutely cannot judge the position from "how disabled they look". Our prejudices about how disabled people ought to look are deep-seated, and utterly misleading. And when you are in fact disabled, peoples' assumption that you can't be because you look young and healthy only adds to the horrible sense of unfairness that arises out of being disabled when you are otherwise young and healthy.

I am not criticising people who see apparently healthy people or young people and think they can't be disabled. It is what we assume as a society, and as I said it is what I would have assumed not so long ago. Indeed I had no idea of the extent of my wife's disability when I first met her - I just thought she was pretty accident prone though because whenever I saw her she always seemed to be on crutches. But now I am pretty slow to assume anything based on appearances.

There endeth the rant. Apologies.

[flounderbout]

On the same subject, It has often occurred to me that an alien spaceship visiting earth , and choosing to land in a supermarket or shopping centre car park, would get the impression that we were in a right state. The number of disabled parking spaces as a percentage of the total available makes us look like a nation that has just emerged from years of war.

There does seem to be a disproportionately high number of disabled spaces in supermarket car parks. I assume it is some absurd council/planning directive. It is even more absurd when considering that virtually all supermarket spaces are usually reasonably accessible to the store.

On the other hand, try finding a disabled spot which provides reasonable access to shops on your average high street, and you'll be there all week (or at least until the other disabled person finishes their shopping).

[Vultch]

If your genuinely ill or disabled my heart goes out to you...

These characters today ran in heavy rain. if they could do that they could run the extra 30m to a normal space.
Its when people like your male BMW driver park in a disabled spot, or when the blue badge is abused for parking leaving those who genuinely need a disabled spot i get ####ed.

How do you police the issue

Perhaps its this part of the world... a year ago.. I had a accident (my first in yrs) and it was my fault. I reversed the Surf into a parked car in my shared drive.
I immediately got out found the driver and apologised my insurance paid out I admitted it was my fault.

Later on I found out the car was registered disabled (DLA car)and being used illegally as a car for a small cleaning business to carry the cleaners (able bodied) to their customers.

[slobodan]

The trolley collectors should be trained to give a thorough medical to anybody found parking in a disabled bay!

[flounderbout]

How do you police the issue

It is a weird one, because the people who are being so offensive are doing so out of the best of motives - i.e. they think they are helping disabled people. They just don't realise that their assumptions may be completely wrong, and therefore their actions may be really hurtful.

I suppose the answer is that we need to change how society perceives disability by trying to make it less of a taboo topic - c.f. that episode when loads of parents objected to the presenter on children's TV who only had one arm in case she "frightened" their children. I mean WTF? Can you imagine how that poor girl felt?

I guess you just have to try and put in place a rigorous vetting system for giving blue badges at the outset, and then try and clamp down on forgeries, and misuse by relations etc by on the spot checks. Yet such checks would have to be handled pretty sensitively.

There is a very funny Michael McIntyre sketch about the whole disabled spot thing - I have been trying to find it on YouTube but without luck - essentially the gag is that we aren't happy unless someone in a disabled spot crawls out of their car and falls flat on the floor...

[flounderbout]

The trolley collectors should be trained to give a thorough medical to anybody found parking in a disabled bay!

If I find you disguised as a trolley collector in my local supermarket trying to feel up my wife, there'll be trouble...

[slobodan]

If I find you disguised as a trolley collector in my local supermarket trying to feel up my wife, there'll be trouble...

When are you collecting the'thing'.
I'm welsh for the next few weeks and I want to see it?

Baaaa

[flounderbout]

When are you collecting the'thing'.
I'm welsh for the next few weeks and I want to see it?

Baaaa

Pop round and ask ! The boss has dropped under the radar. I'm guessing that he is either a) polishing ready to go this weekend, b) wiring and not ready to go this weekend, or c) wondering how to tell me that it's been nicked from his garage...

[dieselboy]

Can anybody explain the criterion for getting a Disabled parking badge

Today I witnessed a fit and healthy young guy plus teenage son run to their car in the rain with no disability evident, parked in the disabled space with badge on display.
last week a newish BMW 320 alloyed etc parked in a similar spot perfectly healthy young mum gets in disabled badge on display.

A few months ago I spotted a genuinely disabled person in an adapted vehicle, wheel chair bound who could not park because the spaces were full of un modded cars all displaying badges.

Have you no thought that she may be disabled in other ways? Numerous times we have been the object of agressive elderly people and clearly handicapped people when rightfully using a disabled bay. My mum was involved in a serious car accident which has left her disabled for life. To look at her you would not know this, only looking at the scars and medical reports and knock on conditions by trying to live a fully abled life that you would know different.

Some people come across badges and use them. Some people disregard bays and use them e.g. the local Ice Cream man and shool-run-mums who inhibit people getting home. They can be quite agressive when you kindly point out that they are illegally parked and preventing someone from getting home. But it's no problem as they do the same in the afternoon, too.

[Vultch]

As I said before...my sympathies to those injured and genuinely disabled, but what is the definition need for a parking badge ...who gets priority for a space when a wheelchair user comes up to park

[dieselboy]

Perhaps its this part of the world... a year ago.. I had a accident (my first in yrs) and it was my fault. I reversed the Surf into a parked car in my shared drive.
I immediately got out found the driver and apologised my insurance paid out I admitted it was my fault.

Later on I found out the car was registered disabled (DLA car)and being used illegally as a car for a small cleaning business to carry the cleaners (able bodied) to their customers.

May be could have contested that insurance claim. If they were not parked illegally, you would not have collided with them.

[Vultch]

I only found out after the incident had been settled, she was running a house cleaning business using the DLA car... thou it was her daughter who was disabled

[dieselboy]

As I said before...my sympathies to those injured and genuinely disabled, but what is the definition need for a parking badge ...who gets priority for a space when a wheelchair user comes up to park

I think someone had the idea "how do you police it?".

People should just feel disgraceful enough when the thought comes to mind that they should not abuse it. Why would anyone want to pose as a handicapped person?

[slobodan]

Why would anyone want to pose as a handicapped person?

Try working in convenience stores in London.

Or try parking near one.