Hidden disabilities

[CoolCat]

There is a hierarchy for parking spaces. Parent and child, that's for anyone as far as I'm concerned. If you have trouble getting your kid out of the car then park further away. There are countries where people walk miles for water whilst pregnant, if you can't walk to the shops then you are too lazy to be pregnant.

Taxi spaces, that's for anyone, I often park in these for short periods.

Disabled spaces well that's for people that have disabilities, no discussion. I've seen work men park across these, generally just ignored by scum bags.

One thing I've noticed is that disabled spaces must be specific to certain countries. If you are at Piccadilly station in Manchester without fail you can see that people from certain countries just ignore the disabled parking spaces.

Re "if you can't walk to the shops then you are too lazy to be pregnant" not if you have a serious condition and you are also pregnant. In other countries such mothers and child would die. So on balance its easier to give all heavily pregnant women decent spaces.

[CoolCat]

In my local supermarket all the disabled spaces are taken up by expensive SUV's with no blue badge on them. Disabled spaces are just spaces for posh people to exclusively park up.

Same goes for Parent-Child spaces. Frequently abused and used by people who want to park as close to the entrance as possible. It seems there is a new breed of lazy feckers who cannot walk even a few yards.

Its partly because the normal sized spaces in many car parks not dont fit the average sized car.

Its partly because people learn and pass their test in a small hatchback, and then end up driving their partners 4 x 4 with no experience of how to handle such a big car.

And yes its partly because of a certain arrogance that some people have, usually the same people who regularly park on the zig zags outside schools to drop their kids off cos they firmly believe the rules dont apply to them. Indeed the same people can be seen in the first class carriages of trains putting their feet up on chairs, because they think they are so important that their feet dont count.

[CoolCat]

In my local supermarket all the disabled spaces are taken up by expensive SUV's with no blue badge on them. Disabled spaces are just spaces for posh people to exclusively park up.

Same goes for Parent-Child spaces. Frequently abused and used by people who want to park as close to the entrance as possible. It seems there is a new breed of lazy feckers who cannot walk even a few yards.

Child spaces are, or should be, because you simply need to be able to open the doors wider to get kids in and out of child seats. Normal width spaces dont work, especially if you are the only adult with kids, if you have another adult the kids can be moved before you move into the space.

[mattfx]

In my local supermarket all the disabled spaces are taken up by expensive SUV's with no blue badge on them. Disabled spaces are just spaces for posh people to exclusively park up.

Same goes for Parent-Child spaces. Frequently abused and used by people who want to park as close to the entrance as possible. It seems there is a new breed of lazy feckers who cannot walk even a few yards.

Or people with nice cars who don't want 1000 dents in their doors by parking next to careless morons in Hyundai I10's.

[woohoo]

Re "if you can't walk to the shops then you are too lazy to be pregnant" not if you have a serious condition and you are also pregnant. In other countries such mothers and child would die. So on balance its easier to give all heavily pregnant women decent spaces.

Hang on, if the condition is so serious that they could die from walking then they should have a disabled badge.

You tried to take a reasonable point from me and make it into something else.

[woohoo]

Child spaces are, or should be, because you simply need to be able to open the doors wider to get kids in and out of child seats. Normal width spaces dont work, especially if you are the only adult with kids, if you have another adult the kids can be moved before you move into the space.

Ok so put the child spaces at the back of the car park and not at the front. What about elderly people?

I've got a door on my car that is really difficult to open in tight spaces.

So perhaps we should make it the hard to open door spaces.

[Snarf]

My understanding was that the blue spaces are closer to the shop because they are for people who struggle to be mobile.

Yes and no.

They can also include people who would find it harder to navigate to the shop because of disability, for example you can be partially sighted and have a blue bade (Obviously to be used as a passenger) because you struggle to get across busy crossings in car parks and parking closer to the door would be a benefit to you.

Extending this to people with cognitive issues who would also struggle for similar reasons seems like good sense to me.

[Snarf]

Or people with nice cars who don't want 1000 dents in their doors by parking next to careless morons in Hyundai I10's.

Christ, if you dont want dents on your car DONT park in a parent and child space... have you seen kids opening car doors?

[BoredBloke]

One of the main benefits of disabled spaces is the extra space they provide. My son is blind and when he was little he put a dent in the car next to us when he flung open the door. All the disabled spots were full and I had to park in a normal one. In these cases I tell him not to open the door and wait for me to get it...just to stop accidents like this, but on this occasion I forgot. Personally I'm not fussed about the proximity to the door - but that's not the case for a lot of disabled.

It does bug the hell out of me when you see people abusing the parking spots. I pick my son up from Piccadilly in Manchester on a regular basis when he comes back from uni. There are 2 disabled spots in the drop off parking area and usually they are taken up with minibuses or flash cars without a blue badge. I've asked a couple of drivers if they want to swap their eyes for his blue badge but as yet I've had no takers.

[CoolCat]

Hang on, if the condition is so serious that they could die from walking then they should have a disabled badge.

You tried to take a reasonable point from me and make it into something else.

Yes but currently they don't get a badge for a serious but temporary condition. My missus was seriously ill in pregnancy, ended up with lots of extra medical staff to give birth, couldn't walk far the last few months of pregnancy, but you wouldn't have been able to tell just looking at her.