I don't even use the Family parking unless I have my boy with me, yet the number of people who take advantage of them because they have a car seat visible is commonplace too. Both situations almost rank up there with cyclists who treat pedestrians with bugger all respect. Not quite, but almost.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
Saturday Observation
Why is it that in supermarket car parks they have Disabled bays but don't enforce them? I'm not disabled, so I don't use them, but it never ceases to amaze me when I see some guy turn up in a sports car and park in them without a care in the world. What's the point of having them if the supermarket is going to let anyone park in them?
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33 comments:
Mostly 4x4 drivers who haven't got the skills to park in normal sized parking bays.
I can sympathise a bit with the rogue parkers as the number of spaces allocated to disabled parkers is usually grossly overdone.
My local council owned gym has eight places - I've never seen more than one legitimately used. The gym also has a Braille notice on each door. In my seven years as a member I've never seen a blind person on the premises.
It's the politically correct brigade's way of easing the guilt they feel for being able bodied.
Dizzy
I once used to believe that it should be legal to smash the windscreen of the car wrongly parked in the disabled spot.
Growing older, and grumpier, I now believe it should be illegal not to smash the windscreen.
SP
Symptomatic of the general collapse in standards of behaviour, alas. The French put up signs at disabled parking bays with something along these lines - 'If you take my place, feel free to take my disability too'.
They have them because the council/planners tell them to. They don't enforce them bvecause they don't want to lose customers. They won't lose the custom of disabled drivers because even parking elsewhere in the supermarket car park is more convenient than negotiating the High Street. Thinking about it, they may be a couple of yards closer to the supermarket, but that is pretty pointless when the average supermarket expedition involves walking hundreds of yards. They would be better off using the home shopping service.
RANT: because my dear dizzy the supermarkets are too timid to enforce the disabled parking restrictions. I will be perfectly happy to donate a wheel clamp to my local Tescos (not that they couldn't to afford to purchase one myself) but they will be too bloody frightened of actually attaching the thing to a car .. (no joke .. I did suggest this but was told that due to "legal reasons" they couldn't do it) ..
The last time I asked someone to move for being in a disabled spot I was told to "Fuck off you cunt...." I suspect that BendyGirls experience probably mirrors mine
When I see someone doing this in a sports car, I wonder if I would be as enraged if they were driving a clapped out old banger.
While I'd never use a disabled space unless I was taking my nan shopping (she has a badge thingy) - I'm buggered if I'm going to walk 1/2 mile to Sainsburys just because I was careless enough not to have any sprogs. I already subsidize every other buggers children from my taxes, screw giving them any more advantages!
Zorro
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Depends on the retailer Dizzy, ASDA are starting to 'fine' recalcitrants at £60 a shot!
Perhaps they don't need to enforce them.
If the level of compliance doesn't have to be 100%, provided non-compliance isn't excessive enforcement would just be a waste of time and resources.
Dizzy, this is the private sector, where they do what they want to do and you have the right to decide not to shop there. So don't if you don't like it. And of course you have the right to tell others that they don't make their customers keep to the rules - i.e. you can name and shame. It only gets really serious when we have to name and shame the public sector (which you do so well).
Not sure how to deal with the cyclists but it is extremely satisfying to put a sticker on the offending windscreen saying:
"Not disabled, just pig ignorant"
Even if the boy racers can't read they can guarantee plenty of knowing grins from all the passers-by
Someone mentioned that at the supermarket where he worked they put the Parent & Child spaces well away from the store so people are not tempted to pinch the spaces. Seemed a good idea as they are only there to allow more room to open the doors so they do not need to be need the store like disabled spaces.
John Terry doesn't rate the bays either.... A character flaw which proves he shouldn't be the England captain.
The world is full mof barstewards, drug dealers thieves toss pot wankers.
Normally you can avoid such people. But they have to eat, so the most likely place you will meet them is the supermarket.
I am constantly amazed there are not more murders in supermarket car parks.
I have never used a disabled space since I saw this poster, maybe 15 or 20 years ago:
"Is this the only time you would take their place?"
Made me think.
Tesco used to be particularly bad for this.
Maybe because the requirement is an "official" one, but the actual NEED is much less.
I DO park in disabled bays late in the evening when they are all EMPTY but the rest of the car park is quite stuffed.
I don't mind getting in the way of the legal requirement (the theory), though I strenuously avoid getting in the way of actual disabled people when they are in need (the practise).
It is a very rare thing to see all the disabled bays in use at any supermarket anytime.
So to enforce something that is not needed would be stupid, no ?
Alan Douglas
Why should people who don't have a disability be discriminated against?
Rant!
So Alan Douglas .. you've parked in a disabled spot because all the car park is "stuffed". Hey along comes another person who has the same attitude and another. Finally a disabled person comes along and guess what? All the spaces are taken by arseholes like you.
I get irritated when I see disabled spaces being taken by the 'walking disabled' - folk who appear to be able to walk just fine with a stick or with a bit of a limp - especially when there are normal parking bays available just a few feet away.
If the disabled bays are fully occupied by such people - and, believe me, they often are at my local store - it means a wheelchair user has a real problem. It's not the proximity to the store that's key, but the width of the bay. Try getting a wheelchair alongside a parked car in a normal width bay. The 'walking disabled' can normally cope with a standard bay, whereas a wheelchair user cannot.
I always use disabled and mothers spaces for one simple reason.My car will not get dented,simple as that.
Mike h .. so you are going to set up checkpoints on each disabled space: "mmm let me see .. double amputee..but can walk..Sorry move on please. Can't park here" ? Or the person crippled with arthritis who can walk but every step burns their hips?
Unixman - who mentioned checkpoints or double amputees for that matter? I merely suggested that those who *are* capable of using a nearby vacant standard bay should use it in preference to taking a wide bay, the continued availability of which might otherwise benefit those who don't have that flexibility of choice.
It's not a difficult concept to understand, is it?
Anon 18:21 "My car will not get dented, simple as that".
Let's hope that your despicable selfishness isn't rewarded by you, at some time in the future, having to rely on disabled parking spaces because of a genuine need.
Oh stop being patronising and facetious. Obviously being disabled is a concept way beyond your limited blinkered view. Just because some one can walk doesn't mean that they shouldn't use a disabled bay. I am an above knee amputee and have got severe arthritis in the other hip. I can walk BUT IT FUCKING HURTS. Or is that a concept you can't grasp? The fact that using a disabled bay normally means I have to walk shorter distances. Or is that a point too otiose for you?
'Anonymous' makes the best point - supermarket car park spaces are pathetically small. Make em a proper size and ypu have no excuse for not parking anywhere.
Given the ever growing size of cars our parking places are just plain too small.
Unixman, if I use a disabled spot at twenty minutes to eight, out of twelve empty ones, 20 mins before closing time, it would take the last supper re-run to cause the problem you accuse me of creating. I made the point very clearly that I don't mind getting in the way of RULES, but would avoid getting in the way of actual NEED, at the TIME when it is NEEDED.
It is not I who is the arsehole, which I think is neatly proved by your other intemperate posts.
Just to really get you going, here is my favourite graffiti, on a railway arch in Willesden :
"Socialism is the idolatry of the superfluous"
Alan Douglas
You really really are barking up the wrong tree... As dizzy knows well I am a full paid up member of the Conservative party ...
And why the hell shouldn't I be intermperate when I come across such selfish self-centred people like you who haven't a clue.
Anonymous 21:36 said it well "Let's hope that your despicable selfishness isn't rewarded by you, at some time in the future, having to rely on disabled parking spaces because of a genuine need."
Anon 06/04 18:21
"I always use disabled and mothers spaces for one simple reason.My car will not get dented,simple as that."
It will when I take a fucking hammer to it. Having a fat arse and being a fucking lazy bastard is not a disability.
Unixman 21:53 "Obviously being disabled is a concept way beyond your limited blinkered view".
100% factually incorrect, Unixman. It is because my wife is very severely disabled, is unable to do anything for herself and is a full-time wheelchair user that the subject is close to my heart.
I'll have one more go at explaining my point of view.
If a person legitimately holds a blue badge they have every right to use disabled bays. However, I often see people park in our local disabled bays, display their badge, and then get out of their car in a very nimble fashion and walk apparently completely 'normally', even briskly, into the store.
They are entitled to use the space by virtue of being a badge holder, but I question their *need* to do so, especially when there are normal bays free that are no further from the door than the one in which they have parked.
They *could* use a normal bay at no apparent personal inconvenience. My wife does not have that option.
Here in France, if you park in a diabled bay without displaying a disabled badge, your car will be towed away.
Pity Tesco, Sainsburys et al haven't got the balls to do similar.
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