To drive with my baby not strapped in and park in a disabled bay without a badge?

[BumpPower]

Ok hopefully you'll find this isn't as bad as it sounds but I'm still feeling a little stressed and keen to know if I could have done better. Return to car park, in pouring rain, with 2yr old and baby. Person next to me has parked legally within their space but too close for me to get the door open enough to put baby in. Baby was already in car seat attached to pram. I lifted the car seat over the toddler's seat and into place (toddler makes a break for it and has to be chased dowb) but we dont have isofix and it was impossible to strapthe seatbelt across it from the front seat (I did try). So I drove my car with baby strapped into seat but seat not strapped into car 20metres or so to a disabled bay (rest of car park was full) then opened the door and put everything right...
Am I U?

Yanbu but I'm sure someone will tell you differently

If that's the only option and you only took a minute, it's not so bad.

I don't think it was unreasonable given the options you were faced with at the time, I think I would have just pulled out of the space far enough to access the door then sorted it out though, rather than drive across the carpark/take the disabled space.

Why couldn't you have just pulled out of the space and strapped the seat in? Was the traffic in the car park really busy?

I would have just pulled out then done the seat personally

Sounds fine given the circumstances.

the bb bay is a re herring.
YABU for driving any where with the seat no fixed in

You could have strapped the baby into the front passenger seat until you had moved to another space.

You obviously were itching to come and post this.

I disagree - assuming worst case and you were hit by another car in the car park - if you put the seat in the front without disabling the airbag, the injury would likely be worse (high impact from the airbag) than if it slid across the back seat unsecured.
I would have done the same as OP.

The title makes it seem worse than what you described. Bit of a non issue really! Next time you could just pull the car back far enough to get the kids in rather than risk a fine in a disabled bay

Total non-event.

I disagree - assuming worst case and you were hit by another car in the car park - if you put the seat in the front without disabling the airbag, the injury would likely be worse (high impact from the airbag) than if it slid across the back seat unsecured.

That's such a false comparison of risk. Disabling the air bag takes about three seconds on most cars. A baby strapped into a seat with the airbag disabled is hugely safer than rolling around the back seat.

As a disabled person with blue badge I'd say YANBU. You acted to ensure your DCs safety. I don't think pulling out in a car park then getting out and securing them would have been nearly as safe.

Why would you post this?
You clearly think it was fine.

Personally, I think it was low risk - not likely to be hit at speed.
I wouldn't have done it though as it's a pointless risk even if small.

• baby in front seat
• baby in back, pull out enough to strap in
• surely you actually could have done the seatbelt? How did you do the toddler? I cannot imagine that you couldn't have leaned far enough between the two front seats

I thought this was a goady title to talk about something other than the referendum

It's not so bad, OP.

kondos in many way it was! Its an actually thing that happened and I was interested what others thought but I probably wouldn't have posted about such as non event on another day but today it seemed better than reading about doom and brexit gloom. Also it is worth getting other people's ideas. I had no idea turning a front airbag off was easy task purple daisies. How do you do it?
I drive an estate so pulling forwards enough to access the door would have blocked the car park so I didn't want to risk it.

You can turn off the airbag in some cars, but certainly not all.