Disabled parking law wins backing

[Suedonim]

I thought people on the Special Needs thread might be interested in this news item about a disabled parking law in Scotland. It's shocking that such a law is even required but where Scotland goes, hopefully the rest of the UK will follow?

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Lets hope so. Scotland often lead but we rarely seem to follow. Hope I'm wrong.

I needed a disabled bay this week. Needed to get DD1's prescription. She was with me. Huge van parked in disabled bay. Short story is she wasn't disabled, didn't have a badge but refused to move. Nice!

I've got to be perfectly honest, I thought it was, if not illegal, then at least a 'fineable' offence to park in a disabled bay!
Am quite surprised to find out that it isn't, so fingers crossed it goes through...

Really, TC? Can you not call the police? Although if it's not an offence then maybe the police won't get involved? I hope the rest of the UK does follow suit, they seem to (slowly) be following Scotland's lead on breastfeeding in public.

Sadly true yes.

Well lets hope so, at tesco this evening there was 5 cars in the disabled bays and not one had a badge. If everyone that parks without a badge got a fine then they would soon stop.

Sorry to hear TC's story, glad to see Scotland leading the way on this.

I went to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich this weekend and it was very refreshing to see two roller bladers haranguing a woman who was about to park in a disabled space without any badge or clear indication of being disabled. They appeared to have taken it upon themselves to independently police the spaces . I would have congratulated them but was a bit busy with ds3.

our shopping centre harasses people at busy times across the tannoy if no badge

They ARE legally enforceable/fineable in England IF they are in a controlled parking area, i.e. an area with residents' parking, P&D, meters. So that is more and more areas as time goes on. Where we live we have a 24 hour number to ring if someone parks in a disabled bay without a permit. Not only will they get a ticket but they will get towed away ANY time of the day or night! Almost no-one does it so it works and I am all in favour of controlled parking apart from the fact that we live near a tube station, cinema and hospital! So before we had controlled parking it was a complete nightmare with or without a disabled badge. In shop car parks though it is different but I gather that lots of them are now starting to enforce quite strictly. TC, how horrible it is when that happens, don't people realise that its not nice and upsetting to have to challenge them and, worse still, get fobbed off at best or abused at worst.
As for Scotland, their version of Statementing is not as good as ours afaik.

Asda looks to be on the ball, according to that report. Presumably it's a fairly simple/cheap scheme they're using so it's a shame no one else is following suit.

Something strange I noticed when I was home in Oct was to do with parent & child spaces. Twice I saw small cars whose owners had squeezed them into the gap between the wider p&c spaces. What's that all about?? (Btw, am totally of the view that disabled spaces are a necessity while p&c are a luxury)