Woman shouted at me for parking in a disabled spot

My image is under review, so here is the link https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-blue-badge-scheme-rights-and-responsibilities-in-england/the-blue-badge-scheme-rights-and-responsibilities-in-england and the text says "You should not use the badge to allow non-disabled people to take advantage of the benefits while you sit in the car."

I think this is the rule you're referring to.

I agree. If we were going somewhere with my sister in the car and had her blue badge with us, we'd never consider using a disabled bay so I could hop out and get some shopping.

We'd only use a disabled bay if we're taking her with us.

@user1491320660 - I have EDS too. Make sure you get your heart checked out. I got to 50 before Covid nearly killed me (sepsis) and discovered I have a deformed aortic valve and have been left with dilated cardiomyopathy as a result. I am going to need a transplant eventually.
@Rosscameasdoody I am not in UK but Australia. I know it’s against the law so I am going to ask our law lecturer which laws apply here. (They will LOVE this…. They’re always up for the tea.) I’m loving watching a grown adult acting the fool because she’s so desperate to find out wtf is wrong with me. (Noseypants!) Btw, I’m absolutely not going to tell her, but I will be leaving her dangling until her our Chronic Health tutor asks me to show my pacemaker/defibrillator (ICD) scar to the class. (She nursed me after my surgery and asked how I felt about this a couple of weeks ago.)

@Rosscameasdoody I know, I get it all the time with my own blue badge but much less so now that I'm post 40! It was daily when I was in my 20s & 39s.

EmmaMaria · Yesterday 09:47

”I would make it so that anyone who parked in a disabled space without a blue badge should be striken by a disabling condition for 24 hours”

Dotjones · Yesterday 10:06

“People shouldn't challenge someone for using a disabled space”

i have ataxia, im in a wheelchair, and now i have cancer…. I think 24 hours is way too lax…..gotta be at least a year. Or in some cases with some of the people that I have come across, forever. And people shouldn’t challenge someone for using a disabled space ?…..RIGHT …including delivery Lorries, the Amazon Man, and the endless people “who will only be gone for five minutes “…..A bit Like the charming guy who parked in Asda recently , in the only disabled spot left vacant when it was pouring with rain. He got out the car and RAN into Asda. Whilst he was there, I went and looked at his badge….. which wasn’t his badge, it was obviously his mum/grannies . When he came back, I said “that’s not your badge is it mate”. He said “fck off”, and drove off……. Now him ?….. I’d like to have seen him transported back to the 14th century, hung, drawn, quartered, and eaten by rats. Harsh ? maybe, but I get sick of able-bodied people taking the pss when people like me can’t walk anywhere. I didn’t choose my life, if you want to use the disabled space, and you are able bodied, then I sincerely hope you end up disabled….. because then you can legitimately use them to your hearts content, can’t you?

I read that as meaning the subset of mentally ill people who are unable to appreciate the dangers of traffic, not that all mentally ill people have that inability. That statement reminds me of when I was hit by a car and suffered a traumatic head injury and was in hospital for seven weeks. As I live alone with no family nearby and given the brain damage I sustained, I had to demonstrate the ability to do fundamental tasks which included cooking a simple meal and crossing a road multiple times.

We will be applying for a blue badge for DS2 and I suspect we will get some comments. He is severely sight impaired but can manage to navigate with peripheral vision. If you saw him in the street he looks like a normal teen.
If we were going to a supermarket together I would park in a normal space. If I was collecting him from somewhere I might use a disabled space so he could find the car as there is little prospect of him finding it safely (or at all) in a busy car park. I would expect that blue badge monitors would assume misuse.

If you were 100% with the pp until they said that, by which point they had given tons of examples proving you wrong, you must by definition be accepting all those other examples and agreeing that you were wrong? I don’t expect you to agree, but logically I must be right.

They should be thankful they or anyone they care about don't need a Blue Badge or benefits. My Dad had MS and was in a wheelchair and my Mum was blind and couldn't walk when she got older hence people like that really winding me up. I'd have empathy regardless but when you've been close to it it's worse.

They’re actually on a couple of other threads to do with benefits and disability, with exactly the same obtuse, nitpicking attitude. Possibly just thick as you say, but somehow feels deliberate.

Even if it's not a troll you can't fix stupid. Anybody that thick is past educating.

Well said.

I think some people just get on a roll and find it difficult to stop,or to admit they’re wrong to be honest. The woman who confronted me as per my first post actually stepped back to allow my wheelchair hoist to set the chair down - l don’t think she realised it was even there because she was still ranting at me when l wheeled away and then followed me into the store shouting apologies !! When l parked in a parent and child spot a woman ran after me shouting abuse because I’d taken ‘her spot’ and when the store manager told her l was perfectly entitled to park there if the disabled bays were full she was so enraged l feared for her blood pressure !!

On one memorable occasion an older man had insisted on me letting him see and handle the badge and was asking about my medical condition. I refused on both counts and he started shouting at me. A couple came over to help and managed to get him away while l got myself into the chair. I’d just shut the car door, turned around and he was back. Followed me into the shopping centre banging on about how he was sorry he’d made a mistake but that he had a right to see the badge to make sure it was mine !! At that point l told him the badge was on my car and he could take the serial number and report me to whoever he liked !!

Thankfully the really batshit ones are few and far between but l’ve had my fair share of badge warriors rush over to challenge as I’ve driven into a space, before I’ve even put the handbrake on, and my DH has come in for a fair amount of abuse when he’s first out of the car to help me - shouts of ‘you don’t look very disabled’ are met with, ‘no but she does’ as he helps me into the chair.

I really do believe that since the pandemic there are a lot more people with anger issues and this is just one of the ways it comes out. I’ve been challenged a lot more, and with more aggression since the pandemic and l think it’s because somehow some people’s sense of entitlement is heightened. My disability is fairly obvious. If l’m not in the chair l’m using elbow crutches, and l still get challenged, so l feel really sorry for folk whose disability isn’t obvious. L kind of get that some people want to make sure the spaces aren’t being abused but if it’s got to th stage where we’re challenging people who have a perfectly valid badge then it’s spilling over into harassment.

Ignoring them is the best course of action, imo. They are certainly not having any of my time.

“just because you “can” doesn’t mean you “should” What actually gives you the right to decide who should and who shouldn’t be allowed to use a disabled parking space?

The criteria for a blue badge isn’t based on whether you, or others like you, think someone has a sufficient physical disability to qualify for one! There are very clear guidelines that decide who is and who isn’t entitled to use one, and people should respect that only those who have met the criteria are allowed to qualify for one.

I have a blue badge (which is based on my physical disabilities) and it is a lifeline to me, giving me far more independence than I would have otherwise. It means that I can go out, without having to wait for when someone can take me. However, I do not grudge those with hidden disabilities using a disabled space, even if it means I can’t get parked! They have every bit as much right to use those spaces, as I do. The problem of finding an available disabled space is far more likely to be because of the abuse of them, by those who haven’t got a blue badge parking in them, than those with a hidden disability parking in them.

I have an unseen disability and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been challenged for using blue badge parking spaces. It’s horrible. I’ve been shouted at. People have demanded to know ‘what’s wrong with you???’ And my disabled parking permit has always been correctly displayed…I totally ignore them now.

@Rosscameasdoody OMG so some people continue having a go at you whilst you're wheeling away in your wheelchair??? What on earth were they saying?

You can have a badge without being able to drive. My mum had one when she had dementia. It wasn't safe for her to walk long distances. My dad then got one when he had asbestosis breathing related problems because he couldn't walk very far without getting breathless. We would drive them.

I have a blue badge, for an invisible disability, and morons like this are why I don't use the disabled spaces unless I can't get a normal space fairly close to where I'm going.

OP, in your situation I would've just waved my blue badge and maybe my middle finger.

I'm slowly dying and can’t walk very much at all and some days not at all. However you can’t immediately see any sign of it. I get this everywhere I go.
A few weeks ago I got what I can only describe as screamed at by an elderly woman who was furious that a "young one" (I'm in my late forties) had taken the last disabled spot and screamed "Who do you think you are? How dare you park there, I'm on oxygen! You fat lazy young one's how bloody dare you" It was so embarrassing everyone was shaking their heads at me. Not once did anyone look on my dashboard

You’re absolutely right about it being fascinating. It’s almost as if they’re not actually concerned with making sure the spaces are there for people who need them, and actually just want to park there themselves. Oh wait…

There are dozens of disabilities that can reduce your mobility. Often you can walk so far with heart problems nut no further, or you cannot carry shopping bags very far. Perhaps you could have Parkinsons or Multiple sclerosis as per one of my siblings and can still walk but not for long. Only a stupid arrogant person would not understand this.

And the Harvey Price thread. So they are clearly on a roll.

Ah. Course they are.