Woman shouted at me for parking in a disabled spot

I have a stoma - just the one in my case. Some years ago, before I became a regular wheelchair user I remember going into a disabled toilet to change it in an emergency leak situation. I was in there a little while as it does take some time to sort, and someone started banging on the door. I shouted that I wouldn’t be a minute and when I finished, I opened the door to find a very irate man standing outside. He yelled at me that the toilet was for disabled people (this was before the more inclusive accessible toilets) and that I should be ashamed of myself for using it. He disappeared inside and locked the door before I could reply.

It was only afterwards that I realised the irony of the situation. He had no visible disability himself but was berating me because I didn’t look disabled !!

People keep quoting my comment. I was responding to someone. You are allowed as a non disabled person to park in a disabled space to pick up or drop someone off who has a blue badge.
You can not as someone with a blue badge drive a passenger somewhere and sit in a disabled space whilst someone non disabled does errands.

You are nit allowed to use a Blue Badge to park unless the disabled person is getting out of the car. Blue Badge parking though is poorly enforced.

Absolute rubbish @JoyousGreyOrca

Many a time I’ve nipped back to the car whilst my DH and DS have been in a shopping centre or cafe.

I also use disabled spaces at the school. They’d never get used if this was true 😂

How do you think they get back in 🤣

Rubbish. How do you think they get into the car then? I park in the bay, using the badge, then go to my mum's house to assist her. That's allowed. But on return from our trip, I take her back inside, then go and repark before getting her shopping out.

Never respond. No good ever comes of it.

I’d have asked her when it was she realised she was psychic !!

I have an artificial leg. When challenged for parking in a disabled bay, I tap on my leg with one of my crutches while the complainer is banging on about how I don’t look disabled. Eventually they cotton on to the metallic sound, the light dawns and they scurry off. I find it very therapeutic !!

Yep, agree. My point was that it’s misuse of the badge if the disabled person themselves is not getting out of the car. Really annoys me with P&C spaces too - the child is left sitting in the car while the parent goes into the supermarket or whatever. Not what the spaces are designed for.

I agree. The provision across England is patchy and not well policed. The criteria for blue badges has widened considerably, and inevitably it becomes a matter of supply not keeping pace with demand. Supermarkets in particular seem to want to cram as many bays into the available space as possible, so despite car sizes getting bigger, the spaces are becoming smaller, which makes the provision of wider disabled bays even more important as standard spaces are useless for wheelchair users and others who use equipment. I don’t park in standard bays any more because I always seem to find that on return, the vehicle in the next bay has been parked way too close for me to even get into the car !!

They sell them on Amazon. My late DH worked at a well known car factory and the security patrol used these stickers to police the few disabled spots they provided in the car parks and around the perimeter. They placed them right in the middle of the windscreen on the drivers side and they were a nightmare to scrape off. Once word got around, it soon stopped.

Some types of disabled parking bays on private ground are not enforceable. They are just a concession and technically anyone can park in them. You need to make sure that the blue and white wheelchair plate is displayed in the signage. For example our Sainsburys Local only has six parking spaces. One of them is wider and has the white wheelchair marking on the floor within the bay, The signage at the front of the bay just says Disabled Parking, but there is no wheelchair plate, so it’s not exclusively for disabled use.

And the application for a blue badge, and disability benefits and concessions in general will consider that. You’re generally not eligible unless the effects of the disability are present for 50% or more of the time. So it is factored in.

Go ahead. I hope you don't need it, but if you do... I would love to see their face after.

I think they mean blue badge. Clearly the brain pathways don’t stretch to the notion that wheelchair users are not the only people who need them.

Now I like this one. OK if I steal it ?

Or "I haven't got the time or the crayons to explain myself to you".

The ‘out of sight out of mind’ attitude should have disappeared along with the institutions housing so many disabled people fifty or so years ago. Sadly, it still prevails and very prevalent on some MN threads.

Another here. Also a disability outreach worker for many years and I can tell you that rather than the lack of spaces being down to ‘fiddling’ what is a stringent system of blue badge issue, one of the main reasons is provision - both by the local authority and private providers. It’s patchy across the country and the minimum provision isn’t policed well. Supermarket car parks are being taken over by private concessions whose only concern is squeezing more bays into any given space, and disabled bays are counter productive to that as they take up more of the space available. I’ve noticed the difference myself as a wheelchair user - in our area at any given time of the day you can usually find a disabled space in town, or at any of the supermarkets here. A few miles further away and these spaces are at a premium. As ever it’s down to supply and demand.

Totally agree. I had a rant a it this on here the other night but you wouldn’t believe how much disabled people and parents of disabled children have feel like they must now scrape simpler and apologise for basic respect and then be overjoyed at getting the crumbs of reasonable adjustment. Comments like that are part of the problem

Absolutely. It's depressing. I guess it would make life simpler for some people if we just stayed home. 😒

There’s also a concerning undertone that disabled people shouldn’t be participating in society, when this is actually what disabled parking concessions and other benefits are designed to achieve. It’s called inclusion and this poster has clearly never considered it.

Do you think only people on wheelchairs are disabled?

Also that space isn’t his. It’s for everyone.

That’s an interesting comment.

Im a wheelchair user. I’m on many groups for wheelchair users and I have NEVER come across anyone saying BB are handed out like smarties or that people are fiddling the system.

The reason is simple: they are much more likeky to ask fir support to get the BB Theyre entitled to but are struggling to get (various reasons very much depending on where you live)