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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think the majority of blue badge bashing threads are made up ?

61 replies

ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 02/09/2011 14:52

Mainly because they seem to be the in thing to moan about at times, ie 1 starts and 50 or so people then seem to have blue badge issues.

Plus in the years I've had on this earth I've yet to witness witness any issues with blue badge users, nor as a blue badge holder have we used it to park on the roof of a double decker.

I'm quite an open minded cheese too, I even witnessed a scrap on a bus once.......but that's the risk I take when I use the number 3 Wink

I dunno, I just have visions of a load of wild haired harridans, red eyed and foaming as they tap out a ad of bile fuelled by yet another sleepless night thinking of people who have something they can't have, driven slowly mad from years of adding up blue badge holders saved parking charges and playing spot the badge adorned car on the double yellows. Wink

OP posts:
ApocalypseCheeseToastie · 02/09/2011 15:25

And they always sprint.....so they must ALWAYS be in a rush.

They never cartwheel or hop tho Hmm

OP posts:
LaWeasel · 02/09/2011 15:26

I have seen blue badge holders parked iffily - but only outside one particular GPs where there is no good place to park close enough for the users. So fair enough IMO, it was a bit annoying and the traffic clogged up a bit, but couldn't be helped either.

I have genuinely been judged twice, both for totally normal things, and I'm happy to laugh at the people who did the judging as clearly having had very strange days/ideas. I have witnessed odd things also - but not that often, I probably repeat the same stories on here more often than I come on with new ones.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 02/09/2011 15:28

Someone should start a thread.... "It never happened....." and you can fill in your own bugbear. MrsDeVere gives a good example about the sprinting into Sainsbury's... absolute tosh.

Peachy · 02/09/2011 16:06

If it's people making them up then they should know it ahs effects.

I have 4 children, 2 have a dx of asd at varying levels but both require a SN education which should indicate that their needs are substantial enough. DS4 is at teh start of the dx process, has already acquired a speech delay labels (I am not sure bout that; think it's a different issue), I know well enough that he will eventually one of ASD.

I get DLA for 2, not planning to claim for ds4 unless one of the other claims changes (ATOS-fear). We get LR Mobility X 2 which does NOT cover a new car as some beleive but helps us run a second car so I can avoid buses etc, park closer to palces than face a long walk in.

Local rules currently prohinit a blue badge for ASD as it's not a physical disability: it's being reviewed but that's been the case for years. SSD want us to have a badhe on grounds of trying top supervise a number of Sn children but there is no provision for that. It's not the money of HRM I want or the car, just safe aprking.

Anyway yesterday we were out with ds3, fairly severely asd, prone to unpredictability and DH headed for a P&T space and I stopped him, rfused to let him in case I got a Mumsnetter yelling at me. He was fairly annoyed and it took us another 30 minutes to apr somewhere both safe and appropriately labelled.

AS he points out, Mumsnet induced paranoia caused me to risk compromising ds3's safety by refuisng tompark in the safest place possible. His point is that anyone who would see us risk ds3's safety (he is 8 btw) is a knob not worth listening to anyway.

I wish I had his confidence in times of confrontation though: it's me who gets the comments froms chool aprents about TAs, and the resty of teh standard disability associated crap. Thank goodness they are in SNU's now, except ds4 starts the school nursery in MS Wednesday- a massive sense of here we go again!

SW thinks we should fight ahrder for teh HR DLA to get the blue badge, I refused becuase of the tales I hear from people with kids with non visible SN: NT people and those with physical SN alike accusing them of fraud and being aggressive. I;d rather stay at home when i have not got another adult and more than one child tbh. So that's what I do.

All the frigging time.

Fun like. But hey it's just an AIBU punch up right?

Or as a so called mate said to DH on another forum when we compalined that disabled people using a car park linked to out hobby were going to be charged double as there was a 'better view from their spaces'

'disabled people get everything anyway'

Except independence, a career (or their carers) and- well pretty much everything most of would ask from life.

LetThereBeRock · 02/09/2011 16:07

The threads might be made up,but the resentment is sadly all too real.

Peachy · 02/09/2011 16:07

' I probably repeat the same stories on here more often than I come on with new ones.

LMAO

don't we all!

I have 6 stories, luckily MN turns over posters far faster Wink

itisnearlysummer · 02/09/2011 16:14

Oh no, I displayed a bb once and sprinted into sainsbury's - really!

I was driving my grandma round quite a bit in the last 18months or so of her life. She had stopped driving and ended up leaving her bb in my car so that we could use it when she was with us and didn't have to remember to take it out - I never used it when she was not with us.

I had a phone call from our local Sainsbury's because she'd gone in with the ring and ride and had a bit of a funny turn, and she'd asked them to ring me. So I hurtled down there (safely), parked in a disabled bay, displayed the badge and then sprinted in before coming out (not so sprintily) with my grandma and driving her home.

Perhaps all the people who have claimed to witness this were all in my local Sainsbury's car park on that day at the same time and it was me they all saw!

itisnearlysummer · 02/09/2011 16:22

Peachy - apply for the badge.

Don't let a relatively small number of insensitive people put you off doing something that is going to be beneficial to you and your family.

Some people are rude. That's just life.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/09/2011 16:27

i am happily going to tell people to eff off if they are rude about my DD having a blue badge.

itisnearlysummer · 02/09/2011 16:32

You should do Fanjo. They might think twice next time.

I think a "fuck off, it's none of your business" would work.

Either that or you could jump up and down and shout "willy willy willy" at them. I've heard that's quite effective Wink

Jodianna · 02/09/2011 16:32

Peachy,
I have three with ASDs. Go for it.
LyingWitch.
I've learnt it's better not to say anything. I used to, but it distressed the kids, and anyway, I'm convinced they bugger off because they're so embarrassed, don't disillusion me, please! Wink

itisnearlysummer · 02/09/2011 16:33

or "woof to you, Lady".

That might work too.

Peachy · 02/09/2011 16:39

I get in a state if I am shouted at (childhood blah blah)- am going to get counselling then apply.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 02/09/2011 16:47

I think they might be a little chagrined, Jodianna were somebody totally unrelated to the occupants of the car, ie. a stranger, pull them up on their shocking behaviour - and I would, without swearing, but pointedly. I hate that kind of bullying, and it is.

2shoes · 02/09/2011 16:49

yanbu in thinking that, but sadly I think some people are just so jealous of the preks that disabled people get they enjoy anything that bashes them

Riveninabingle · 02/09/2011 18:00

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Jodianna · 02/09/2011 18:04

I know you're right LyingWitch, it is bullying, but it's hard to get that balance when it distresses the kids. If I were out with DH alone, it would be very different, I'm no saint. In fact I'm a big mouthed gobby cow
:)

Fiendishlie · 02/09/2011 18:23

I have been to a zoo today. I pulled into a disabled space near to the main entrance and was about to get out when an elderly man ran over to my car and shouted 'Oi you, that's my space, it's disabled only' or some such. With a cats bum face. I blanked him as I have learned to do (used to reply that I have a badge, but it's none of their business and I hate having to justify myself) and he was red-faced with rage and shouting at me that I had taken the space he was going to use. (he was following me and had to park in the second row as I took the last space at the front). This happens regularly; at supermarkets, in car parks, everywhere. There's a lot of hate for disabled people out there

TandB · 02/09/2011 18:52

I don't think most of these emotive threads are made up unfortunately.

I haven't seen anyone abusing a blue badge holder but I have twice seen someone in a motorised wheelchair abused - one was an old lady in M&S near Christmas who was told by a middle-aged woman that she shouldn't be out getting in everyone's way at such a busy time. I had a fairly epic go at her. The other was just the other day near my office when two women had a loud chunter about having to move for someone with obvious, severe disabilities. They just got an icy glare as the person hadn't heard.

I terms of the other "hot topics", I was never judged for BFing, although one charmer at a baby group did make comments about me NOT BFing when I had stopped. I have never seen anyone else being abused for BFing in public but I have seen a bit of tutting and head shaking. I have seen someone refuse to move a pram for a wheelchair on a bus. I have seen a row over bus buggy spaces. I have seen more than one row over P&C spaces.

Unfortunately, the attitudes that are behind these threads do exist. I think there might be an element of exaggeration sometimes - some of the dialogue on these threads reads like something from a film or from Eastenders rather than something that people actually say to each other in real life.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/09/2011 18:54

oh I do hope this thread doesn't turn into a thread full of anecdotes from people of how they really were abused for using a blue badge, very depressing to read while waiting for ours.

2shoes · 02/09/2011 18:56

we have never had abuse, a few odd looks when I use to park in teh disabled bay, jump out and run round the back, open the boot and get dd's wheelchair out. always used to make me lol

Fiendishlie · 02/09/2011 19:03

Be prepared, Fanjo

DartsRus · 02/09/2011 19:27

My dad has a blue badge, and he's not had comments but the odd tut. Otherwise when he drove me to the hospital to see my mum, he parked in the disabled area. they have an attendant at this hospital and he checks all the badges.

He had just caught some people who had been abusing their grandmother's badge. She was in the hospital as an in-patient so the family members had been taking it in turns to drive in and park using the badge, they were working a rotation system where one packed car full drove in as the first lot left, swapping the badge across as they did so....... I think they were eventaully fined.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/09/2011 19:32

we don't have a wheelchair to produce either. Oh well.

fanjoforthemammaries7850 · 02/09/2011 19:34

People here (Edinburgh) genuinely don't tend to comment much to strangers about anything so hope that is still the case re blue badges