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AIBU?

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Original poster

To think that Waverley Council ^shouldn't^ be charging

205 replies

CardyMow · 30/09/2011 07:57

Blue Badge holders to use a disabled parking space??!! Apparently they will get a concession of getting one hour extra for their money. Are Waverley council Tory by any chance??!! AIBU to think that this is well out of order?

OP posts:
Riveninabingle · 30/09/2011 13:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mummytotwoboys · 30/09/2011 14:38

are you sure its a council car park? NCPs etc always charge as they are a private company. YABU anyway.

Dawndonna · 30/09/2011 14:42

Aldi
You can't get a blue badge unless you get higher rate mobility.
The governments own figures put fraud on DLA at 0.49% That's less than half a percent. So yes, there are a very small minority that abuse the system. Why allow that minority to mess it up for the rest of us? In your experience, you can pay and your sister in law shouldn't be using. That is not the experience of most of us.
As for fiddling in other ways. I am frequently in our mobility car on my own. School run. Shopping for family that cannot shop for themselves. Picking up drugs from the medical centre that can't be picked up by anyone else. No, I don't use the disabled bays if I'm on my own. The badge however, remains in the car.

aldiwhore · 30/09/2011 14:47

Fair points all round dawndonna.

I'm now wondering then, if FIL has a Blue Badge, and he has alzheimers, did my SIL lie on the forms?? He has no mobility issues at all. This could become a can of worms... and possibly why I thought they were very easy to come by!

Anyway, I'm glad this thread was started, and though I'm slightly cringing, glad to have been put straight informed, on balance, I don't begrudge a free parking space. That's really all that I needed to say! Smile If I'm wrong I'm wrong, and on this, I was wrong.

valiumredhead · 30/09/2011 14:53

Actually you can get a blue badge without getting any benefits at all Dawn - just saying :)

My life would be shit without my badge because I have to park as close as I can get to my destination. I have to drive everywhere and parking expenses would really mount up.

It really IS all about choices. Get a bus? OMG I'm exhausted just thinking about how exhausting/difficult/impossible that would be!

Dawndonna · 30/09/2011 14:55

Sorry Valium, didn't realise that. You can't round here, assumed it was everywhere.

aldiwhore · 30/09/2011 14:55

Right then valiumredhead I'm going to investigate a little further before I start accusing SIL of lying! (though I may just chuck in her useage of FIL's badge if feeling up for a family rift)

valiumredhead · 30/09/2011 14:58

Aldi I think it's to do with how much personal care FIL needs and how much help he needs getting to places/appts etc. So in fairness it's sensible to have a BB in case he wasn't having a good day and his chaperone needed to park as close as possible to their destination.

higgle · 30/09/2011 15:00

I take the general point about equality of access and payment. I am however fairly sure there is more abuse of the scheme than has been cited on here. I regularly see someone who does the same job as me, and that involves travelling about and walking to see clients parked with his motability car and blue badge in the space right outside Tesco's front door. His only disability is that he is enormously fat. Another lay I know has a husband with supposedly very bad arthritis. He has a lovely Motability BMW and seems to have no problem carrying her shopping and trekking round shops endlessly at all. I'm afraid these people make me rather sceptical about assessments and reviews for this benefit.

Kladdkaka · 30/09/2011 15:07

So Higgle you have access to these people's medical records do you?

valiumredhead · 30/09/2011 15:12

Oh I forgot, disabled people can't have BMW's can they? Hmm

You still have to pay for mobility cars - they are NOT free and NOT easy to qualify for.

Why would anyone be so bitter about something that makes a less able person's life slightly easier? - it beggars belief!

Dawndonna · 30/09/2011 15:13

Higgle
My kids don't look disabled, but feel free to scrape them off the road because no matter what, they don't comprehend road safety. Feel free to sit with them ALL night, when they're HAVING to go over their day to make sure they understood it, or when they're having a panic. I could go on forever. How do you know the enormously fat man doesn't have a problem. I'm not fat yet, but I will be, because due to some wierd, inherited anomoly, I store fat pouches underneath my skin. At some point, it will be impossible for me to lose weight. Funnily enough, I don't generally make it public.

Dawndonna · 30/09/2011 15:14

anomaly
Sorry.

unpa1dcar3r · 30/09/2011 15:16

Higgle if your friends husband is driving a BMW it must either be really old or if its mobility he must pay well over the mobility allowance for it, or have paid a huuuge deposit. No way would mobility cover that sort of car. I do agree though that people who get DLA/badges etc simply for being obese which has caused all the other issues, is a travesty.

Some lease cars u have to pay a deposit on, a few you don't. Ours is a basic Vauxhall and paid a couple of hundred but others were much more which is why i didn't choose one of them!

My friend has 3 huge lads (2 nearly 30, one 18) all with same condition but cos she doesn't have any energy left to fight for what they should get in DLA (e.g high rate as they are all SLD) she doesn't get a blue badge of a mobility car. Even though she often has to escort 3 MEN (to all intents and purposes even though they have minds of young children).

BTW it's worth pointing out that with a mobility lease car we lose that component of the DLA (about £220 odd per month) but still have to return the car after 3 yrs. So basically you're paying in the region of 7K to 'borrow' a car.

I dont understand why free parking for being disabled (or for driving disabled) is such an issue for some. it's hardly a fortune we're saving but it means a lot when you're on such a limited income and its one less thing- in a million and one things- we have to worry about.

unpa1dcar3r · 30/09/2011 15:18

PS i meant obese simply through over eating, not if one has a medical condition or is on certain meds that cause obesity (like my friends little one, hardly eats a thing but is huge due to his condition) Sorry for not making that clear folks!

NinkyNonker · 30/09/2011 15:24

Trust me, the assessment is tough. To say otherwise is talking out of one's arse.

Riveninabingle · 30/09/2011 15:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Dawndonna · 30/09/2011 15:25

Parking in our nearest city is £7.00 for the day, (five hours). That's quite a bit out of our money. Especially if you have to do it regularly, (which luckily, I don't) and as with us, can't access bus services or taxis.

Sevenfold · 30/09/2011 15:29

here we go again
twats deciding who they think is disabled
thank god being a twat isn't a disability otherwise we would never get a disabled bay

Andrewofgg · 30/09/2011 15:33

thank god being a twat isn't a disability otherwise we would never get a disabled bay

Spot on sevenfold. Bollocks to the twats.

PeachyWhoCannotType · 30/09/2011 15:47

'But they DO have a choice, park and pay or internet shopping

Dear Hospital Clinic

I read today that my children don;;t need to actually leave home because we can get everything done over the internet or at home. Therefore I will not be attending ds4's optomoetry assessment next week and look forward to you turning up here with all your equipment.

yours, Peachy

(actually we don;t have a blue badge although that's more as I can't face a DLA appeal for HRM and Welsh blue badge rules are a bit different, but I have taken many kids on buses and can tell you that autistic children on buses and NT ones are quite different- ASD being my own speciality- and that having children is indeed a choice, and that an elderly Gran who cannot walk can indeed get a blue badge etc etc)

DS1 yesterday was called a wanker at school for being allowed to skip several lessons a week and change in a separate room: they all know he is in an ASD placement. I will say here as I said to him: anybody who wants to take away the little extras that make your life easier should only do so if they would accept your autism; if they will then they understand too little of autism to bother with: if not then they are idiots with entitlement complexes that you should not bother with.

DS1 it seems responded with choice words. His TA chose not to reprimand him saying she could see his point. I docked 10p from his pocket money but secretly, can also see his point.

Andrewofgg · 30/09/2011 15:48

Peachy No power on earth will stop children being nasty to each other!

PeachyWhoCannotType · 30/09/2011 15:51

Higgle if you are so certain that these people are faking and have their med records then get off here and report them FGS.

But make sure you are right and not like the fuckwit who reported my disabled ex soldier mate and left him waiting a year and ongoing for a reassessment from ATOS that involved grief over his walking stick not being dusty (he uses a chair now), being made to demo getting in and out of bed (it causes him lots of pain and he told her that) and to which they have yet to hear a response. At one point I said don't worry, he has files of army documents detailing his shrapnel wounds: seems ATOS refuse to accept sight of actual medical docs.

PeachyWhoCannotType · 30/09/2011 15:52

Andrew of course not

Doesn't mean I should set him up to expect it though, he will have ASD all his life; and doesn't mean I should allow him to swear either.

Kladdkaka · 30/09/2011 15:58

So now people are passing moral judgments and advocating withdrawal of services for people whose condition is in some way self inflicted.

Excellent idea. That will certainly help cut the deficit.

Where shall we start? I know. Maternity hospitals. Being pregnant is afterall a lifestyle choice. They can go. Schools as well. They're only needed because selfish people choose to have babies and impose the cost of educating them on the rest of society.

And out of interest, just why exactly do we send ambulances and fire and rescue out to traffic accidents? Nobody made them go out in their cars. It's their choice to run that risk. Why should the rest of us pick up the cost.