To think that maybe they should run public information films about blue badges?

[Salmotrutta]

After the horrible case of the man who was assaulted in the supermarket because a thug questioned his right to be parked there and who subsequently died?

I was listening to the story following the court case and maybe public information films would hammer home the message that :-

sometimes the passenger can be the disabled person.

Or the disabled person might still be in the shop.

Or the disability might not be obvious.

And that blue badge holder can park in P&C spaces.

Would public broadcasting information films help?

Or that the blue badge holders may be the children.

The number of times I've had people screeching about mummies abusing blue badge bays...

Jeez.

I'd probably be pretty anxious about even going shopping if I had to put up with that sort of awfulness

I think it'd be good to have something not just about blue badges but about disability in general. It makes me really uncomfortable on the bus seeing people giving the evil eye to anyone who looks under 60 sitting down in the priority seat - I know some people are probably just rude but others plainly aren't.

Yes LRD - very good point!

You only have to read some of the bus/buggy/priority threads on here to see that there's confusion about that too!

Yes something needs to be done about this. Who are these people who have made themselves the BB police? I have a friend who has had this problem. But really isn't it terrible that we should need some sort of campaign? I suggest next time whip out your camera phone, photograph them and say you are sending it in to a police register of people who discriminate against the disabled and their carers.

I think it's a good idea, look at the nasty rubbish that gets written on here regularly about disabled parking.

I had a carer who used to abuse my blue badge regularly. I now use it as a test for people before I employ them. I think it sums up the attitude of many entitled selfish people.

I hate bring disabled. Why do people think its their right to make my life worse? It's fucking shite already.

There was a lady who phoned in the Jeremy Vine show who said she had once had a man shouting at her in the car park and grabbing her while she was holding her child.
Meanwhile her older son, who had SN, was running off in hysterics because of this horrible man and her older children were trying to catch him.
The security guard called the police who really wanted her to press charges but she was just too upset and wanted to get home

Awful

I didn't explain that well - the lady had an orange badge (it was a few years ago) because her two younger children were disabled.

I have a blue badge and I'm fairly young and have 2 children. I've had my badge for about 4 years now and nobody has ever said anything to me at all about parking in a disabled space. I am a wheelchair user but in the past have just used a stick and normally if anyone happens to be looking they always smile at me when they see my stick. Now I use crutches to get to the boot of my car and then get my wheelchair out.
I was quite amused the other day when we pulled up into a disabled space and the woman in the car next to us was giving us evils so I didn't put my badge on the dashboard for ages just to watch her getting more and more annoyed! Then dh got out and brought my wheelchair round for me and I put my badge up and then suddenly she was happy! The point being it has nothing to do with anyone else anyway.

I can't wait for the day that someone actually says something to me.

I watched a film about disability at my old job where it said that only 25% of disabled people use a wheelchair.

I found recentely that we are entitled to a blue badge. I wont apply for it as it's just not worth the grief from people.

I'd rather struggle as we are than have ds upset due to some judgemental prick making a stressful journey worse.

don't let other people put you off, I've never had any problems at all using mine (apart from when I deliberately wind someone up!)

It's easy to say "Dont let other people put you off" but trying to calm down kids like mine and my friends who are already high up on the spectrum because some wanker has decided your child isn't disabled enough is hard enough to do on a good day. Throw a trip to the supermarket into the mix and it's impossible that can have consequenses no-one thinks of.

It's just not worth it.

YANBU, great idea. I've heard nasty people before saying shit about Bb holders 'not looking very disabled'. It might help to explain clearly (in very small words) that not all disabilities are visible.

We have blue badge for DD (4 years old) it has made our life so much easier in so many ways. We have not had any confrontations about it, had plenty of looks but no one has said anything.

DD uses a special needs pushchair, we have had far more looks from that and more confrontations over DD's actions when she sometimes screams unpredictably.

My mum and dad both have bb these days. Dad had been told by the parking bloke at Waitrose to park in the p&c spaces if all the disabled ones were full. And so he does - he uses a three wheel walker, but struggles so much that the staff now push him round in a wheelchair once he gets in, so you can see how poorly he is. And some bitch screamed at him to get out of the space, blah blah until the security guard came over and told her where to go. But its left dad really worried that it will happen again which is a stress he doesn't need, and it took me years to persuade him he needed a bb.

And I've heard people dissing the elderly having them, 'oh, they just give them out to them, fof plays golf 5 times a week got one'. Mum uses crutches in the house, wheelchair everywhere else, and has dementia badly enough that she has seizures because so much brain has gone. This bb renewal they spent even longer thinking about it because her dementia diagnosis was added. Yes, because that makes someone more mobile

What I find worse is the comments we get when I'm out with the DC's, with DS2 in his wheelchair. That may be because I can't drive so when we use the blue badge I'm never on my own with the DC's.

Anyway, when DS2 (aged 5) is in his wheelchair we get random strangers coming up to us saying things like "what's wrong with him then?" and if DS2 gets out of his chair to look at something (he can walk a little bit) and DS1 gets in to mess around then we get people saying "so which one of you is the cripple then?". It's got to the point that DS2 refuses to use his wheelchair and we don't go anywhere that requires him to walk more than 40 yards or so. Which basically means we go to school and that's it.

CMOT and elliejj - I'm so sorry your families have put up with crap like that.

Absolutely shocking behaviour and shameful to boot

Unfortunately I know plenty of people who mis-use their blue badges :-( but I am lucky haven't been confronted for years about my sons, although his disability is very obvious.

How do they misuse them Vacant?

Do you mean lending them out or something?

Oh and DS1 is just on the very edge of the autistic spectrum so that he is not bad enough to get any help but if the bus driver won't let us on the bus because there are buggies on already then DS1 will burst into tears because he knows that wheelchairs have priority and doesn't understand that sometimes people "change the rules". So then I have a crying 7 year old, a furious 5 year old who can't walk very far, an empty wheelchair, a toddler who thinks he's a ninja and a baby with feeding issues.

We sit and wait for the next bus while several old ladies look at us with cats bum mouths because by this time I've got at least 2 hysterical children, usually 3. When we finally get home I phone my mum for a rant and she says that I ought to grow a thicker skin and aren't I lucky that DS2 gets DLA and I shouldn't have had that many children even though I've told her that DS4 was the result of contraceptive failure.

So then I think stuff it and eat .

Maybe the film should include the harsh realities of being disabled/being a carer. So many people think that SN buggies are just given to parents who feel like pushing their older children around or that anyone can get their "naughty" child a diagnosis of ADHD and a free car.

I'd probably say "stuff it" and eat too ellie!

In this country it used to be considered good manners to let someone else go first even if they didn't need to. Like the "after you, no after you, no after you etc " line. This seems to be the exact opposite attitude.

I really don't know how we would manage without our blue badge, just knowing there is a good chance of finding a space at this time of year with it makes all the difference. Must admit, I struggled to keep a straight face the other week when I had a lecture about misusing the bay! I had run across asda car park to check if we had to pay and couldn't get a word in edgeways as some bloke shouted at me - the look on his face when me and dfc (who uses a wheelchair) kept meeting him round the store was priceless.

But, a blue badge is not a license to park like a total numpty. Most people are brilliant, however the lady who brought the whole town to a halt for an hour by dumping her car in the middle of the high street and the person who blocked 3 of us in in our disabled bays at the trafford centre a while back definitely don't give blue badge owners a good name!

Even blue badge holders can have their cars towed if they cause an obstruction.

As for abuse of blue badges, I was with dad once at a hospital to visit mum. Dad has a blue badge so parked in the bays. The guard was checking blue badges and told dad that one family had been abusing the badges to visit the grandmother in hospital. She was the blue badge holder and the family had been taking it in turns to visit her and park in the blue badge bays with her badge. The guard spotted it going on and promptly told them to get moving to the main car park.