to remove the disabled parking signs?

[DaisyBD]

I live in a small rural town and our road has no pavements and road markings. Someone has moved into a house near the end of the road that has a wide frontage with a small wall. They also have a drive with space for three cars. Many of the people in the road don’t have off-road parking, so park pretty much anywhere there’s space, including in front of this house.

The new owners have put up disabled-only parking signs along their front wall, which has stopped most people parking there. We don’t need the space but occasionally our visitors do. I have seen the new neighbours but not talked to them – we live up the road a bit so they’re not close neighbours or anything – and although I can’t see any signs of disability, I know many disabilities are invisible.

However, they have loads of space on their own drive! I think they’ve put the signs up just to stop people parking outside their house. The signs are just the ones you can buy online, there’s no council disabled white line on the road or anything.

I feel they are being selfish and hogging the road, which they don’t own. WIBU to sneak over under cover of darkness with a screwdriver and remove the signs? Obviously they’ll hate me forever if they catch me, and I don’t want to spark a feud. But it just seems a bit cheeky and I want to be cheeky back. (DH thinks I’m insane, obv.)

OMG thank you thank you thank you!! I love how the council people have little hats. They look very torn about what issue to tackle first. They seem to be straddling the parking and dogging issues. I would tackle dogging first tbh.

Ref the path blocking, your deeds might say whether you have a right of way. This chap may be able to gate the path, but not block it entirely if you have a right of way.

It could be that they've made an application for the official parking spot and have done this in the meantime. It is still not legal

It doesn't have to be mobility issues as to why you'd keep the space clear, there may be regular Nurse etc visits.

What's prompted you to make someone vulnerable, your target, before you know the facts?

There is off street parking for 3 cars. No council will give them on street bays when they have off road parking, and given that they have a 3 car drive with on 2 cars on it, they dont need an extra space for health care workers.

My father is severely disabled with another illness on top just for kicks, my adult son is disabled (and been turned down for PIP/DLA most of his life despite having mobility issues) so I am not bashing the vulnerable.

*What's prompted you to make someone vulnerable, your target, before you know the facts?
The facts are that they have sufficient off street parking and these signs are neither legal nor enforcable and should be removed.

You make good points, Birdsgottafly, and I hadn't thought about the possibility for nurse visits. I'm so sorry you had to give up your dog, that must be awful, and I'm sorry about your disability too. I hope things improve for you soon.

Love the drawing. Please make it clear in the title if you do any more on other threads I might not read

I am in awe of your drawing skills OP.
Such attention to detail!

Excellent diagrams, good work OP

here's the council officials coming up the road to check things out

I didn't post that twice, promise

That's not a diagram.
That's a storyboard for a film that MUST be made!

Love the drawings.....though it kind of looks like the council officials have turned up with popcorn....

It is indeed a wonderful and informative diagram - I am pleased to see that the council officials appear to be wearing safety hats - God alone knows who or what may be hiding in the trees, or what they may be doing that might cause them to fall, possibly onto an innocent clipboard-wielder.

You have missed your calling. You were obviously destined for great things in the field of artistic endeavour but something must have stopped you from capitalising on it. Never mind.

it kind of looks like the council officials have turned up with popcorn

Now why would they do that? ....

The drawing of your good self, Daisy...do you always go out without trousers on? Or is it a leotard of sorts? A dog-walkers leotard?

my friend gets most annoyed when people park in the layby outside her house,she has a drive but treats the public part as hershmm

Some people are very strangely territorial about what isn't theirs. My DB lives in a terraced house on a road with no designated parking. There is public parking along the road which they use, obviously doesn't belong to anybody, commuters use it as it is near the city centre. One of the neighbours keeps traffic cones out 24/7 on what she has decided is "her space". She doesn't even have a car, or anyone else in the household with one either!

Brilliant diagram! Just a thought..

Although there is space on the drive for 3 cars, is the drive wide enough to open car door fully and get a door on the other side of the car open at the same time? Is there space to get a wheelchair up the side, past the car/a once parked?

A space on the road could be to ensure the car for disabled person is never blocked in. Or for regular disabled transport to come and pickup for taking to day centres etc.

PMSL at the subsequent diagrams OP

"It doesn't have to be mobility issues as to why you'd keep the space clear, there may be regular Nurse etc visits"
Unless the nurse was a Blue Badge holder the nurse is not entitled to use a disabled space.

And BobGoblin: if a disabled person needed to park on the road for enough door-space, wouldn't' the car be left on the road? Often enough for the OP to have seen it?

I am fully in agreement that life is shit for disabled people at the moment, and that is part of the reason that I have no patience with people who use fake disabled signs to bags part of a public road for their own selfish purposes. My part of London is packed with people who use stolen or forged Blue Badges to occupy spaces needed by others, and drug dealers using the badges of relatives to do short drops in urban, heavily 'wardened' controlled parking zones. It makes life worse for genuine disabled folk.

If this resident needs parking in the front in connection with a disability, they could put a notice saying 'please keep clear - space needed for XYZ, thank you!' Like people put bins out with a notice when their removal van is coming.

My son used a wheelchair for a year, and had a very particular mobility issue - we didn't want a permanent BB space outside and probably wouldn't have got one, for a year, so we spoke to all neighbours and sometimes put the bin out with a polite notice on it. 'On our way back from hospital, please keep space clear, thank you'. Everyone was helpful and co-operative, and we relied on that and were grateful. Had they not been we wouldn't have been able to do anything, because it is a public road. But I certainly wouldn't have tried to create a non-lawful fake disabled parking zone.

Actually, maybe this house owner should just put a polite notice on their bin: 'No doggers, please,'.

As this is clearly the real issue in the area

You have BEAUTIFUL hair, Daisy.

The thread that keeps on giving you should become MN official diagram artist

potato I'd rushed out to put the poo in the bin before I remembered my trousers and wellies. And chaos my hair matches my dog's. We've won prizes in dog shows for dog who looks most like its owner

If you will go to the woods without your trousers, no wonder it's full of doggers.

I'm concerned that the council official on the left seems to have his trousers round his ankles. Is he a secret dogger?

yes! that's exactly it