To think it takes a special kind of arsehole to fuck up wheelchair access?

[CatThiefKeith]

Apologies in advance for the rant, but I've had a particularly bad couple of days with arsehole parkers.

Yesterday I took a lady who has a history of strokes and heart attacks to hospital, where she got some fairly bad news. Our local hospitals disabled bays have one yellow box between every two spaces, and you drive or reverse in, depending which side the wheelchair user needs to get out.

Got back to the car with a very emotional lady to find some Arsehat had parked right over the box on my passenger side, leaving a 4ft gap next to his car where there was no box. Had to leave lady halfway down the car park, pull my car out with the hazards on, get her, get her in, reverse back into my space, then take the wheelchair back to customer services. Wanker.

And now today have taken a different lady to a mobility aids clinic and some utter twat has used the dropped kerb/wheelchair access as a fucking parking space. Both of these fuckers had a blue badge themselves btw.

To top it all off this afternoon took my favourite sweary nonagenarian for afternoon tea in the village and 3 fuckwits had parked over drop kerbs or across pavements. Tossers.

I think all new drivers should have to volunteer to take wheelchair users out and about before getting their license, just so they can see what a monumental pain in the arse it is when ramps are blocked. AIBU?

Fetal- you don't use toilets? Do you have magic? Can I borrow it?

*feral

Maisy and I may disagree, callous, but we are not off topic?

I didnt think we were either Beyond.

No different than if other posters went on a parking tangent.

Exactly.

And "pack it in" ?! How rude.

i was enjoying this thread, was nice to at last be able to rant at the dick head drivers who make life so difficult.
sadly its been derailed.
once i went to matalan with dd, I had to give up as they had so much in the way I couldn't get her arround(think she was in a small wheelchair back then) so annoying

Wobs
Now THAT would solve everything wouldn't it!

I agree with wobbly about using aids btw. And even the difference between what aids - I notice people are more helpful when I'm in my powerchair than a manual, even!! And I also did the bit of pregnant, using a pushchair as a walking frame as I couldn't walk unaided.

In our area the council tows any car parked (even marginally) along the dropped kerb, at a cost of close to £300 to have the car released. I'm surprised that these idiots get away with parking like this.

I don't think it's as simple as disabled = needs accessible toilet, not disabled = mustn't use it.

As a child/teenager, I spent 4-5 years unable to walk unaided (thanks to a broken foot which was incorrectly operated on). After a couple of years of using crutches, I could manoeuvre easily with crutches and stopped using disabled toilets although I had a key.

When I was heavily pregnant, we stopped at a rest area in France where the female and male toilets were squat toilets but the disabled cubicle had a proper loo. I used the disabled one, and since we were the only vehicle in the car park, there wasn't going to be any disabled person queuing during the time it took me to pee.

I always wondered how shops get away with endless baskets of crap in the middle of aisles. Difficult for people to get around, buggies, trolleys, wheelchairs. Etc.

By coincidence, I've just signed a petition about mobility issues:

"End the uncertainty for disabled people who are having their adapted vehicles taken away"
"My name is Dave Gale. I have Becker muscular dystrophy, a muscle-wasting condition that severely impacts my mobility.

"I need a car to get to my job 30 miles away to provide for my family. I can’t use a regular car because of my condition, but I have a government-funded Motability car that is adapted to my needs.

"However, the government is in the process of reassessing all disabled people’s benefits, and when mine were assessed in 2016, they decided to take my car away.

"On 11 October, I had to give my Motability vehicle back. I was devastated and lodged an appeal to get it back.

"In the meantime I had no choice but to use our family savings to buy a new adapted car in order to keep my job.

"An appeal tribunal eventually overturned the original decision– but our savings are gone.

"Sadly, mine is not an exceptional story. Since 2013, 50,000 people have lost their Motability vehicles as the government has been moving people from the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Many get them back on appeal. But before that point, too many of us have seen our savings wrecked or our independence compromised because the Government haven’t conducted their assessment process correctly.

"There is a very simple solution: people should be allowed to keep their vehicles until their appeals have been heard.

"Penny Mordaunt MP, the Minister for Disabled People, told Parliament last year that she was going to do something to help people in my position. But months later, the minister has said nothing more.

"We need to make sure that Penny keeps her promise, and we need your support to make sure that thousands more people don’t face the problems I have faced."

signed, that is so scarey and wrong

BeyondUser24601, I understand what you meant, I just mentioned the Registered Disabled thing because some people don't realise it used to be a thing and some people think it still is. It can be useful to have the card so I think it's a shame they stopped it but I suppose other people might not have liked the idea of being "registered". Swings and roundabouts.

I just realised I was talking about people parking on the pavement, which stops wheelchairs and double buggies getting past and sometimes even a single buggy, and I think everyone else is talking about dropped kerbs which is much worse for wheelchairs. I think both things are annoying and dangerous. I will try to pay attention in future.

well as a person who uses a wheelchair occasionally and someone with severe IBS, I don't have any issue with an able bodied person using the accessible toilet if the alternative is shitting themselves. No one wants that surely?
People parking like twats is my biggest annoyance.

Don't worry about it granny. People parking like twats is a massive problem for many people, including buggy users, wheelchair users, mobility aid users and the visually impaired.

That's what the raised bobbles on dropped pavements are for, just in case anyone wasn't aware; so that people that have problems with their sight can cross slightly more safely Assuming some tossed hasn't parked on it obviously!

Wobbly maybe feral has a aroma and a catheter? It isn't that unusual.

GreatFuckability
Champion twattery was at my local tesco this morning.
Non blue badge holder raking uo TWO blue badge spaces right in front of the store because of their inability park their excessively large and spotless car in one non-disabled/parent and child space. (Yes, i have an irrational dislike of excessively large cars, if theyre spotless as well they tend to be driven by dickheads).
They were complaining loudly about how awful the parking was as I walked across from thr other side of the carpark. Must have had resting bitchface on as in went past them as they went quiet suddenly.

I agree with Beyond and Wobbly about the walking aids. I've gone from crutches, to a stick, to nothing, to a self-propelled chair, and eventually to my powerchair. For as long as I was upright with a walking aid, I was treated considerately. If I was upright without an aid but asked for a seat on the bus, I was often verbally abused because being fat isn't a disability. Which is correct, but that wasn't why I needed the seat.

I have been horrified at how I've been treated since I started needing a wheelchair, especially since the back injury and arthritis meant I couldn't actually self propel and found myself reliant on my husband or son to push me. Because apparently that signalled to many people that I could no longer speak for myself.

This has improved in the power chair, because I finally have some independence, but the number of people who obstruct your path and ignore your requests to get past, people who would try and force you to take the part of the path with the adverse camber and send you veering off the pavement as a result, people who don't look where they're going because they're staring at their phones and get verbally abusive because they walk into your chair or land in your lap because despite you shouting several warnings and trying to take evasive action they're still too self-absorbed to take responsibility for their own shitty accident... I could go on. Fortunately, for all that there are some idiots, I occasionally encounter people who restore my faith in human nature, and remind me I'm not actually invisible and not really just an inconvenience to others.

Oh Grumpy don't get me started on the ignoring of the person in the wheelchair! I've had it at hospitals, gp's, pharmacists etc (so people that really should know better) as well as the usual shops and supermarkets.

Although the lady that served afternoon yesterday was brilliant. The lady I was with is 90 And a wheelchair user, which often gets a double whammy of rudeness, but our waitress was really good.

How awful is it though when speaking to the wheelchair user and not the person assisting them is suddenly 'great service' instead of 'basic manners'?

I have actually had someone get hold of the handles of my chair and move me. I was looking at a dress in H and M. As my DCs were with me I managed not to include a "fuck" in the what do you think you're doing, but it was a close run thing

What would happen if the person with a stomach bug didn't make it and now needs a clean up job? They're supposed to wash out their knickers in a public loo sink? I wouldn't have a problem with using the accessible loo just for that, how embarrassing.

"...some tit parked a Range Rover ACROSS the back of her car in the disabled space at Tesco as they figured "if she was proper disabled she'd take ages & they'd only be 5 minutes".

I get this every week at the supermarket. People parking across the bays to load up their shopping - if the bays are empty I can't get in, if I'm parked in one I can't get out. They always say "I'll only be a minute!" The taxis park across the bays like it's a taxi rank and get annoyed when you ask them to please move because it means they have to do a full circuit of the car park.

On Sunday I had someone behind me wanting to get past as I sat with my indicator on clearly signalling I wanted to get into a disabled bay, blasting me on their horn and yelling at me to just give it up and park in a normal spot. I wish! I may not need a chair (yet, give it time, I'm getting worse with age) but I need a wider space to open my door fully and spin round on my chair to get out safely without dislocating.

What was holdong me up?

There was one taxi, one person loading her shopping and one person actually parked diagonally across 2 bays (how is that even possible?!) waiting to pick someone up!

DS also has ASD, so between my physical limitations and his ridiculously high anxiety (which manifests in him either curling up in a ball and screaming or running away from hand dryers and has in the past caused him to run in front of cars to 'get away from them') I feel we are perfectly suited to use accessible facilities. DS also has a card as he is registered on the council database (I am not as I don't need adult SS) which I do flash if necessary.

But having a blue badge does carry a level of responsibility. I've known of people who got their badges taken away for not following the law and DS, with his obsession with rules, has memorised to guidance booklet that came with my blue badge - "Mum, are we more than 3 metres from the junction?", "Mum do you know you can't park there because there are markings on the pavement that show it's for loafing?!", "Mum we mustn't park over any dropped kerbs, ok?", "Mum, why are those people so rude and blocking all the bays when you only need one?"

When a 10 year old with additional needs understands the rules better than grown adults you have to despair!

holding and loading, obvs.