It's a Blue Badge one!

[ImSoExhausted]

Yesterday we got our wonderful mobility car for our pre-school age DS. We've applied for a blue badge but it's going to take up to 2 months to arrive apparently! I couldn't do it before hand because you need the reg number of the car.

Would IBU to park in a disabled bay when my son is with me and put his High Rate Mobility award notice in the window, with another sign saying 'waiting for blue badge to arrive!' or should I just wait it out??

Until we have it, I won't be able to take DS to shops by myself, he's severely autistic, is a runner and extremely strong so I'd find it difficult to get him safely to a trolley/into his SEN pram in the middle of a car park.

OP Also make sure your Dad is on the insurance of the Mobility car. you can usually add on another driver

We just renewed my mums blue badge and arrived in about one week. Her initial one was quick too. No more than 2 weeks. Hope you receive it soon xx

There's a notorious Facebook group in my area that likes to upload pictures of people parking like a twat, their most common theme is judging blue badge holders and whether they 'look' disabled. Those people sound like a bunch of bastards.

parkhead most driving schools near us have a pick up next learner who drives to drop first learner back at home system. Not quite the same as a potentially fractious child but still a passenger.

You cannot park without a BB. In our area there is a turn around of a few weeks for a BB.

Ignore this advice, it's wrong
"Supermarket car parks that are free to park in would be fine, and in fact I think our local one says you can park there if you need one even if you don't have a blue badge."

Some supermarket carparks have a warden who will automatically issue you with a fine if the Blue Badge is not displayed.
That's because the spaces are for Blue Badge holders only.

Again, use the parent and child spaces until your badge arrives.

Then see how many times you visit the supermarket and all the Blue Badge spaces are taken so you "have" to use a parent and child space anyway

There's a notorious Facebook group in my area that likes to upload pictures of people parking like a twat, their most common theme is judging blue badge holders and whether they 'look' disabled

Now there's a group of people asking to be educated about invisible disabilities

I didn't have to give our car registration plate when applying for my blue badge. It seems odd that you had to.

Why can't you use a P&C space? I wouldn't want to have my PiP award notice on display, as it has my name, address and NI number on it, so I don't think you should use that in a disabled bay.

The car reg number is voluntarily. However my council application stipulates it as essential to prevent fraudlent use of a blue badge, and I know inspectors do a check for the reg when checking the badge - if, like me, you don't use the same car all the time then you must explain why on the application.

Round here they're gradually removing BB spaces and those they haven't they've restricted the waiting times to one or two hours.

Our supermarket car parks are notorious for parking fines, particularly for BB as the spaces are fraudlently used so much.

The notice of high rate mobility isn't enough to park there, it must be the badge, they are usually quite quick to come through - they don't get made at your local council though so don't just look out for post from them - my last almost got binned as I thought it was some kind of spam post!

For the local supermarket do as you suggest and mention it at customer service. If they object ( highly doubt this) you’ll have to wait.

Well done on getting this far.

I should have added our supermarket car parks are managed by a private firm independent of the supermarket so asking wouldn't make a difference if you lived here.

I wouldn't advise putting anything with personal information, including name and address in a car window.

Morally use the blue badge spaces, legally you might run into trouble. Use P&C spaces until it comes through.

OP slightly worried you've had to give a reg number? Just renewed my mums disabled badge through Council website and no need for a reg number as she gets ferried around in so many different cars etc...when we first applied we didn't have to give a reg number either. Was it through your Council you got the badge?

I wouldn't advise you to use the blue badge spaces without a badge my friend has done this recently and had the sad news they will not be letting her off the fines...4 in total I would be very wary of Parking in blue badge areas and you haven't got one.

Ps badge arrived just under 10 days after renewing.

Sorry should have said my friends son has motor neurones...where they live (South West) there's been a delay in renewals.

I got my blue badge from the council within 5 days of being granted it (admittedly that was after 18 months of trying to get one). No reg number needed because it's for any car that I am travelling in. At the time I didn't claim pip or any other benefits so it's not reliant on them.

In the 18 months prior to getting it I parked in disabled spaces when I could because, blue badge or not, I was still disabled. No one ever challenged me, nor did I get a ticket.

PitterPatterOfBigFeet

It is for reasons like that, I’m too scared to use my blue badge

Just FYI they are getting a lot more strict. A friend of my mum's was fined and they were going to take her to court because she didn't remove the badge when her disabled child wasn't in the car. She hadn't even parked in a disabled space and had forgotten due to stressful situation. It was dropped by the council eventually but not for many very stressful months.

You don't need th number place of your mobility car to apply for a blue badge, that's incorrrect.

Apply for it today and it will be with you in a couple of weeks.

Expect some dirty looks in the meantime. Personally I would just park in normal spaces until then.

I’d use it in the supermarket. Unless parking is owned by a private firm.
You absolutely can carry passengers when learning to drive

Unfortunately something you'll have to get used to is waiting for them and when you renew - in our area - you have to send the old one back even if it hasn't yet expired so you're without one then.

Our council did used to issue a letter that said it was being renewed that the LOCAL parking attendants would accept, but not in other areas. They had to stop it due to it being abused.

I think that's fine, I park in disabled bays when my mum is with me (would qualify without a doubt but she wont go through the process :( ) if it's a supermarket / shopping centre just pop in and let customer services know, we've never had a problem.

Otherwise we just use p and c spaces if it's in town or if they are closer to the store. Only had one big mouth try and shout at us, if you get that just ignore.

if there is a local fb group that judges people as to whether they look disabled, cant this be reported to fb as disablist? with their renewed focus on values and all that. meantime dont go looking at that kind of stuff. you have it hard enough as it is.
the vast majority of people are far to busy to go around comtemplating such stuff

If your mum doesn’t have a blue badge rjen you can’t just decide to use the spaces! You either apply through the proper channels or park elsewhere!

To those asking, it's for space and closeness. DS has a rather large pushchair to get out the boot and a bulky car seat to get him in and out off. At the moment we got driven around with by my dad and his car has sliding doors so it's not been too much of an issue when getting DS in and out, now I'm terrified of bashing the doors or getting stuck if someone parks too close to me.

I'm hoping I'll get the official one a lot quicker than two months, I'll make sure not to park anywhere private and just cross my fingers than there's a P&C bay available!

If you did get a ticket in a private car park make a fuss and mention the equality act. But will you have time to make a fuss is the question? Compared to till badge arrives.

Also make sure you've registered the car in your local council area if applicable. Places like Cornwall require a blue badge AND for the car to be registered on their white list to park in council car parks.

Finally don't forget to look into entitlements for toll bridges, ferry crossings, even the M6 toll road. Xx