It's fine to park in a bus stop for a few minutes?

[ChangeyTime]

Hoping my title will fire up the same confusion and slight rage that it does in me.

I'm taking advantage of the anonymity of the internet to find out how many people genuinely think it's ok?

So far this week 3 times I've seen a local mum I know 'parked' - twice within the painted yellow area of a bus stop.

And once completely on the pavement - double yellow lines on the road beside it.

Frequently parks on double yellows too at school drop/pick up. The rest of us walk from a road away but always a few who ignore the lines.

These aren't for emergency situations. The bus stop was both times to get into the small Sainsbury's Local that has only 2 on street spaces outside. There's a small car park but it's a 2/3 minute walk. (I, like a mug, use the car park.)

The pavement time was to go into the chemist on our same small high street. This is a maybe 4 minute walk from the free car park which I use....

Be honest with me as I'm ND and maybe follow rules too easily.

I'm not unreasonable for finding this horrible, selfish behaviour right?

There must be MNer who do it too - if so why? Are the rest of us mugs for following rules?

Same here & I know I was absolutely in the wrong. To be honest I didn’t even notice I was near the bus stop. I was too busy trying to find a place to let DD out. But I’ll never do it again that’s for sure! In London you often get fined for this sort of thing which is good really but I’m not sure about outside London.

It's rude and bloody selfish. It happens so much on the school run.

My dcs school was horrendous at 9am and 3pm with cars parked and zooming everywhere. So much so had a child was ran down. The council the made a zone around the school car free at certain times.
We walk but it has made a tiny bit more of a delay to everyone who drives in the mornings. And the twats that where parking/ driving rediculously can now drive right up the no car zone to the schools front door. Because again they are exempt from all rules, so their life in even easier than before.

The selfish people always seem to come out on top in life.

No.

I’m ready to be flamed, but I’ve done it. And for a very specific reason.
I have fibromyalgia and tethered cord syndrome, it has taken 12 years of repeated doctors and hospital trips to diagnosed the TCS. All the while slowly losing my mobility. It wasn’t until I lost the use of my legs I was taken seriously. So now I have a blue badge.
but in the lasy decade I’ve been slowly less and less able to walk far but because I had no diagnosis/proof, no blue badge.
so in order to exist as a person, as a mother to 5 kids, I have parked in bus stops and on pavements and I’ve endured the tuts and stares and general talking about me that has gone on in my local area. None of them knew why I did it, they didn’t care to ask. They couldn’t see the screaming agony I was in even parking badly to get my kids from school. The sweating in pain. The times I would go home and collapse in a heap and not be able to move. They just thought I was a lazy cow.
those same people are all super nice to my face now they can see my disability. The irony being I’m in far less pain now I’ve been diagnosed had some treatment, and have mobility aids and a blue badge.

my point is you never know why someone does what they do.

This sounds exactly like where we are.

There's a mini roundabout too to add to the nuisance yet people still park on the pavement/double yellows.

"Only popping in for one thing" seems to mean parking rules don't apply.

@NobodyLivesHere

I did think as I posted it that of course some people will have legitimate reasons.

I know this family well enough to know they don't. Rules just don't apply to them in any circumstance it would seem.

I can't think of a single bus stop round here (London) that doesn't have a camera to send tickets for this. I've received (and challenged) tickets when I've been stuck in traffic in a one lane road making it appear like I've stopped in a bus stop, but was in fact just in a traffic jam.

Same here too. How often is the bus OP? There's a big difference in using a bus stop like this when there's a bus once an hour and you know it went 20 mins ago compared with a busier bus stop that has buses passing every few minutes.

**"so in order to exist as a person, as a mother to 5 kids, I have parked in bus stops and on pavements and I’ve endured the tuts and stares and general talking about me that has gone on in my local area. None of them knew why I did it, they didn’t care to ask.

"my point is you never know why someone does what they do."**

But @NobodyLivesHere surely you had even more cause to know and understand that you're making the lives of other people with disabilities so much harder? If our bus can't pull in properly to the stop, they can't lower the ramp to a dropped kerb to let wheelchairs on or off. The other day our bus could not get near enough to drop the ramp and had to drive two further stops on to do it, meaning a wheelchair journey back covering an extra two stops worth of distance (with fucking cars parked on the pavement causing even more problems!) The rules are there for good reasons - It's not top trumps about pain levels or existing as a mother to 5 kids. You had the awareness to know that what you were doing was legally as well as morally wrong, why did you think you were more important than anyone else? It's a genuine question, btw. I know you said you were prepared to get flamed so you know you were wrong but still did it?

Yes, this. If I am dropping DH or DD at the station, the only place to pull off the road is at a bus stop, so I think this is safer than stopping in the middle of the road. But I am there seconds only - pull up, they get out, I drive off. I would never park there.

It's 2 questions
Is it wrong to park on a bus stop/double yellow? Yes it's wrong?
Why do people do it?
They assess the risk of being caught as very low. And they are probably right.

fair enough if you’re describing a specific person who you 100% know don’t have a reason.

😂😂😂

I don’t think I’m more important than anyone else, but if my choice is park in the bus stop and be able to get to the shop I need to get to buy food or electric, or don’t park in the bus stop and not have food or electric…what was I meant to do? I avoided it as much as possible, I would drive to other towns 20 mins away to be able to avoid it for example. But that’s not always doable. I tried to no go in the busy day time hours. but the point is sometimes it was the only way I could do things I HAD to do.

My heart genuinely goes out to you NobodyLivesHere and the struggles you must face.

But parking at a bus stop was a safety hazards, especially near a school. It also blocked buses from using their ramps for disabled users and prams.

I would have hoped the school would have allowed you to use their disabled spaces without a blue badge while waiting for a diagnosis, very mean of them if they didn't.

LOL

Only time I'd park in a restricted area is if I'm literally picking up or dropping off - and I'm not getting out of the car myself or turning the engine off as I'm there for seconds only.

As others say I think it does depend somewhat on context, it’s not okay to park at a bus stop if you might then block a bus from pulling in but not all bus stops are in regular use. I grew up in rural Wales and some of the villages only have a bus once a week, parking on a bus stop there isn’t going to cause an issue as long as it’s not during the 5 minutes the stop is needed each week and I wouldn’t judge somebody parking in a bus stop in that context, even if technically it’s not allowed. Obviously it’s very different if it is a bus stop in regular use with buses coming along every 10 minutes or so and where parking might block bus access and cause issues for the driver and passengers.

"I don’t think I’m more important than anyone else, but if my choice is park in the bus stop and be able to get to the shop I need to get to buy food or electric, or don’t park in the bus stop and not have food or electric…what was I meant to do? I avoided it as much as possible, I would drive to other towns 20 mins away to be able to avoid it for example. But that’s not always doable. I tried to no go in the busy day time hours. but the point is sometimes it was the only way I could do things I HAD to do."

But you must see that sounds like you could end with the sentence "so I'm going to break the law and fuck other disabled people I will cause pain and inconvenience to (especially those who medically do not have the option to drive as an alternative)"

Look, please don't think I'm unsympathetic to your situation - as a person with disabilities I know how hard it is. In regard to topping up meters I've linked to Ofgem and new regulations. Hopefully it will be useful and you could talk to your supplier about the new rules and alternatives as required, as there is lots of rules about PPMs and vulnerable customers. A useful bit is

"Where there is no one within the household that has the ability to top up the meter due to physical or mental incapacity."

Hopefully that could resolve that issue? If you have a town within 20 minutes drive, is there a reason why you can't get online food deliveries? They can also make reasonable adjustments if requested eg carrying through to the kitchen etc.

I sound like I'm taking your posts personally but I am as people like you personally affect me. For example, I can't drive for medical reasons and have a specialist hospital appointment this week that's too expensive to Uber to. It's too late to arrange hospital transport as it was a free cancellation and I don't have anyone who could give me a lift at that time and I've been waiting nine months for it (hence the cancellation slot) I'm ubering (is that a verb?) part of it but another bit involves two buses. At home, one of our local bus drivers is sympathetic and will pull in at the nearest free stop if mine is parked over (which still makes it more difficult and painful and slower for me but at least I get onto the bus) but a lot of the others just shrug and mouth sorry and drive on.

Please don't park at bus stops, your disability doesn't give you an exemption (unlike yellow lines and blue badges circumstances) and you're making life so much harder for other disabled people like me. You see five minutes to get food as your entitlement, but for me people like me your five minutes is fucking up my life on a huge scale. I'm already worried about my appointment as it's a major one, I have to leave so much earlier to allow for the behaviour of people like you. I won't be able to sleep tonight worrying about it and I'll be so fucked from the journey the rest of the week is written off.

You just seem to have more alternatives available to you, I have none in situations like this.

PS I also understand the many difficulties of having lots of children and disabilities - I don't know how old yours are of course but they can be so helpful when they're older (without exploiting them obviously!) so it can be a bonus. And even if they're little they can "help" put your shopping away. If you really want flaming, park about leaving your DC unattended while you park at the bus stop (that's meant to be light hearted as I don't want to sound like a total grumpy bitch to someone struggling, I just wanted to fully explain the consequences of action like yours on other people like me.

Anyway I hope the link is useful. The difficulties of PPMs (especially for disabled people) are a scandal that has gone on far too long.

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/press-release/ofgem-sets-out-prepayment-meter-expectations-energy-bosses-edf-octopus-and-scottish-power-meet-regulators-restart-conditions

At the school which my GC attend, numerous people were parking on double yellow lines and had had repeated warnings and pleas from the school to stop it.

One day the police turned up and fined everyone parked on a double yellow. A person who was parked on a bus stop also got points on their licence.

Some parents who were fined complained to the school and suggested the school should pay their fines because it hadn't provided enough parking spaces!

I wondered which part of the school they would have liked to see demolished for parking. 😂

The school has no parking for parents, only staff. This is my point really, I honestly tried to avoid doing it, and it didn’t happen often, but sometimes there really was no way around it.

it’s a hard thing when people don’t meet the requirements for a blue badge etc, but are really struggling temporarily or more long term. I’m not sure what the answer would even be.

It’s different now, I can’t walk any longer, so the things I was doing don’t happen anymore. I can park miles from my destination now because I have a power chair and I’m not tied to only being able to stand for 5-10 mins at a time. Ironic that my lack of mobility has created so much more freedom than I had.

But I didn’t see it as my entitlement to park in a bus stop, I saw it as the last resort after exhausting all other ways. Only this particular shop did the top up I needed within a 30 mile radius, I live in rural Wales, getting food delivered is difficult and that doesn’t help when I ran out of bread on a Wednesday at 8.30pm. The nearest town has a coop, but no supermarket. It’s also worth pointing out that the bus stops I parked in are not busy, we get maybe 4 buses a day.
I’m also not unsympathetic to your situation and I can see why you would be furious about it, I truly can. But that doesn’t help me be able to get the things I need to keep my lights on.

I got a fine a few years ago when I accidentally stopped at the end of a bus stop to let a friend out of the car.
Hopefully this woman will get a load of fines through the post soon and then won't make the same mistake again!

I regularly park in a bus stop. But the bus service to both the stop and the village stopped about five years ago. Apparently we are not worthy of a bus service anymore!

Oh this is different.

The bus stop on our high street is frequently used.

In fact I just looked at the timetable as I have no clue on it as never used it.

For the 1 bus I know the number of it's every 15 minutes. There are others and a couple of school services. And the times of day I see her is school pick up time.