To think people without kids who use parent and baby spaces are just lazy and selfish!

[Mummer123]

local Tesco and nearly every single week I have a run in with someone over this. I am 7 months pregnant and have a 1.5 year old. For me it’s not even about the walking, it’s the extra space at the sides so that i can get the baby in the trolly/pram at the side of the car rather than at the boot where there’s traffic.

i don’t mind if there’s older people who clearly are struggling with mobility but fit, healthy people who park there and not a child in sight. A car actually cut the one way system a few days ago to park in the last mother and baby spot. Was a man on his own, plenty of other spaces in the car park. I wouldn’t even park in them if I don’t have my baby with me. I just think it’s so lazy and selfish.

Why?

Don't get the car seat out and use a proper pram or load it through the boot. They need to make standard spaces bigger to discourage the use of parent and child.

Other option would be to combine them with disabled space and issue a paid for badge to parents with under 12s to use bring enforcement.

Either way on private land it's up to the land owner to enforce both types of spaces which they have little interest in doing.

They kind of are, because cars are getting bigger.

The increase in car size is 1cm every two years, and thats been measured over the last 20 years, with the current average 180cm.

Parking bays, the standard size of 2.4m wide has not altered since at least 2007 and in reality, more likely since the 1970s!

Of course that average is bumped up by people who buy very large cars, but some people have no choice but to do that. I had ONE option for my car last time I picked one (admittedly, its a motability vehicle and so parking bay width is rarely an issue for me) - I won't be the only person in the country for whom various non-negotiable needs mean that a bigger car is necessary.

However plenty of people are not intentionally seeking out bigger cars, it is just that the cars are getting bigger even if you're still buying a little hatchback! The current Ford Fiesta is 1735 mm wide. The 1990 Fiesta is 1567mm!

Its also often not the people with the huge cars that are parking in the wrong bays, its the people with very expensive and possibly normal sized cars, who don't want folks with massive cars dinging theirs!

How do you push a proper pram and a trolley at the same time?

That doesn't work with my car you cant fit a pram in the boot only space for a small buggy, and the whole point of the doona is it's a car seat on wheels that is perfect for nipping in and out the shops. It would be impossible to lift the doona out through the boot space bearing in mind especially with the baby inside- but even if you took baby out and put them somewhere- where?! - you still couldn't get doona through the boot!
People should just not park so close to other people's cars

@Anothercoffeeafter3 agree most spaces need to be bigger. But if you Google what a Doona is you will see how logistically your suggestions wouldn't work

Totally agree with this. Couldn't care how close I am to where I want to be, but I'd like to be able to get my baby in and out of the car without (as I've had to do before) either climbing across the back seat with him from the other side, or having to put him on the passenger seat unsecured while I reverse the car out enough to get the door open.

The car park I almost always use in our local town is privately owned and they fine for repeated misuse of P&C spaces. They have an entire floor and a half of disabled spaces, many more than they have P&C.

Do you do other selfish anti social things unapologetically? Or is it just parents (mainly mothers) with small children you are happy to brag about fucking over?

I'm sorry you had to deal with that. I did exactly the same as I needed the extra room to manoeuvre getting my child (still in my belly) out the car. Same difference really

I bet you would.

If you say you wouldn’t then you can’t of experienced that level of pain.

P&C places aren’t legally protected. I’d never blame someone who genuinely needed more room for a temporary physical disability for using one.

The solution however is for all shops to re-do their parking spaces wider as a couple shops around here have done. Modern cars are all bigger than the cars of the 1980’s when most supermarkets were built. Yes that includes the Honda Jazz’s as well as the oversized SUV’s.

Our local ASDA has redone its car park and made lines between each bay wide enough that anyone can park with ease.

I agree. The amount of times I’ve struggled to get baby out with the car seat because the cars are way too close in the normal car park.

Most 'rules' in society are not enforced all the time, but if no one pays attention to any of them the world is a really unpleasant and selfish place to be.

We have new neighbours who have moved into a house where the previous resident was disabled, and there is a marked disabled bay outside. They are absolutely not disabled and don't have a blue badge on display which you need to use this spot. They technically "can" do this as no traffic warden has given them a ticket, but it's a shitty thing to do and there are other other parking spaces available, just not right outside their house. It makes it much harder to drive down these road and blocks other people in, which obviously no one cared about when the vehicle was actually for the disabled resident.

People can be shit, and if none of us obey social norms design to make the world nicer for others, we end up with the crappy individualist hellhole that is the modern world.

The professionally offended !!!

Yes, the ‘I have a baby and I should have special parking’ lot are professionally offended.

Eugh yes I hate this. My local lidl has parent and child parking right outside the front. I was there the other day and overheard an older man say 'what about having kids means you can't walk?' 😡 maybe because it's safer for toddlers?
Prick.

This is a good point.

Some of these "Chelsea tractors" are so big they encroach on the spaces either side. Transit vans are another problem in this respect, 😡

Completely agree.

Combining them with disabled spaces would be a nightmare for those with blue badges. Blue badge parking should never be a shared resource.

Blue badge parking is essential for people with disabilities to be able to go out. P and C is handy when available.

@Patagonianpenguin The world is not going to become a "shitty place" because"mum huns" in ridiculous SUVs don't get a P&C spot at Tesco.

As for your neighbours. They are free to park in that spot if they want. It might be annoying but they are well within theirr ights to do so.

An advisory space
Normally provided where parking is at a premium in a residential area not controlled by waiting restrictions. Advisory bays are marked with the word ‘DISABLED’, but they don’t have a restriction plate showing the blue disabled symbol accompanying them. They can’t be enforced and no action can be taken against anyone else who parks there.

Agree it is annoying, it's about the extra room.

There was this debate on my local towns Facebook page, what made me laugh was people saying they use them without kids, there is no law, we managed in our day etc and that parents were just using them to be lazy as they are closer to the shop, I thought hang on if you are using them with no need for the extra room doesn't that make you lazy as the only reason you must be using them is because they are closer?! 😂😂

Where I shop most of the P&C bays are taken with Amazon pick ups for food or deliveries to the lockers 🤣

Personally I think they should be further away with a trolley bay next to it and a safe walk way. That would stop a lot of this argument

They should put the disabled spaces further away ? Thus making it harder for those with mobility problems and forcing wheelchair users to cross a busy car park. One of the stupidest statements l’ve seen on MN for a while.

It would also be illegal. Disabled spaces are protected by law, P&C spaces are not. And judging by some of the attitudes I’ve seen on MN, disabled people would never be able to park if this suggestion were implemented.

Well, they don't perhaps, but you'd still get parents moaning about having to walk "so far" with kids in a "busy carpark". People seem to equate walking across a supermarket carpark with trying to cross the M11, walking backwards and blindfolded whilst cars are actively trying to hit you at 90mph.

Also many are retro fitted, and there isn't always a car free path to the shop.

They're meant to get you to spend your money there, by offering a convenience. So of course they'll pretty much always be near the front.