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.

I use them if no other spaces are free. I'm not sorry.

It depends. I used one earlier in the week. It was gone 8pm and every single mother and baby space was free. It didn’t take anything away from someone who might have needed it. I wouldn’t use them in other circumstances though.

Ah but now you're introducing common sense, which is isn't that common. What about 7pm when only 5 of 10 mother and child spaces are taken?

Parking spaces aren’t fit for purpose.

They have been that ridiculously small size for decades and decades.

Like most things in this country, it doesn’t keep up with the times.

Yay another thread that will devolve into bashing people with disabilities.

That must be annoying. Is there not as many spaces as there should be, too many people abusing them, or is there an unusually high volume of disabled people living locally?

That's because people seem to conflate able bodied individuals abusing a courtesy with abusing disabled people. And rushing to take offense at the hint someone else might need help other than their own demographic group.

Are you seriously trying to say it’s unfair that people who are DISABLED don’t have to navigate across the whole car park??

Oh here we go.

Agree, it maddening when people without children use them. But you'll get plenty of other people saying 'oh well we managed without them years ago' 'they aren't essential' blah blah blah.

YANBU, but you will get hundreds of posters piling on you to point out that you are.

👏🙄

An argument

I think that some parent and child spaces should be at the back of the car park with a safe path to the supermarket and some nearer the front. I didn't need to be close to the supermarket when my child was in a pram, I just needed the extra space.

I do think there needs to be some cracking down in some supermarket car parks on the abuse of BB spaces, round us lots of entitled arse holes (without children or a Blue Badge) park in the BB and P&C spaces - transit vans, posh car owners and downright lazy - almost all seem to be men...

I am not ashamed to admit that my toddler was sadly overtaken by a massive tantrum and slammed their pushchair into some very expensive looking, meticulously clean and polished less than 6 months old Porsche a couple of years ago. No child seat in the Porsche.

ROFL I’m waiting for a hip replacement I regularly park in these - I’m not disabled so I can’t park there - but I need the door of the car fully open to get out of the car and then I lean on the trolley so it needs to be along side. What else do you suppose I should do - supermarkets don’t provide spaces for ‘temporarily incapacitated’ but I’m sure you would ‘have a go’ at me because I don’t look like I’m waiting for a new hip

it take me long enough to sort my son out next to the shop, I couldn't imagine having to navigate across the massive car parks, on the plus side all I can picture in my head now is the old video game frogger dodging trafgic aha 😂

What would also help massively is if able bodied people without young kids didn’t hog the regular parking spaces closest to the store. I’m perfectly capable of walking across a car park so I park at the back.

But as we know from MN, if there isn’t a rule or law about something telling you what the right thing to do is, you can’t just expect anyone to behave considerately.

I had a woman start berating me as I parked up in a P&C space with no kids in the car last week. What she hadn’t noticed is that I’m heavily pregnant and I give zero shits about whether or not she thinks that qualifies me for a space. A few days prior I had parked in a standard space and had other cars park so close to me on both sides that I couldn’t get in the car and had to climb through the boot and I wasn’t doing that again. Ideally of course the spaces should be free for those with young children/pregnant mothers/blue badge holders but when the supermarkets are keeping parking spaces so small and cars are getting bigger, is it any great surprise that people will use those spaces? The fault really lies with the supermarkets.

Regard of who is parking where, it’s really not a good idea to be having numerous arguments when you’re pregnant and have a young child with you.

I can't lose sleep over this. There's so many places that you have to park without parent bays - council car parks, train stations, tourist attractions, swimming pools, parks, plus plenty of shops/supermarkets - you just get on with it,, don't you?

it's not difficult to get 2 kids into a car without the extra space - just more inconvenient.

And might I add, they’re better sized in some places. Local leisure centre where I take my client with a BB only has 3 spaces, they’re all next to each other with no hatch markings between them, and they recently added a planter box that cuts into the front of one of the spaces. The P&C ones are much wider and more abundant! So we use those.

I did suggest to them swapping the spaces around, but who am I

Yep, I've already reported one post.

I would say that there are a lot of people with mobility problems, and a large elderly population, using these spaces, from my rather fleeting observations. Which of course is neither here, nor there. If the BB spaces are full, then, as I already stated I will park in a P&C space. What I would never do is challenge anybody.

I also find the amount of parents who use them with teenage children frustrating. It is pure laziness. For me it's purely about extra space. Our nearest tesco actually has them quite a way from the store and they rarely get misused so it is laziness for most people. Our local sainsburys has also started cameraing them and have seen on the local fb people moaning about fines issued. I have no sympathy. Actually had someone in a 2 seater sports car pull into one there a couple of months back with no child. I did say polietly just to let you know they've camera'd these now so you may get a fine. I was not so policetly told back to f off (with my child with me). People are mostly selfish idiots no changing that. But I agree it is frustrating.