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.

Getting a blue badge is difficult unless you automatically qualify (which is difficult to do so in itself)

I would love a system whereby everyone who had a disability who needed a blue badge could get one. But we don’t. And if we did places would need to massively increase the amount of disabled parking offered.

in my dream system anyone who gets mobility aspect of PIP or DLA at any rate would automatically be entitled to a blue badge. I would happily massively decrease the amount of P and C spaces to cater for it! But sadly that won’t happen.

Yes @IroningBoardAgainstTheWall I am aware of this.

The funny thing about this though is that people like yourself and others on this thread, are essentially using this form of ad hominem (look it up) argument

• P&C spaces are nice and big and are at the front of the store
• The very small minority of people with hidden disabilities may want to use them, AND they may not have a blue badge
• Therefore ANYONE who parks in a P&C space without children, can never be challenged - because they may be one of those people
• And if you care about anyone misusing P&C spaces? Then you must be a hater of hidden disabilities!
• Which means you should never start threads like this, because you don't care about disabled people

I mean, this is the level of argument on here, right?

😂

Not at the expense of others needs no? F ing hell you’re a piece of work.

Breathe and ignore, @Mummer123

All I've seen from posters on here is goading and defensiveness around the misuse of these spaces.

As I said, it's all driven out of that weird British spite that infests society and this site.

The whole philosophy can be summed up as this:

" You want access to something which you shouldn't have been granted in the first place and isn't enforceable. Therefore I will goad you into thinking you're outrageous for wanting it in the first place ".

It does really annoy me. Not sure why, as there are way more important things to stress about. But i often pettily point out that they have forgotten their child!

As an able bodied person, I would gladly give up my parents and child space for you. Absolutely loathe the wankers who park in the disabled bay!! It's often people who are just waiting for someone too as they know they haven't got a blue badge so they're ready to drive off.
But yes I hate people parking in the parent and child spaces too, bar the obviously deserving exceptions.
I used to go to a gym where people would park in the parent and child spaces, toting their tennis gear, just to be closer to the gym front door! Make it make sense!!! Often meant i had to drag a baby and a toddler right the way across the underground car park.

Agree. This site has got so much worse. I’m Irish but can see what you mean about the British sentiment. Thanks for your posts.

I've seen some really stupid posts on here but this must take the biscuit

Disabled spaces should be moved away from near the entrance so able bodied people can park near the door

Words fail me at how absolutely stupid a comment this is

You do realise how difficult it is to get a BB. The bays are beside the door because BB holders are, you know, disabled. The whole point is to make going places easier. Putting bays further away is the total opposite of that.

I can only go places because I'll get parked near to where I'm going. Using your stupendously stupid idea I'd be as well binning my BB

She's made it quite clear that she's absolutely OK with visible disabilities, anyone else she feels the need to have a 'run in' with them.

I'm not saying some folk don't use the parking spaces when they aren't needed, but op doesn't know who does and who doesn't, and she could well have a severely detrimental effect on someone's health - over a bloody parking space.

As I said upthread my daughter could well get out the car and run laughing into the shop, but then something could happen in store and I have to carry her out, or some absolute bell end could come up to us shouting the odds and it could trigger an attack that could take day or weeks to get over (sorry is that your disability top trumps game? Are we only allowed to play pregnancy and child top trumps?)

So tell me this - do you think a parking space is worth making a disabled person's life worse?

Maybe if some dickhead of a self appointed parking monitor came up and demanded your medical information in the middle of a car park when you were with your child because neither of you look diabled enough you would also be pretty angry.

I used them when I had a baby/toddler, and don't now.

I agree with those saying they'd be better positioned at the far end of the car park, which would make them less tempting to others.

However... They're a recent invention. My parents managed perfectly well without them, and I managed perfectly well whenever there wasn't one available. The righteous anger people feel at their misuse is almost on a par with road rage. Seriously it doesn't matter that much 😄

OP would you use one if you were heavily pregnant and struggling to get out of the car (and had no other child with you)?

What about if you were recovering from a major back injury?

It's just a parking space that noone is more entitled to than anyone else.

Exactly and people manage perfectly well in the 90+% of other carparks that have no such spaces.

It’s pure arrogance. You can tell a lot about someone by the way they park.

Mostly I think people use them because parking spaces are so much smaller in comparison to modern cars, they're trying to avoid their car getting scratched/dinged/someone parking so close they can't get in.

Car park builders want to fit as many spaces as they can, more spaces - more people can shop in the store - more people can get a nasty fine for overstaying/breaking the rules. Stores found that providing some wider parent and child spaces benefited them but it is just a courtesy to get you to shop there and not somewhere else.

The real solution is to push for car parking spaces to be big enough, legally altering the standard size and requiring that designers/builders/planners have to stick to that new min. size.

I doubt anyone will bother as its a lot easier to just rant about it than do something.

...can you?

Nobody is making people buy massive cars.

They literally are designated for parents and children so yes they are more entitled or else wtf is the point of them?

Again, more facile argument.

The store sets up the parking spaces and invites people to use them. It is their way of enticing a segment of the market (this is Mumsnet right?!) which has a high spend in their shops.

It is not up to you to then say "ah, mums have it hard everywhere else, so fuck this for a laugh, why should they have a right to THIS space?"

It's the race to the bottom mentality in Britain again.

It must feel so exquisitely delicious to be able to deny someone use of a space that would make their life easier for the the day, just because you want to "level up" the carpark so it's as shite as everywhere else in the UK.

But there is NO ENTITLEMENT.

It's an invitation to all users to use others if they do not have children with them. That is all. They can decline and say "hmm,no thanks"

They have just as much entitlement to use the space.

It really is just a marketing tactic.

There's absolutely nothing stopping a person without a child using the space.

The parent with a child has no rights nor entitlements to that space.

It's a polite request, that's all.

Do you really believe this, @IroningBoardAgainstTheWall ?

Supermarkets are allowed to set rules and guidelines on their private land.

If a 6 metre Sprinter van parks lengthways across 3 spaces (i've seen this!) then someone from the store has the right to come out and have a word and ask them to move.

Do you think the signage they put up for P&C spaces, is just a laugh or a ruse?

Why do you think that signage is up?

The point of them is entirely to get you to spend money in their shop.

Nothing else.

No i wouldn't

That's great