Disable parking bays and blue badges.

[Flooring24]

I’m a blue badge holder. Limited mobility and can only walk short distances.
If someone was parked in a disabled bay, without displaying a blue badge, would you ask them to move their car?

Regularly at school drop off and pick up there are cars parked in the 2 disabled bays, with no badges. Often parents in the car waiting for pick up.

There is other parking along the street, it gets pretty busy, and a supermarket less than 5 minutes walk away with a massive, free, car park
.
I am a bit fed up of people parking in disabled bays making them inaccessible for blue badge holders.

YABU - don’t ask them to move their car.
YANBU- yes ask them to move the car. Cheeky f@@kers

1. Ask the school to remind parents that the disabled spaces are for the disabled carers/children.

1. Can you park blocking them if necessary?

For some reason, normally sensible people seem to lose their marbles around school parking.

Can you speak to the relevant person at your local council and ask for a traffic warden to come for a couple of weeks. They will be delighted to give out some tickets.

Yes you should. and also ask the school to put a reminder out.

it’s not fair that you can’t get parked due to their ignorance /laziness

We have an international school near us. Every day was an absolute nightmare with cars parked across driveways, junctions, blocking the road, kids and parents all over the road. Then one day a police car got stuck in it all. One officer got out and read the riot act, started directing traffic, making people move, got the kids out of the road.
The next few days traffic wardens were out ticketing cars. They would have raised a lot of revenue. Once they know where to catch people they will turn up regularly.

To be honest, if people know the people parked there then they are not going to say anything. Can you take it up with the school? I live near a school that is very supportive to the school’s neighbours. They frequently bring up bad parking on the newsletters and have often arranged for a parking warden to ticket people.

I’ve said something along the lines of “did you forget your blue badge?” a few times before. It makes them feel nice and awkward 😉

Sorry voted incorrectly as I did before reading the key.

Yes I would and they didnt move I'd block them in and make them wait.

I voted YANBU but n reality I would advise you not to put yourself i that positio and in the first instance ask the school to remind parents or report them to the council parking enforcment.

If it was a one off I would say benefit of the doubt. I just got back from a couple of days away with dh and his dad and I kept panicking about remembering to put fil's blue badge in the window of my car.

Definitely worth a try though I keep trying to persuade my local council to come and ticket the parents in my road and up until now they've shown zero enthusiasm. They could make a few quid in fines if they did!

But sadly they seem keener on fining people for overstaying their time in the local car parks.

If the spaces are associated with the school I would ask the school to issue a notice about it.

Yes I definitely would ask them to move. Y My child is severely disabled and permanent uses a wheelchair so I k know the pain of not being able to get a spot and also the rage of someone asking me if I had a blue badge as I pulled into a spot before I’d even turned off the engine. She got short shrift from me (because she wouldn’t leave the issue alone and so I opened the back of the WAV and said ask my daughter, but don’t expect a response as she’s non-verbal.

I only ask if there are no other spaces I could park in, not just because they are there.

I know I've forgotten to bring my own badge enough times that I try to avoid assuming anything about people parking without displaying.

That is exactly what I said to my local councillor! Absolute chaos at school pick up time and all the traffic wardens are in the local pay and display. I wrote to my MP about it too.

Take down registration numbers, persistent offenders report to the police, and also to the DVLA alleging that they have poor eyesight. If by some chance you know any of them work in the public sector (unlikely), let their employer know they have someone who discriminates against disabled people.

Until those who are unreasonable about parking at school start and finish times and do things like this get a lengthy driving ban, it will persist.

I wouldn’t because I always think the kind of person who would peek in a BB space when they don’t need to is so arrogant they will not take it well which could put me at risk. It’s happening in the school car park though so I would speak to them

Whenever the Poluce/traffic wardens turn up locally the drivers suddenly develop the vision to see the double yellow lines, pavements, driveways etc. Next day... back nearly hitting the children on the walkways.

ils rife and it really pisses me off. I'm not disabled myself but both parents have/had very limited Mobility and have blue badges. It's rare we don't see people abusing disabled parking. And yes, not all disabilities are visible. But if you hop out of your car on the way home from the gym, you probably don't need that parking

Poor standards really. Or no standards actually.
A new low.

I would do, and have done. Rather than asking them outright to move I tend to go with 'are you going to be here long cos i really need the spot and can't walk far?' and that embarrasses them enough to move. I suppose if they said they were planning to stay I'd ask if they knew it was blue badge parking, but i wouldn't get into a fight over it.

If you think they are collecting able bodied dc from school no badge i would ask if they need the space as “did they know” it’s a blue badge space but not all guns blazing as they may have a badge they haven’t got out yet, politeness is likely to produce a better result in this case. If you continue to have issues speak to the school. Please do remember though that their can be legitimate reasons why someone needs to park in a school disabled bay without a badge eg when I collected my dd after a seizure, you do not qualify for a badge yet following a seizure even 20m required 2 adults one either side to get her into the car, and a fair few times, the help of a&e staff to get her into urgent care from the car (quicker than an ambulance)

I would ask people to move if they don't have a blue badge but I appreciate that not everybody feels comfortable to confront people. The suggestion of asking whether someone is going to be long is a good one as it wouldn't sound accusatory but might make them scuttle off sheepishly. You could complain to your local authority and local councillors and ask them to send the wardens round as they do have a duty to provide disabled parkimg which you can actually use.

Yeah I do this too. If it’s a council run parking space I say “excuse me you’ve forgotten to display your blue badge, they ticket regularly here” they usually move.

Definitely not planning for a fight!

id ask politely if they need the space and have a blue badge. Or if they are going to be long.

it’s a busy road so I can’t block them in. Sadly

I think you are well within your rights @Flooring24 to ask them why they are in this space.

It's not right. But there are an increasing group of people (and some of them live amongst us on this site, and no they're not men lurking, they're women) and those people think that if there's something that is an "opportunity" for them to take, and benefit from, then they'd better nip in and do it before someone else gets the advantage.

It's such a depressing, craven way to be, but it's growing in our society.