To wonder why there are always more disabled spaces than mother&baby spaces in car parks?

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In places like Waitrose, John Lewis, etc. Surely there are more mothers with little children out there than disabled people?

How odd chegirl is that the official policy? I can't see why the family car shouldn't be used for all the family. That is the most bizarre thing I have heard in a long time.

Thankyou Imsotelling - it's rather upsetting....he gave his entire life to his school and to have someone insinuating that of him is pretty horrendous

chegirlshadabloodynuff you can use it if you are doing things for the disabled person, so if say I am doing the shopping, well that is for her as well.....
but as far as I know you can't use it for work,

sasamaxx sorry if I offended you, but i was only going by what you posted, I don't know your dad who I am sure is a lovely man.

Chegirl, shopping and the like which is going to benefit the disabled person is allowed. So my DH can use my motability car to do shopping for us even if I'm at home.

No idea Imsonot I havnt looked too closely into it incase it is. Because if it is policy it would mean our car would be sat outside our house most of the time I would be going shopping on the bus.

It might just be one of those things that is spread around because people think it should be true

So you can park in disabled spaces at the supermarket even if you are not disabled. Why is that?

This is the thing I got annoyed with the people I know about, family members using the badge.

no we mean the car not the badge.

No, ImSoNotTelling, the non disabled person can use a motability car when the disabled person is not there. They can't use the blue badge though.

Oh sorry peeps thought you were talking about the badge, rather than the car.

Sorry it just winds me up so much what my friends do, passing the badges around.

The car - I can't see why you woulnd't be able to use it. Unless using it meant that the person with the disability didn't have access when they needed it - maybe that's the reason for the work rule.

chegirl the info must be on the net somewhere.

It's OK 2shoes - he is amazing - was a variety club hero - did amazing things for 'his kids' - he did have a badge but as I said before would never use it.

(although the ambulance lived with us on school holidays much to our extreme embarrassment )

What is it about cars that makes everyone go beserk?

Thinking they should be able to drive as fast as they like, park wherever they like, and generally bend or break the rules. It's really odd. Otherwise law abiding people acting totally immorally, and totally not giving a shit.

Reading's main shopping car park has NO Parent & Child spaces. And you know what, people still go shopping! With children! And it means no stupid queues caused by people spotting someone with a buggy coming back to the car and waiting in the middle of the road for them to unload a hundred bags and a child because they can't be arsed to find a different space.

Cars are a bit wider these days, partly because of more MPVs, partly because of side-impact airbags - so if car park designers just made wider spaces there would be no need for kiddy spaces. Basingstoke's car park is a perfect example - it has P & C spaces but they are no wider, only the disabled bays have extra room. (Doesn't stop the stupid queuing for the spaces at times though - some people wear blinkers I think!)

Actually I have a lot of praise for Basingstoke - they actually issued badges for the borough to mums of kids under 2 with a disability (not sure if temp or permanent) a couple of years back - I think it was hip dysplasia, basically one girl had her legs plaster-cast at an angle so you couldn't manouevre her into a car seat without extra room.

2shoes but that would mean we couldnt share the family car. In our circumstances for e.g. I work two days per week in the day, OH works 4 evenings per week.

So to have two cars would be impractical and expensive and we wouldnt have two cars if OH wasnt disabled so why should we because he is IYSWIM. Its our family car so shouldnt it be used in the normal family way?

So if that is the case we would have to get rid of motobility car which would seem counter productive.

I could see it would be different if it was used as MY car exclusively but I dont know how that would arise in a family environment.

chegirlshadabloodynuff - motability understand completely that the car will be used outwith the transportation of the disabled person.
As a family member, the car is being used for the benefit of the familt whatever you are doing in it.....er....within reason

I would love to get up to unreasonable stuff in our care . Not much chance of that with all the bloody shopping, school running, errand doing, appointment going though!

Cant vouch for OH though. Lord only knows what he gets up to when he is 'working late'

FFS I have 2 children with disabilities, DS1 has modarate Cerebral palsy, DD1 has mild cerebral palsy, ADHD and learning disabilities. I have been screamed at for parking in disabled bays even though I drive a large minibus, leased through motability, and have 2 (read it right, 2) blue badges and Ds1 sometimes uses a wheelchair. If you watch Ds1 walk, you can see an abnormal gait, and see that although he is 12 he has to hold onto me to balance himself. DD1 is impulsive and will run off.

I don't always use the disabled bays, especially when going to the library as the disabled bays are too far away, I park into the nearest bay possible and help DS1 and DD1 out.

Its not hard to park in a normal bay, if I can do it in a large tank then why do mums thinks they can't?

Chegirl, I asked about this when we got our first motability car, they said that the parent driving to work, is benifiting the child so therefore is allowed.

6% of the population is registered disabled. I'd be surprised if that many had babies! Most disabled people were able bodied in younger life but re now elderly.

I really do try not to park in normal spaces any more, ever since an incident when DS was a baby. I was struggling to get him in his car seat, he chucked his favourite toy across the car, I reached to get it and a freak gust of wind caught the door and knocked it into the adjacent car which was parked way too close (hence my struggling to begin with). Someone was sitting in the car and we ended up being stung for over £300 on the insurance, despite there being no visible mark whatsoever. Other drivers are twats, so I like to keep my car as far away from them as possible.

You don't need to register as disabled to get a blue badge, and some of the people who are registered as disabled don't apply for blue badges as their disability does not have an impact on the distance they can walk.

But agree with the general point that a lot of people are disabled.

I'm really curious where you lot all shop such that the car park is jammed full so you can't get your doors open.

I'm a bit precious about my car so tend to lurk in the far reaches of car parks where I frequently have an empty space on either side.

If I've got kids with me I do the same. Pushing/walking them across the car park really isn't that hard..... Or maybe I'm just lucky that they've been trained to hold hands & not run away.....

Don't know anything re motability cars but getting higher rate dla entitles you to free car tax in a car used for the disabled persons benefit. My mother won't claim this because she worries that my sisters occasional use of her car to get to work means she isn't eligible.

I come from a country with no P&C spaces.

And at one point I had to use a disabled badge. I was only 25 and thought I'd never walk again without pain.

So here's a little idea: why not park in the back and walk?!

And yes, I do it with three kids, ages 6, 4 and 1.

Car parking spaces are generally crap in size and trying to get a car seat in and strapped in without leaning car door on the car in the next space is nigh on impossible. For this reason I loved the MB spaces when DS was a baby but would have been happy with them at the back of the car park to stop lazy feckers with 10+ year olds using them because they are too fecking idle to walk 25yrds and MUST prk right next to store entrance.

That would entail having good control and child management...