To shout at someone parking parent & child space with NO CHILD IN CAR

[ElleBing]

Right, sorry for the incoming rant but I am STILL furious about this...

Pulled up in supermarket carpark yesterday with DS and 6 month old niece in back of car. It's pouring with rain so I pull into the parent/child bay looking for a space. There's one in sight so I drive towards it only to be beaten by a big, fat BMW driving against the one-way system! "Oh well" I think and go to drive off UNTIL a couple with no kid get out of the car. I did get angry straight away. Why the fuck should the LOs get soaked because they're too lazy to park elsewhere? I wound my window down and said "you do know you're supposed to have a child to park in parent and child?" the woman leaned in really aggressively telling me that her son was inside the supermarket with his grandma (wtf?) So I let it go...

Half an hour later, I'm pushing LOs round in trolley when I see that couple, with no kid. She knew I'd seen but I didn't say anything. Next thing I know, I'm looking at the baking potatoes and the deranged cunt is shoving her mobile phone in my face showing me a picture of her DS. "THAT'S MY SON!" I was like "And? I've got a picture of my disabled MIL on MY phone. Doesn't mean I'd park in a disabled space without her in the car!" The she started trying to intimidate me (she was a lot bigger than me) by towering over me repeatedly saying "DON'T question ME" Who the fuck does she think she is? I could feel myself getting to boiling point so I very calmly told her to fuck off (don't think LOs heard!) and walked off.

I am STILL angry about this today. AIBU? If I'd been caught out doing something like that, I'd think "fair enough" and move on, NOT start verbally attacking the person who caught me out. I felt like telling her that she could use the extra walk from the normal spaces to shift some fat off her arse but that would just be puerile, wouldn't it?

Ah ok, sorry, I missed that

I think the blue badges also come up just because it is an easy comparison to make for undertstanding...i.e.: 'M&P spaces aren't enforceable whereas disabled spaces are'...'legally they don't have to have M&P spaces unlike disabled ones' etc etc.

Cloudbase - "I'm quite happy to park in a normal space, and frequently do, but unfortunately can't always guarantee that I can get my kids in and out without pranging someone elses car - not deliberate, just unavoidable."

Good grief, am shocked about the pranging of someone else's car. I have a toddler and park in a normal space if no P&C spaces are available. I take great care not to damage my own car in opening the door - hence someone else's car. It is completely avoidable, especially if you have a new and very expensive car!

I actually leave the car park if I can not find a suitable space, rather that than risk thousands of pounds worth of damage to the paint work by someone not bothered about their own car.

Yay for more fat bashing, I'm sure the fact that her/her husband parked in a parent and toddler bay has everything to do with her weight. Those fat people, eh? give them in an inch...

"Extra wide arse" was my comment but was deliberately very specific, rest of her could be a string-bean. Yes, I'm arseist.

Yabu and you both sound like nutters. It's a parking space...

i would have taken their registration plate number and reported them to customer services!

I hate mother and child spaces - gives already hysterical women another opportunity to be even more hysterical.

Plenty of mothers manage without cars and struggle with buggies, kids and shopping bugs on the bus every week.

YABU as all this swearing and shouting is excessive. And yes, the children would have seen how you behave, even if they couldn't hear you.

You could have taken the registration number down and complained. You could write letters to the supermarket management so that they can take action against people misusing p&c.

Mostly, i just get a bit fed up and let it go, but sometimes you really need that p and c space, so indulge me with my own little rant. Last week, the day before an operation to fix a problem which causes me to limp and find walking difficult, i followed a car (2 old people, no kids) into the multi storey. they drove past the empty blue badge and other spaces and then hovered in p and c spaces. i hovered too - this level (like the level with blue badge spaces) goes straight into the shops. in the meantime, a woman came out and spoke to them - i assumed they were meeting her to collect her. so when a space came up, i drove towards it and was stopped by the woman who said 'he's pulling in there. he's disabled.' (Like its a trump card or something. so i said, oh, h's just driven past all the disabled spaces. so then she tells me, actually her shop is closing down and they are loading the car up, and will be five mins. So, disabled or not, he's not actually getting out the car, and i am now pissed off. do i do anything? no, whats the point? really, what is the point? if someone can't respect something that is there for a different group of users, me ranting is not going to change anything, but may involve my car getting 'accidentally' scratched, or my dc hearing some abuse.

Agree with Rockbird and Riven.

The parking lots that people are using are private property, usually owned by company "abc" that you are using the services of. Should said company decide to divide up that parcel of land to include spaces for M&C parking then they have everyright to do so and those using the parking lot should abide by this. If you do not want to abide by this then you should not be using company "ABC"'s parking lot.

Certain businesses legally have a requirement to provide Blue Badge spaces and do so, however many also chose to provide other options for people using their services and they also have the right to do so. Just because you do not like the way that they have decided to administer services on their private land does not mean that you have a right to disregard this.

This is no different then using an analogy that all businesses that employ people must provide X number of holiday days by law and would be subject to the law if they did not do this. However said company can also decide that a sackable offence would be viewing porn on their workplace computer. It is not a "right to view porn on a workplace computer", however if you do not like this policy put in place by the company then do not work for them. They have every right to enforce their own set of rules within their business just as the businesses that offer P&C parking.

Respect the systems put in place or don't use the services.

OK I have parked in a mother and baby space in our local shopping centre, I had the child with me but on returning I didn't, reason being I was meeting my daughter with her baby, she was taking her child home I wasn't so who is right ???????

BeeConcernedHive said: "A BIG FAT BMW????? What has that got to do with it?
Are you a bit envious perhaps?"

I can't speak for the OP's possible envy but in my own experience of selfish rude drivers without kids who use the P&C spaces, 9 out of 10 of them are in some sort of car which might be considered a "luxury" brand and/or model - such as BMW, Range Rover, sports cars, etc. I can't therefore help but think that these people use the P&C spaces to protect their precious cars from being scratched/knocked/brushed against by the riff raff in the "common" spaces !

YANBU.

It riles me when I have 3 dcs in the car including a newborn in a carseat that is a struggle to get out in an ordinary parking place.

The asda near my gran's puts fines on them. Our local tesco doesn't which irritates me. I take great pleasure in confronting them when I don't have the dcs with me. Lazy and selfish imo.

YABU. It's a place to put your car. Noone has any right to mother and baby spaces, because they are not covered by law. Getting so wound up over a parking space is very unreasonable, and I don't understand it. You sound like you wanted a space close to the shop and not get wet, not like you wanted the extra space.

Kids do not melt in the rain. Parent and child parking is occasionally useful but never necessary. You wouldn't have been unreasonable to shoot a dirty look but from that point onwards it got silly.

I honestly think all 'parent' parking should be abolished, seems to cause more stress than it alleviates.

i think it's quite funny watching mothers getting so wound up about parking fgs. i'm tempted to park in one with my 16 year old for entertainment.

really people need to chill out about them. so what.

oh elle - I really quite like you! you are starting with a baptism of fire, aren't you.

FWIW I think YANBU to a) be wound up about the selfish twats and b) be wound up that the rude cow was so aggressive to you in the supermarket. I rarely get to say anything I want to to the idiots who park where they shouldn't. Although I did have the great pleasure of telling this stupid woman who shaved past me and then parked on the pavement in front of me this morning "you've parked on the pavement" in the tone of voice that implied the "you idiot" that I didn't say. I had to walk round her on the road to get past, stupid bitch! Glad her window was down...

yanbu-I get cross at this as well. NOT because I am afraid to get my little darlings wet, OR because I am too lazy to walk. It's because at the m+b spaces I can lift one small child out of the car and put him/ her directly onto a safe pavement while I extract child no 2. Otherwise I have to leave one toddler hanging around a line of parked cars, too small to be visible in most drivers' mirrors, while I lean in to get the next one out. It is a safety issue, that is all.

If stores choose to provide this service, they need to get a bit tougher with the people who don't give a shit and misuse them. Agree with others who say it is about consideration for others and disregarding rules in place to ensure the safety of small children in car parks. They really just don't give a shit- as long as their journey to the shop is reduced by a whole 10 metres.

I've even seen people going to the GYM parking in these spaces nearest the door, and then going in to use a treadmill- if it's exercise you are after, why would you object to walking an extra 10 metres??? It's lazy, ignorant and selfish, IMO.

oh sea lol, you see it does the same to me. Makes me want to park in it with my elder children and then await the onslaught lol.

It is only a parking bay! Honestly not worth getting your knickers in a twist about let alone confronting someone.

"I am STILL angry about this today"

Seriously. You need to get a life.

I am not particularly bothered about getting wet or walking to the store but as jooly said it is the safety aspect. Plus I struggle to get the car seat in and out if a car parks near to mine.

Mucktub
Exactly. It's a marketing ploy. While this woman's rudeness was pitiful why do women with babies feel they deserve these exclusive spaces?

I've had my car scratched and scraped more times than I like to remember in tiny car park spaces at the supermarket. I too like to park in larger spaces.

Not really blaming mothers with babies..I suppose it's the supermarkets' fault. They really should treat all customers with respect.

Canuck, no-one here is saying they dislike or abuse the services provided. Anyone with a dissenting voice is merely saying that perhaps the OP over-reacted or didn't handle the situation the way they would have done.

"why do women with babies feel they deserve these exclusive spaces?"

Er...because the supermarket have provided them, on their land, and specified them for the use of these people. So anyone else who parks in them, with usual disclaimers about disabilities, is a selfish arsehole with a huge sense of entitlement, just because Mr Tesco didn't give them a space for their BMW.