Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Other subjects
Original poster

Parent & Child parking spaces (in supermarkets!!)

51 replies

Manfwood · 13/05/2003 13:19

Following on from the infamous eating in supermarkets thread thought i would see how you feel about people without kids parking in the designated parents spaces! I had to tell off a couple of (admittedly young) colleagues of mine for parking there to get their lunchtime sarnie. But as i was driving out i saw a woman in a bright red AudiTT (complete with personalised number plate!) sitting there bold as brass on her mobile phone! Also another woman pulled up, clearly with no children on board.

Most people wouldnt park in a disabled spot (as is also illegal) so why do they feel it is OK to park in parents only spot!!

OP posts:
SoupDragon · 13/05/2003 18:18

By the way, be nice when complaining to childless people getting back into their car in a P&C spot - they might be genuine! I took DS2 shopping with me when he was just coming down with chicken pox. I parked in a P&C space and went into the store where a friend was coming out and took DS2 home with her. No way was I going to mess about moving my car so I rushed round the store instead, armed with my excuses should I get glared at back at my car

Now, I have been tempted to park in a disabled spot but only when in great pain and with restricted mobility through locked vertebrae. In the end, I couldn't bring myself to do it and had to park way down the end of the carpark to get a spot where I could open my door wide enough to get out,

suedonim · 13/05/2003 18:20

How does the shop know if you're really pregnant? Do they come out and scan your tum?!

SoupDragon · 13/05/2003 18:29

Yes. They have an ultrasound machine at the parking bay and if there's no baby in there, just too much chocolate, your car is blown up.

Or maybe it's just an honesty thing

pie · 13/05/2003 18:30

Maybe if whilst your shopping you DON'T run to the toilet often enough to puke or wee you are asked to move your car.

suedonim · 13/05/2003 21:10

LOL at blowing up cars! I know plenty of middle-aged business men who look pregnant and no doubt they'll soon be hogging the pg spaces as well as the p&c ones!

JayTree · 13/05/2003 21:21

Totally agree that people without children using up these spaces is unbelievably annoying - even when I have managed to park ok, just seeing someone using these spaces unnecessarily makes my blood boil. Just before Christmas with terrible weather and a raging headache, I decided to lay into one woman happily parking in what i then considered my rightful space(!!) and was stunned at her response - she said that she thought they were positive discrimination and that just because she couldnt have children meant that she was being unfairly victimised!! I was so shocked at her shouting back at me that I just mumbled and got on with my shopping....

tomps · 13/05/2003 21:28

If I'm in a stroppy mood, I wait behind an obviously child free car if all the child spaces are taken, then be deliberately obstructive when they need to back out However, the best spaces at the mo in the car park are the ones in the shade. Dd and I would much rather walk a bit further and not have a scorching hot car to return to. IMO the child friendly parking would be better not right by the front door but a short covered pathway away, and under shelter from rain and sun. If only I could solve the crises in the NHS and education so easily

Wills · 13/05/2003 21:38

Glad to see expectant mums being acceptable. I haven't done it yet but the bump is getting large enough that I've started considering the near future. Up till now though I would only park in P&C places when dd (3) is with me and agree that although dd is old enough to climb in and out on her own I need to be supervising and often her speed of getting into the car seat (approximately 15 - 20 minutes whilst she examines every spec of dust, the maps, any stray toys) is not mine so am very glad that its under 5s.

sb34 · 13/05/2003 22:00

Message withdrawn

anais · 13/05/2003 22:23

Hmmm, this is one of my pet hates too. I go shopping with my mum - mainly because I STILL can't drive. I ALWAYS finish my shopping before her and go out and wait in the car. It seems that 90% of people who park in the p&c spaces don't have kids. I sit there silently fuming. Too much of a chicken to say anything

Bobsmum · 13/05/2003 22:32

Technically to park in a tescos m&b space you must have a baby club sticker displayed. ie you must have joined the baby club in advance - don't know anywhere that enforces it though.

willow2 · 13/05/2003 22:42

Agree totally. Hang them all.

Although have to admit that my mum thinks that she should be allowed to park in them when she is with me as I will always be her baby. Have told her this is not acceptable.

quackers · 14/05/2003 10:51

Fascinating stuff! This continues to niggle me every time. How lazy can people get!! I always find the executve twerps and Mr lazy van driver parked in those spaces.
I was once at work and a coleague of mine commented of you have a child ha, I love to park in the P and c spaces at Teasco. He was clearly trying to wind me up and succeeding.
He continued to say that it was my life choice to have a baby and not his. If he was in a hurry and wanted to get something he would park there regardless. This sparked a rather raw nerve in me and I said well it was your Mothers life choice to give birth to you - why the hell did she bother'. I said it is your life choice to be gay so don't lecture me about your life choice'. he was a particularly nasty person and deserved the comment as he was a right drama queen.

susanmt · 14/05/2003 10:54

When we stay with my Mum she often volunteers to take the children to the supermarket with her cos she loves parking in the p&c places ! Gives me an hours peace to sit in her elegant clean house and drink her good coffee (going there today for a few days, looking forward to it - oh yes, and her broadband connection!!!)

katmam · 14/05/2003 11:07

This really bugs me too - why are there are always loads and loads of disabled spaces and hardly any P&C spaces?! I've never parked in a disabled space, nor have I had the courage to say something to anyone parking in the P&C spaces without children (although I do mutter under my breath and cast disparaging looks in their direction!).

If I'm feeling particularly narked by the lack of P&C spaces, I take up two normal parking spaces. I've also been tempted to leave little notes for people who park too closely to my car so I can't get the doors open!

Claireandrich · 14/05/2003 11:09

At our supermarkets rounbd here the P&C spaces aren't the closest to the store at all. Thy are a little walk away but they are much wider. I thought being further away might be an advantage as others are less likely to use them. Not always the case I am afraid though. When on my own I NEVER use the P&C spaces even though my car doors are quite long (only 2 door) and the car quite wide. I just make do as I realise how useful the wider spaces are to those with little ones, trying to fancy them into car seats.

Finbar · 14/05/2003 13:04

susanmt - say hello to Balbeggie for me!

This is truly one of my pet hates....have had to calm myself down about it in recent months - have been known to put notes under offenders windscreen wipers saying.."What part of PARENT AND CHILD SPACE didn't you nderstand?"

Why is it always - older retired types OR people in v.flash cars - who just don't want to get their paintwork scratched?

Bobsmum · 14/05/2003 13:12

At my local Asda there are 4 m&b spaces (count em - 4!!!) as they are usually all taken (by grannies & businessmen) I have to drive to their other carpark behind the store and underground (like a mini multi storey). There are no trolleys for sprogs in this car park so I have to leave ds in the car, in this hellhole of a dark smelly carpark, take the store lift back upstairs, back onto the top floor carpark, find a trolley w a baby seat, back down in lift w trolley back to car and screaming ds. Something wrong with this picture.......

quackers · 14/05/2003 15:03

Bob's Mum, we're all back at the Mum's Arms!

eidsvold · 14/05/2003 19:12

i have had a couple of occasions where the mother and baby spaces were all taken - not by mothers/parents and babies and I actually had to pout dd through the hatch - drop one side of the split rear seat - into her car seat as the two cars on either side of me in normal parking spaces had parked me in almost and I could not get the door open wide enough to get her in... The second time I did this a man watched me then got in his car parked in p+c and drove off.

Tortington · 14/05/2003 20:03

i have done both - parked in a disabled space and in a mums and baby space!

i also parked just outside the cash machines in a lay by while hubby went in for a quick something and remembering such a thread as this watched who parked in the spaces, i saw a convertable with a man who seemed oblivious, obvious mums - you know the type - with renault espaces - just took the kids to school but still reckon they are entitled to the space without kids.

think there was only one mum with a toddler.

my hubby many many years ago did security at sainsburies, he wathced for people using the disabled spaces and running in for a quick sarnie or to use the cash machines , he was then autherised to put a sticker on their window screen which was a bugger to get off

MABS · 14/05/2003 20:45

You just try having a toddler and and disabled car parking stickers for him (he has cerebral palsy)- then you watch who wrongly uses the spaces VERY closely

snickers · 14/05/2003 20:55

interseting to see this thread here as yesterday when I pulled up in a tescos P&T space, a man parked next to me, got out lit a fag, and stuck a parent and toddler badge in the window before buggering off. No child seat in sight. I was SOOOOOO mad!

I also disagree with parents and older children parking there. If I am by myself, I just park the other side of the carpark from the store, and consider the walk will do me good.

Surely we can still all remember what it was like to have to negotiate a baby in babyseat, or buggies etc in the rain, snow...

etc etc...

mieow · 14/05/2003 22:31

I have to say something. Supermarkets do not have to provide P+B spaces by law. They do it to make life easier. Disabled parking is different as they have to provide so many, though the supermarket cannot inforce the law as it is private property (ie the supermarket owns it) If a person parks in P+B or disabled they can ask them to move or pop a notice on their windscreen but they can not force them to move.
I have 2 disabled kids and know how annoying it is not being able to park and am shocked that some of you will park in the disabled spaces........ Shame on all of you!!!!!!!

lou33 · 15/05/2003 00:33

The little blue book that comes with ds disabled badge says that parking in a disabled space without a blue badge can carry a fine of £1000.

Swipe left for the next trending thread