Iâd like to show you some tweets. Iâve provided a screenshot as they have now been deleted.
The text of these tweets reads
“The dirty looks you get for parking in a disabled bay ð :D”
“Like thereâs not 1000 empty disabled bats and only 1 normal space the other end of the car park “
After a few people noticed these tweets and tweeted their objections (Six replies) she then tweeted
“The spam I just got in my feed about parking in a disabled bay is too jokes ð ð ð :D”
“These people are protective over their bays loool”
The tweets were then deleted an hour later.
This isnât a rare occurrence. An awful lot of people think that they should have the right to park in parking bays reserved for disabled people. People like George Osborne, Nigel Farage and Worcester police. Often people think itâs OK to park in a disabled parking bay late at night as though disabled people arenât allowed out at night, or they think itâs OK because theyâre “only going to be a minute” or because “theyâll move if anyone needs it”. Some people just donât care, and in fact feel so entitled to park where they like that they issue death threats.
Itâs not OK though. Those bays exist for very good reasons. They are for people who struggle to walk and need to park close to the shop because otherwise they may be in pain as a result of walking, or maybe they canât get that far at all. They are for people with chronic illnesses who will be exhausted after that short walk. They are for people who use wheelchairs and need the marked space around the bay to open their doors enough to get the wheelchair out. They are for people whose joints donât bend much and who canât contort themselves to fit through a door that only opens as far as the next car in a standard space. And donât think that someone in a wheelchair will have no problem with going further - plenty of people cannot self-propel in a wheelchair any further than they can walk because of pain or being prone to dislocations or fractures.
Disabled people need those reserved parking spaces to help them overcome the barriers between them and a normal, equal life. You may be able to walk from the other end of the car park, even if itâs a bit far, a bit tiring, and maybe your legs hurt because youâre not used to exercise. For people who qualify for a blue badge, walking from the other end of the car park is a distant dream. If the choice is between park at the other end or not go into the shop, they probably canât go into the shop.
“Iâll only be a minute”
This is probably the most common excuse. Itâs not an excuse though. Donât do it. In that “minute” which will probably actually be five or ten minutes, a disabled person may have arrived, been unable to park, had no idea how long you would be and then turned around and gone home. They might not have been able to stop and wait because of traffic. They may well not have the energy or be in too much pain to return very quickly. Or maybe they parked in a standard space much further away, then hurt themselves by trying to walk that much further.
“Iâll move if someone needs it”
This seems like a reasonable excuse, especially if waiting in the car. Again, itâs not an excuse for a number of reasons. First of all, the person that needs the space might not see you waiting in the car to ask. If the driver is not with the car then the disabled person wonât know that they would move it, and they probably canât park to go and find the driver to ask them. Sometimes they could send a bystander to ask them, but that has variable results.
Thereâs also the strong possibility of getting verbally or physically attacked just for asking someone to move. This happens, and it happens a lot. How is someone to know whether you will turn out to be nasty or nice?
“Thereâs loads of spaces”
This excuse tends to happen most at night and itâs possibly the least-bad. It is often true that there are lots of spaces at supermarkets. But take a look at how far those spaces are from the door. The distance from shop to space might be twenty metres for the closes one, but it could be a hundred metres or more for the farthest space. Unfortunately the people who use this excuse tend to park in the closest space to the shop and at my local Tesco itâs not uncommon for the first ten spaces to be filled with cars with no blue badge on display if I go there at 10pm. (Which I do a lot because my illness messes up my sleeping pattern.) The person using this excuse also has no idea how many people might need to park before they return. If lots turn up, theyâll be parking much further away.
Then thereâs the unthinking shops that leave stuff in the disabled parking bays.
@DisabledBay tesco express on two seperateoccasions @UKTesco said theyâd do something but it obviously had no effect pic.twitter.com/KHjcWz9qYS
â Sharon (@sharoot66) August 16, 2013
Or even put more permanent things in those bays.
Dear @BandQ, I am a disabled customer who needs a wide parking space. Guess why your Leyton store frustrates me? pic.twitter.com/H4JergJkac
â Flash Bristow (@techiebabe) May 4, 2013
This video explains why people need disabled parking bays.