Thread: Disabled Parking WTF

Originally Posted by Pocket Rocket

We used to park at the back of the carpark and walk.

The difference here is there is still a choice (yes inconvenient but a choice nonetheless). Someone in a wheelchair has no choice.

I wasn't suggesting that the needs of people with babies are greater than or even comparable to the needs of people in wheelchairs. I just think that there is no reason why things shouldn't be made slightly more convenient for parents of babies. It is a small sacrifice to have ten or a dozen normal parking spaces turned into eight or ten "pram"spaces.

I am reasonably conscious of the difficulties faced by wheelchair bound people. Every Tuesday and every Friday for the last five or six years I have been paddling with a friend who has been in a wheelchair since a sky diving accident over 30 years ago. Helping him with his kayak and with his chair has given me some insight into some of the difficulties that we able bodied people might normally not give a second thought.

Disabled parking makes it possible for him to do things that would otherwise sometimes be impossible. Pram parking spaces make it more convenient for parents to do something that can be almost impossible in narrow spaces. I am quite happy to make a minuscule sacrifice so that parents don't face that difficulty. When I see a parent trying to push a loaded shopping trolley with one hand and a stroller with the other while at the same time trying to control a hyperactive toddler, I don't mind if their trip to the car is shorter than mine.

I get abused nearly every time I park in a disabled bay with my Defender. They start yelling as soon as I jump out of my little truck and carry on chasing me around the vehicle, I just walk around the back to get out Mums wheelchair then they shut up and go away.
Times when I can't get a disabled bay, I have to park across two bays so she can get out. I have the fold down step and also another small caravan step so she can get out, plus trying to maneuver the wheelchair - it's a nightmare. I always get abused for this and I just say I couldn't get a disabled bay and I can't fit in a "normal" bay.
I also have a friend with two prosthetic legs he gets abused nearly every time he gets out of the car, he now lifts up his trousers and asks them how disabled would they like him to be - that shuts them up.

I must say that we have never been stared at or abused when using Disabled Parking , even though my wife does not look all that disabled !! , but she has 2 Artificial Hips and has 8 fused vertebrae with 18 screws and rods in her spine .

I can relate to all those who need a Disabled Permit. A relative of mine sometimes travels with me and they have a Permit.

Anyone who has limited mobility is entitled to obtain a Permit and use it for any trip they make.

Here, a DP can only be used when carrying the person either too, or from the venue/centre or whatever.

And yet we see vehicles arrive and depart from a carpark and park in a DP space, without any sign of a disabled person any where near the vehicle. The driver can be seen to be physically fit and unhindered in any way. They just want an easy space. Maybe to pick-up a parcel. They falsely use the permit whenever they think they can get away with it. Not many do this - just a few - but they do get noticed. And the clue is? -a wheelchair in the back, or on top etc.

At some places there are now spaces for the elderly. However no-one has defined "ëlderly."

I once got a stern look because I drive a Defender, although I am 67. I thought I qualified, -being a O.A.P, but apparently not.

What I have noticed though is that over time the car parks are getting busier, but the number of overall spaces available has either stayed the same, or diminished, due to more permit spots, or building expansion.

Even the number of on-street spaces has lessened due to making the city pedestrian "friendly" so the council says, while the number of prospective users has risen without enough increase in off-street spaces. So we now have shoppers going into the CBD but parking in spaces provided by businesses on the outskirts for their own customers - not the ones parking there.

rovers4

Originally Posted by loneranger

Parents with prams bays didn't exist when we had our children. We survived. I will admit to occasionally using them particularly when my kids were teenagers and I had to pick them up from work as they were near the door and they could see me. However I never park in disabled bays.

On the topic of who is entitled to have an Acrod sticker. My mum has one and my parents particularly use it to get free parking. My mum has benign MS and walks a lot. I would argue that when she is not in a flare state that she doesn't need it. By the same token I would never approach some about their entitlement to use one but they can be abused.

I think you will find car parks were probably bigger or cars smaller. I find it extremely hard to strap the kids in their car seats in the Disco in most carparks without scratching the next car with the door. When some pelican parks right on the white line I have to reverse out to do up their seat belt.
On another note I used to think it was an overkill having so many disabled carparks on military bases until the boys and girls started coming back from Afghanistan and we had to modify the mess entrance so some of them could enter with their wheel chairs. I had to use the lift at Oakey once when on of my boys got day release from hospital after the Mt Walker Black Hawk crash. Before that I thought it was bureaucracy gone mad putting lifts in all government buildings of only two floors.

Originally Posted by carlschmid2002

I think you will find car parks were probably bigger or cars smaller. I find it extremely hard to strap the kids in their car seats in the Disco in most carparks without scratching the next car with the door. When some pelican parks right on the white line I have to reverse out to do up their seat belt.

We had XD, XE Falcons so they were pretty wide. I think what has changed is the car seats are a lot bigger as are a lot of prams. Personally I don't park next to anyone if I can help it and I normally park at the back of a carpark especially in busy periods and I can go straight over the kerb to get out.

Originally Posted by loneranger

Personally I don't park next to anyone if I can help it and I normally park at the back of a carpark especially in busy periods

Doesn't work down here in VIC, you park in an area far, far away where there are no cars with heaps of empty spaces, but when you return others have parked next to you and left all the other empty spaces , must be some unwritten rule that you have to fill up empty spaces first until you move onto the next empty space or something.