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Julian Hall wrote:
Simon Williams wrote:Anyone who parks in front of driveways, in disabled spaces, etc should be clamped or towed.
AFAIK the wording of the qualification for a Blue Badge is 'Extreme difficulty or total inability to walk'. I have Spina Bifida and as a permanent wheelchair user fall into the latter category. My issue with this is the former 'extreme difficulty'. The number of people I see get out of cars in disabled spaces and walk with no discernible impediment away from the car irritates the hell out of me. I can only assume that GPs operate with a very spurious definition of 'extreme difficulty'.
My personal view is that if a person can walk the ten yards from a disabled rank in front of a shop, they can walk the 15 yards from the ordinary rank behind, and don't qualify for a Blue Badge. I would like to see the qualification changed to 'Total inability to walk without artificial aid' - this would include anything from a single walking stick or calf height leg iron right up to a wheelchair.
I agree that blue badges are probably given to lots of people who don't need them. It all depends how full the carpark is- there are a number of people who can't walk any meaningful distance, so sure the rank behind is fine, but if it's busy, the other side of the carpark probably isn't.
In this case I'm actually referring to disabled spaces marked outside houses, and the 2 people in question would fall into your category of not needing a blue badge. However, we live near a shopping centre in the middle of the city, so during the day if they don't have a marked space then it's likely to be anything up to a 30 minute walk (after the same of searching) from the nearest space they can find, which just won't work.
Another dumb thing is the fact that it's only illegal to park in front of someone's driveway because you'll block them in. So if they're not on their drive anyone can park in front without caring. That's fine if there's enough space around, but if people are parking in front of your drive then there clearly isn't.
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