“CAN’T YOU USE ANOTHER PARKING SPACE?"

This is an extract from my
Spring Term 2017/18 'SEN Update' entitled: 
'Something To Think About...'
that was released on 12th January 2018.

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I always like to end these ‘SEN Updates’ with a personal story, from my perspective as a physically disabled person using a wheelchair. In this update, I want to share with you a situation that I seem to encounter on an almost daily basis - parking spaces that are reserved for disabled people, being used by non-disabled people, which means that I cannot use them.

You will be very surprised about the amount of times that this happens to me, even though I no longer am able to drive...
 
Let me say from the outset, that I do realise that there are a number of people out there who have ‘invisible’ disabilities, which may make them look like they do not need to use a disabled car parking space (e.g. chronic medical conditions that significantly impair normal activities of their daily living, but who may show no outward signs of their condition), but they usually have validly been provided with a ‘Blue Badge’ exemption.

I also realise that there are non-disabled people who sometimes need to use a disabled car parking space from time to time, because they are with a disabled person who they need to easily drop off or pick up, who sometimes may not be validly displaying a ‘Blue Badge’. 
 
Unfortunately though, there are lots of non-disabled people who innocently think that it is perfectly alright to park their car in a disabled parking place, either when they are still sitting in their car, to say, pick up or drop somebody somewhere, or also when they say they are only popping out for a minute to pick someone/something up.

They will often say, when asked, that they are happy to move their car  - but that misses the point, I (or someone on my behalf) shouldn’t have to ask them in the first place, as they should not have parked there anyway!
 
Parking in disabled spaces when you are non-disabled is similar to those people who do not have children with them who park in the ‘family’ reserved car parking spaces in supermarket car parks.  This is also a subject that I know that upsets many people – in fact, a friend told me once that someone who was without children refused to move from a space when she (who had her children in her car) asked, because the person said that, even though they were not with her, she had children at home! (You couldn’t make that up).
 
But what seems to cause most difficulties and what I am really talking about here, is non-disabled people who just park in a disabled parking space without a ‘Blue Badge’, often purely because they do not want to have to walk too far somewhere or, worst of all, non-disabled people who park in a disabled car parking space and display a fraudulent ‘Blue Badge’ or one that they have ‘borrowed’ from somebody else.

The regulations as to the way you can use a disabled car parking space by only displaying a ‘Blue Badge’ validly are actually quite detailed; I have even known of some cases where disabled people who have a valid ‘Blue Badge’ have sometimes found that they have still been ticketed wrongly, because they displayed it incorrectly and/or a traffic warden or similar has not seen it.
 
My experience is that too often I am faced by non-disabled people blocking disabled car parking spaces unlawfully and without good reason. The surprising thing to me is that when I (or usually others on my behalf) then tell them that I need the space, in order to avoid the difficulty of walking or pushing myself to the entrance of the place I need to get to, I find that, on many occasions, these non-disabled people can become quite aggressive, even though they may have been asked politely to move. You will be amazed at the amount of bad language and behaviour that I have witnessed over the years, usually directed at others on my behalf.
 
I have also noticed that it is usually other people who seem to get more upset for me about a non-disabled person (or somebody looking non-disabled) using the space without displaying a ‘Blue Badge’, and it is actually then me that needs to point out to them that the other person may have an ‘invisible’ disability that we do not know about. 
 
Non-disabled people parking in disabled spaces with/without a ‘Blue Badge’ is something that irks a lot of people around me. I often find people I am with wanting to retaliate/have a go at people who do this, and wanting to make the point that they (the other people) are non-disabled and could park their cars somewhere else and walk, whereas I cannot. For example, my wife, Erica, has even sometimes asked someone who is not willing to move if they want to come and look at my wheelchair in the back of our car (which, unsurprisingly, no-one has ever wanted to), but usually they have just ignored or pretended not to hear her and quickly walked away from their parked car – it is as if they do not want to hear or see the problem that they have caused, as if it then doesn’t exist or matter – ‘out of sight, out of mind’ as they say.
 
Erica and others around me often remonstrate with people when they see them doing this and like to point out to them that they are being incredibly selfish by not thinking of other people. I even remember one very fit and strong looking young man in the gym car park walking away after parking his car in a disabled space and not looking back when he was asked to move (probably due to embarrassment), saying that he didn’t want a fight - again, it is like a form of denial by doing this as, if you do not look at it, you can possibly pretend that it is not happening. I have also noticed that the offending non‑disabled people often try to not make any eye contact with me (again, probably  due to  embarrassment). They just try to ignore me and pretend that I am not there. It gives another meaning to the phrase 'invisible disability'!
 
I have also noticed that, when somebody realises that they may be doing something wrong, they are usually already very defensive, even before you say anything to them; it is almost as if they are ready for a fight, as they become immediately aggressive (some may say that this is just them being ‘defensive’). I have found from experience, that the best way to approach this situation usually is to quickly try to deflate it, by being as nice as possible and trying to ask them as politely as possible, if I can use the space (I find that saying that you need it more than them, or at the gym [which I have to go to train for health reasons] and I am tempted to say that, if they are going to the gym, they should be more able to walk than I am, does not usually tend to end well, as they often become even more aggressive).
 
Non-disabled people do not seem to realise how difficult it can be for someone like me who is physically disabled, to have to ask them to move, especially if I know that I will be met with a very hostile or defensive reaction. When you think about it, I sometimes cannot even speak to them without first getting the car that I am in to sometimes have to park a long way away and then make my way back (usually slowly) to where they are to speak to them – this is even more frustrating when I found that they or their car has then gone.

It has also placed me in a dilemma sometimes when I see people who I know and like, doing something wrong like this, as I know that telling on them would get them into trouble, because they are parking somewhere that they shouldn’t, often by using a forged or someone else’s ‘Blue Badge’.
 
My favourite situation though is when there are no other spaces free, and I/another person asks politely if a non-disabled driver can move their car from the disabled car parking space which they are blocking, they just ask: ‘Can’t you find another parking space?’
 
The point that I want to get over is that, rather than telling people that they shouldn’t do this sort of thing after the event, I really hope that people will learn from what I am saying here and not do this in the first place.
 
Just like other things I have talked about in this update, it gives you something to think about…

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With best wishes

Douglas

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