Disabled Parking Bay - Rant

soccerc

Ok, I know this is probably not the best place to post but have to get it off my chest.

We, mrs and I took a few days break last week in Donegal. Mrs requires a wheelchair due to acquired brain injury and thankfully we have a parking permit to use diabled bays.

One day we were about to set off for a drive when a car pulls up and parks in the sterile area between two disabled parking bays. The sterile area is specifically to allow car doors open fully to transfer wheelchair user to car. Female driver hops out and runs into hotel to join friend s for an early evening meal.

I know, all I had to do was reverse out to make room, in the end that is what I had to do but more anon, but that is not the point. Additionally the inconsiderate driver also blocked the ramp.

I approached the person concerned and explained the issue in a very calm and friendly manner only to be told to get lost and not to disturb her or her friends as they had their pre dinner drink.

Her attitude really annoyed me and I explained that the particular parking spots were designated for wheelchair/disabled drivers/passengers nd that she had the whole car park to choose from - her response, I am busy, was late and as it was raining did not want to get her hair clothes wet!.

The hotel staff were treated just as poorly but she refused to move.

Can I just ask if the temptation to use one of these parking spots arises please don't.

440Hz

I have to say I agree with you, that kind of thing drives me crazy. Same with mother and child spaces in supermarkets... Stupid people parking in these spaces who have no right to be there. Obviously disabled spaces are a lot worse, but its the same principal, dont park there unless its meant for you!! URGH

robbie1876

In fairness, if that is the 'sterile area' that she has parked in, it is very badly marked. To me it looks like a normal parking space. The hotel need to put yellow lines or something other indication not to park there and block the ramp. While the woman should not have been rude to you, I can see how she thought that was a valid parking spot.

Calina

I can't. It is too narrow to be a parking spot. It is also very badly parked even if she did think it was a parking spot.

She loses on two counts: a) bad parking and b) parking in a place which is not a parking spot.

Oriel

I would have keyed the bitch's car.
I would not stand for that.

soccerc

robbie1876 wrote:

In fairness, if that is the 'sterile area' that she has parked in, it is very badly marked. To me it looks like a normal parking space. The hotel need to put yellow lines or something other indication not to park there and block the ramp. While the woman should not have been rude to you, I can see how she thought that was a valid parking spot.

What?

The spaces either side are marked with Wheelchair symbols in accordance with the regulations i.e white, plus when she stepped out from her car she stood on the painted symbol. She knew where she was parked and didn't care.

BTW the sterile area is not wide enough to park in.:)

City-Exile

There are so many ignorant people on the roads, these days.
I see people blocking up shop entrances, because they're too lazy to park properly & walk 5/10m

Pansy Potter

I know you've included a picture but this should not be in the Photography forum.

440Hz

Actually blocking the ramp probably annoys me even more.

I lived with a wheelchair user for 4 years in college and there was a ramp outside our apartment. The step was quite high and she had an automatic chair, there was no way you could get down off the path without using the ramp, or having two people with you to ease the chair off the curb. SO MANY mornings we would come out on our way to lectures and same ass would be parked up on the curb, which was clearly painted. It meant she could not get down off the footpath and was effectively stuck. Often having to simply go home and miss lectures. Its an utter disgrace that some people can be so thoughtless.

soccerc

Oriel wrote:

I would have keyed the bitch's car.
I would not stand for that.

Surprisingly I'd probably have had the same reaction three years ago but now since the mrs' injury have become more passive. That's not to say I don't get annoyed having found the best way of addressing the issue is to appraoch the offending driver and explain the situation. Usually you get profuse apologies and a promise to never do it again while they move the car.

Morlar

In fairness that is pretty poorly marked - i think if you were in a hurry you might mistake that for an actual parking space. Though I dont think I ever have.
PS i hadnt heard of a disabled parking 'sterile area' until this thread. Could be worse though - I had a near miss driving to armagh yesterday when a driver decided to drive the wrong direction down the M1 near tallanstown - they were in the fast lane too!

440Hz

Oriel wrote:

I would have keyed the bitch's car.
I would not stand for that.

Normally I like the quiet life wherever possible, but in this instance, I concur 100%.

City-Exile

I'd have gone to the hotel manager.
It's their job to deal with such matters, not yours.

440Hz

Morlar wrote:

Could be worse though - I had a near miss driving to armagh yesterday

Could be alot worse! A friend of mine was killed in those circumstances last week. 25 years old. Be thankful you are here to post your story.

robbie1876

thimblefull wrote:

She knew where she was parked and didn't care.

Yep, that's the issue, and it pisses me off too. Everybody so far on this thread (me included) would have parked elsewhere once we realised it was not a valid parking spot. For the idiots among us, the hotel should make an effort to clearly mark that area out of bounds. A yellow box or a simple pole blocking entry to the space would stop temptation.

Maybe you can take it up with the hotel and some good may come of it.

MagicMarker

robbie1876 wrote:

In fairness, if that is the 'sterile area' that she has parked in, it is very badly marked. To me it looks like a normal parking space. The hotel need to put yellow lines or something other indication not to park there and block the ramp. While the woman should not have been rude to you, I can see how she thought that was a valid parking spot.

I agree, at first i didn't know what i was looking at. It really does look like a regular parking spot. There should be proper markings there to ensure people don't make the same mistake.

Other than that, what a bitch. The parking job alone would have pissed me off.

soccerc

Pansy Potter wrote:

I know you've included a picture but this should not be in the Photography forum.

Perhaps.

However, we could have a challenge to snap any illegal use of these parking bays and upload them here.

FOr example I could go to our village and knwo for certain I would find a delivery vehicle in the only disabled bay available. Even at that it does not meet the statutory requirments it's just the council paying lip service to disabled/wheelchair users. It would be impossible for me to park in it and transfer mrs safely to her chair as the door would be in the middle of a busy street.

Morlar

440Hz wrote:

Could be alot worse! A friend of mine was killed in those circumstances last week. 25 years old. Be thankful you are here to post your story.

Sorry to hear that - (if I had known I wouldn't have been flippant about it).

eve

Morlar wrote:

In fairness that is pretty poorly marked - i think if you were in a hurry you might mistake that for an actual parking space. Though I dont think I ever have.
PS i hadnt heard of a disabled parking 'sterile area' until this thread. Could be worse though - I had a near miss driving to armagh yesterday when a driver decided to drive the wrong direction down the M1 near tallanstown - they were in the fast lane too!

Generally the sterile area is narrower-about half the width of a car. And any ones that I have seen have been clearly marked with diagonal yellow or white lines to denote that they was not a valid parking space.

I think it's worth a formal complaint to the hotel and any official disability body (don't know who off the top of my head) to point out that the markings were inadequate and that you felt you were not treated well.

eve

double post

Oriel

thimblefull wrote:

Perhaps.

However, we could have a challenge to snap any illegal use of these parking bays and upload them here.

Again, this is not the purpose of the photography forum.
You should do that in the Motor forum.
Just because a post contains a snap shot, doesn't automatically make it a contender for the photography forum.

soccerc

City-Exile wrote:

I'd have gone to the hotel manager.
It's their job to deal with such matters, not yours.

I did, and my OP post states that. However she ignored the management too.

440Hz

Morlar wrote:

Sorry to hear that - (if I had known I wouldn't have been flippant about it).

Sorry I didnt mean to sound like I was giving out... I was just giving you something to feel thankful about. She swerved to avoid a car on the wrong side of the road and ended up hitting a tree. Its the first time I have ever known anyone killed on the road, and I can tell you I have thought of nothing else every time I have turned the key in the ignition since.

Regarding suitability for this forum, yeah it probably should be somewhere else, and no doubt Ryan will move it, but I for one am very happy you posted it here. I would not have seen it otherwise, and I think its important to raise awareness of things like this.

Calina

Potentially better in Commuting and Transport also...

City-Exile

thimblefull wrote:

I did, and my OP post states that.

Ah sorry about that. Once I read "evening meal", my mind began to wander!

Official complaint it is so then.
No better man, as they say.

rymus

had to check I was in the right forum... how the hell did this end up here? Off to AH with you, they can decide where to put you from there.

City-Exile

440Hz wrote:

Its the first time I have ever known anyone killed on the road, and I can tell you I have thought of nothing else every time I have turned the key in the ignition since.

We're going off topic hear but I can name at least 10 that were in my school & have since died on the roads.
Haven't heard who was killed in the motorcycle accident, outside Dunmanway yesterday, but I'm hoping that I wont be adding another name to that list.

Pansy Potter

thimblefull wrote:

Perhaps.

However, we could have a challenge to snap any illegal use of these parking bays and upload them here.

FOr example I could go to our village and knwo for certain I would find a delivery vehicle in the only disabled bay available. Even at that it does not meet the statutory requirments it's just the council paying lip service to disabled/wheelchair users. It would be impossible for me to park in it and transfer mrs safely to her chair as the door would be in the middle of a busy street.

No perhaps about it. This forum is for photographic enthusiasts and the photo challenges are set to test peoples photographic skills. This thread belongs in Soc.

Anyway I sympathise with your predicament. If I had no joy with the **** who owned the car I would have taken it up with the managemnt of the premises, as another poster said. I would have threatened the managemnet with the police to scare them into action. I would not haven given an inch until she was made move. I would also have taken a picture of her red face as she was ordered to move, and posted it.

Maple

Would have called on the management of the hotel to sort it out. If that didn't work then call the Guards. What a cheeky inconsiderate mare.

soccerc

Had I just posted the pic and asked for a C&C, or suggested there was something amiss/wrong, would it have been left in place?

biko

http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/

**NOTE: youparklikeanasshole.com does not support
making the notices provided into stickers in the intent
to adhere said notices onto offending a-holes.**

heyjude

Fully sympathize with your experience, it makes me wish that this had happened in the USA, I have been told that over there, if you park in a disabled parking space at a shopping centre etc without the appropriate sticker/tag, then they go to town on you(eg. clamping/towing and perhaps $200 to get released), pity the same didn't apply here.

If the hotel won't do anything about it themselves, maybe they could get a private company to 'police' the disabled parking spaces and environs, with clamping for offenders.

My dad is disabled and we have a disabled sticker for the car, but only use it when he is with us, so it makes my blood boil when I see clearly abled bodied people with disabled driver stickers, using disabled parking bays. A few days ago, was walking into my local Dunnes and a middle aged woman on her own came out the door on her own(nobody with her or in the car), pushing a shopping trolley piled high with groceries, she had no walking stick,frame or wheelchair and proceeded to load the shopping into a car parked in a disabled spot. I was stunned and checked her front window as I passed and yes, there was a disabled drivers sticker. :mad: Car park was only half full too. Would have said something if my dad had been with me, but when I recall the fuss we had to go through to get the disabled sticker in the first place and the warning about it only being for use when the disabled person is in the car :mad: :mad: :mad: So the abuse of such parking places seems pretty common and takes many different forms

Drax

thimblefull, what age was the female in question?
Why do people get so aggressive these days?




Next time bring a permanent marker and write exactly what you think of her in reverse on her windscreen. Give her something to think about on the way home... *


* Serving suggestion only...

amcinroy

This image is an interesting bit of documentary photography and should stay here. But let's discuss it therefore as a piece of photography. Not necessarily the story or debate behind it that we can't see.

On one hand it says a lot about the lack of respect that exists in our society but at the same time illustrates our obsession with "our rights" and our need to document and record those that infringe those rights.

When I see this photograph, I ask myself, what was the photographers intention in capturing this infringement? Aesthetic (probably not), documentary(maybe) or some other deeper reason (probably)? Is it perhaps because by capturing it on camera we have "caught" the perpetrator and they can never take that evidence away from us.

What purpose does that image then serve?. As a digital image it may not even be used in a court of law. Is it purely the satisfaction of "catching" someone redhanded?

And debate......

BTW This post is indeed toungue in cheek.

Andy

Orange69

amcinroy wrote:

This image is an interesting bit of documentary photography and should stay here. But let's discuss it therefore as a piece of photography. Not necessarily the story or debate behind it that we can't see.

On one hand it says a lot about the lack of respect that exists in our society but at the same time illustrates our obsession "our rights" and our need to document and record those that infringe those rights.

When I see this photograph, I ask myself, what was the photographers intention in capturing this infringement? Aesthetic (probably not), documentary(maybe) or some other deeper reason (probably)? Is it perhaps because by capturing it on camera we have "caught" the perpetrator and they can never take that evidence away from us.

What purpose does that image then serve?. As a digital image it may not even be used in a court of law. Is it purely the satisfaction of "catching" someone redhanded?

BTW This post is indeed toungue in cheek.

Andy

Take a hike andy.. your in AH now...

Back on topic, im not surprised by this.. Im amazed and what people think is acceptable on the roads in this country..

The worst has to be people who just leave the car, blocking half the road and run off to do some errand.. Its unacceptable.. but i see it all the time!

Keying is too good for them!!! </rant>

amcinroy

LOL. It's me that's on topic in this photographic forum. :rolleyes:

Anyone else want to discuss the photographic purpose of this shot? It is more interesting than first appears. Why do we take these shots?

Andy

Orange69

amcinroy wrote:

LOL. It's me that's on topic in this photographic forum. :rolleyes:

Are you sure about that? Check again...

Drax

amcinroy wrote:

BTW This post is indeed toungue in cheek.

Yes. Indeed. :rolleyes:

Orange69 wrote:

Im amazed and what people think is acceptable on the roads in this country..

Aye.. but its not just on the roads. People seem to take the aggressive approach to resolve issues - the whole 'who the f*ck are you to tell me what to do' attitude that exists today.... for example what if the OP had approached the girl and pointed out another alternative place to park nearby? Probably would have made no difference.

There is a shop near me which has the car park around the back of it which requires a 20 second walk to the shop. Yet even though the council painted double yellow lines and stuck sign up threatening parking fines, I still see muppets parking on it everyday because it is beside the shop. I guarantee if you were to say anything to them you'd have your head eaten off. If they are brazen enough to ignore rules like that they'd have no problem telling you to f*ck off. But its the sheer number of folks who have become like this. Life is a lot faster these days, more stress etc... but it is no excuse.

amcinroy

Orange,

I'm off topic in an off topic thread.
The double negative means I've brought it back on topic.

Andy

homah_7ft

heyjude wrote:

Fully sympathize with your experience, it makes me wish that this had happened in the USA, I have been told that over there, if you park in a disabled parking space at a shopping centre etc without the appropriate sticker/tag, then they go to town on you(eg. clamping/towing and perhaps $200 to get released), pity the same didn't apply here.

If the hotel won't do anything about it themselves, maybe they could get a private company to 'police' the disabled parking spaces and environs, with clamping for offenders.

My dad is disabled and we have a disabled sticker for the car, but only use it when he is with us, so it makes my blood boil when I see clearly abled bodied people with disabled driver stickers, using disabled parking bays. A few days ago, was walking into my local Dunnes and a middle aged woman on her own came out the door on her own(nobody with her or in the car), pushing a shopping trolley piled high with groceries, she had no walking stick,frame or wheelchair and proceeded to load the shopping into a car parked in a disabled spot. I was stunned and checked her front window as I passed and yes, there was a disabled drivers sticker. :mad: Car park was only half full too. Would have said something if my dad had been with me, but when I recall the fuss we had to go through to get the disabled sticker in the first place and the warning about it only being for use when the disabled person is in the car :mad: :mad: :mad: So the abuse of such parking places seems pretty common and takes many different forms

My dad has a disabled parking disc and he has no walking aid or wheelchair. The wheelchair is just a symbol.

stovelid

thimblefull wrote:

I did, and my OP post states that. However she ignored the management too.

Christ. I would have cleared the table and escorted her and her guests out.

Perhaps that's why I'm not cut out to be a hotel manager.

Zzippy

Tsk! Women drivers eh* :rolleyes:

*tongue firmly in cheek

Can see from the photo that it's a Northern reg car - not one bit surprised. When I lived in Donegal and something like that happened, any kind of bad/inconsiderate driving, it was nearly always a Northern car. Seems once they hit the south they think they can do anything and not give a flying f*ck about the rest of us. Maybe some of us are like that when we go north, but what she did was disgraceful,
Can't believe she was so rude after you pointed out her "error" :rolleyes:

Mr. Presentable

You needed to arrange cars parked close to hers so she couldn't get in. Let her have her pre dinner drinks, then let her call the cops to complain, then let them do her for drunk in charge.

I love hindsight, especially with other people's lives.

I blame the hotel for not having the area clearly marked, and for not having the balls to do something about it. If she's parked on their property they can force her to move. She's still an ignorant "see you next tuesday" though, and will always be.

georgey

Someone mentioned the parent and child supermarket spaces, I (male) was on the recieving end of a rant from a woman several weeks ago for parking in one of these spots in Artane castle SS, needles to say I pointed out my 8 month old boy in the back of my car and told her in no uncertain terms where I would stick it, she offered no sorrys just drove away, the cheek of her as soon as she saw a bloke in the parking spot she presumed me to be parking illegally.
Philip

Demonique

thimblefull wrote:

I did, and my OP post states that. However she ignored the management too.

You should have called the Guards then, as far as I know parking in the disabled bay is illegal unless you are disabled, but it's only in the disabled bay, it's not illegal to park in the mother and child and pregnant women sections.
What's the point of those bays anyway? Woe betide if a poor mother had to cope with using a normal parking space. I managed quite well w/o them when my daughter was in a buggy (she's a teen now).

Wompa1

My dads a disabled driver aswell and the amount of non-disabled people using disabled parking spots is sickening...you should give the picture to the gardai...what an ignorant b!tch

Oriel

Galwayguy99 wrote:

Seems once they hit the south they think they can do anything and not give a flying f*ck about the rest of us.

Pffft! Like we'd actually be caught by your poxy police service? Gimmie a break...

440Hz

Galwayguy99 wrote:

Seems once they hit the south they think they can do anything and not give a flying f*ck about the rest of us. Maybe some of us are like that when we go north

Well anytime I have been driving up North I've seen a fair share of southern cars going mad. In fairness, you will get crap and inconsiderate drivers everywhere, I think pointing out the reg of the car is unfair and doesnt contribute anything. Who cares where she was from, she is a twat regardless of origin.

soccerc

440Hz wrote:

I think pointing out the reg of the car is unfair and doesnt contribute anything. Who cares where she was from, she is a twat regardless of origin.

The reg of the car is of no significance. How anyone can say it is an NI one is beyond me as is the nationality of the driver.

As 440Hz said, "twat regardless" though I could use stronger terms.

Three years ago I was totally ignorant of the needs of the less mobile/disabled though never used or attempted to use the disabled parking bays.

Since the fateful day our lives have changed dramatically, not for the worse I should say. It certainly is different and has led me to a new career, something that I can do along with being a fulltime carer.

The point of my original post was to highlight how some in our communities have no regard for the needs/requirements of others less capable.

My mrs would be the first to champion her cause except she cannot speak and therefore I act as her advocate.

Victor

Demonique wrote:

What's the point of those bays anyway?

Twofold.

1. They are placed nearer the building entrances and are larger spaces, allowing buggies and wheelchairs to be used more easily.
2. When the door is full open, it won't smash into other vehicles.

DonJose

You should have blocked this car in and phoned the Guards. One thing that pisses me of about disable parking is when the family of the disabled person continue to use this privilege even when the disabled person is not in the car. Many a time I've seen f**kers drive into Liffey Valley park in the disabled area and feck off shopping.