Friday, 17 August 2007

Parking a Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle

I drove over to Cheltenham and parked our wheelchair accessible vehicle at the rear of a roadside disabled parking bay. I purposely parked at the rear space as we have a wheelchair lift fitted to the rear of our van and this requires a 3 metre gap to allow access (the van has a large sticker on the tailgate informing other motorists that there is a wheelchair lift fitted and that we need 3 metres clearance).

The road behind this disabled parking bay had a double yellow line painted on it and so I thought that no-one would possibly park behind us.

Wrong!

On returning to the van I found that some idiot had parked ½ a metre from my rear bumper, thus completely blocking access to our van.

What is wrong with people, can they not read? Do they not know how long 3 metres is?

Why is there never a traffic warden there when you want one?

We had to wait until this non-disabled idiot returned to his car and when I pointed out to him that he had blocked out access he merely chugged his shoulders. I had great difficulty resisting the urge to rip his door mirror off and beating him with it!

I am often amazed at the mentality of the non-disabled when it comes to parking. I can park in on an empty street where the kerb-side is covered with yellow paint and come back to find a whole line of non-disabled drivers have parked there as though my parking permit somehow covers their cars too.

I cannot understand why they park in clearly designated disabled parking bays and what is so attractive about wheelchair accessible toilets that they prefer to use them to their own?

I have often thought that it would be nice if the Department of Transport would crush cars of non-disabled people who park in designated parking bays in the same way that they crush cars of people who do not have a current tax disc on their windscreen – and deliver the crushed vehicle back to the offending motorist!

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