Hi
It seems that many councils are not punishing Blue Badge fraud.
It is no wonder so much appears to be happening and most people seem to know an alleged abuser.
Best wishes for the new year.
Paul
I know someone who has a blue badge - but shouldn’t. I have reported it twice! Nothing has happened.
Is it just your assumption that they shouldn’t or do you know for a fact?I if nothing has happened then they are likely to have been investigated and found legitimate.
Invisible illnesses and such.
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I know for a fact - she walks her dogs for well over a mile every day - she says she has the badge because her hands are weak, which i’m sure we all know is a pile of poop
Hello,
Its very easy to moan about this. I would not have the courage to confront the person. If they were guilty then I could easily get thumped for my pains and the person could walk/run away from me quicker than I can move.
Its a very difficult problem. Its a bit like confronting a person walking out of a disabled loo - would you question their right to use one?
I saw kids park a car in disabled parking space then sprint into Brent X shopping centre. A Blue Badge was on the dash board. This was about 8 years ago and I was too ignorant/naive to protest. I would now take photos and send this into the relevant council.
Definitely a hot potato
Talk soon,
Patrick
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It’s a dangerous slope to go around accusing people of blue badge fraud (even when it does exist). A blue badge can be awarded for many reasons, not just mobility. A friend who has a young daughter diagnosed with T1 diabetes is eligible to apply for 1 (she doesn’t as the daughter is fit and healthy but she would get one if she applied) another friend has 1 as she has a child with severe autism…if you have 1 be thankful. I tend to confront people who park in blue badge bays with no blue badge but otherwise I don’t have the inclination to confront people I know nothing about. Life is too short.
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[quote=“patrick.b”]
Its a very difficult problem. Its a bit like confronting a person walking out of a disabled loo - would you question their right to use one? [/quote]
We should always remember that, like it or not, there is no exclusivity about disabled toilets. Anybody can use them.
The legal obligation on a company is that the facilities it provides are accessible to everybody. What it cannot do is insist that certain facilities are only available to a specific group of people. If it did exclude nondisabled people from disabled toilets it would be acting in the same illegal discriminatory way as if it excluded disabled people from “normal” toilets or black people from “whites only” bathrooms like they did in South Africa during apartheid!
Similarly, RADAR keys are available for purchase by anybody with or without disabilities. The charity could not do otherwise legally. Whether it would be MORALLY acceptable for people without disabilities to use them so is another question.
[quote=“patrick.b”]
I saw kids park a car in disabled parking space then sprint into Brent X shopping centre. A Blue Badge was on the dash board. This was about 8 years ago and I was too ignorant/naive to protest. I would now take photos and send this into the relevant council. [/quote]
Yes, that might seem suspicious and lots of people do misuse Blue Badges. But, playing devils advocate here, the scenario you describe could just as easily be the “kids” going to pick up the disabled person who has the Blue Badge which is, of course, a perfectly legitimate use of the badge and the parking space.
The point is, that unless you kept the car under close surveillance for the whole time it was there and knew the medical history of all the people involved you cannot be sure and jumping to such conclusions is a very dangerous thing to do.
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I did see the news article that we are all talking about on the BBC and its did raise some important issues which are highly relevant to us all on here.
What I did notice, though, was that they did seem to be a little bit of “statistics inflation” by the person from the charity involved in the news story (SCOPE?). The figures he was quoting seem to cover all sorts of wrongful use of Blue Badges from downright fraud (using stolen badges, altering badges or simply using other people’s badges) to all sorts of parking violations with disabled parking spaces. A lot of the figures he was giving seem to relate to people parking in disabled bays without displaying a blue badge rather than what would be classified as “fraud”.
It reminded me very much of an overzealous police officer I dealt with many years ago who had a problem with parking problems with a local taxi firm where he tried to convince me that we should be prosecuting the owners of the firm for “conspiracy to park on double yellow lines”. A sense of proportion is always!
The road I live on has parking restrictions and I am very lucky in that the Council authorised a disabled bay on the road immediately outside my house. One thing that I do wish that other road users were more careful about and that the council would enforce though is the tendency of people to park partially into the disabled bay thus making it much more difficult to use and sometimes making it difficult, if not impossible, to open the back door of the car for my scooter et cetera.
Let us go on a bit from Boblatina’s comprehensive post:
I suggest that the problem is that the root of the problem lies in two factors …
1 - The BB application form does seem to concentrate on mobility issues - specifically on walking difficulties - which leads people to think that this is all that matters.
2 - The form, if filled in on-line goes to a central (commercial) agency - with the implication that it will be handled in a standard manner - but is then passed to the relevant local authority. Each local authority makes it’s own decisions (apart from those mandated for in legislation).
The result of this stunning display of government incompetence (thanks, Dave) is that the outside observer cannot tell if a BB is being used legitimately.
Note that nowhere on the application form is any mention of a possible need for a wide parking space to get out and back in again. Apart from walking (which I cannot do without bi-lateral support) I need that space to get the door wide open.
Geoff
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I remember leaving a note on a windscreen of a vehicle in a disabled parking bay “where’s your blue badge??” because they hadn’t one displayed and I asked a lady one time about her “lack” of blue badge and she said that I could check, as the car was registered to a blue badge, to which I informed her, its the person, not the vehicle that has a blue badge…
And at one local hospital, you have to register cars to a BB with a maximum of three cars per badge.
I think this is illegal - it is certainly beyond the spirit of the BB
Geoff
[quote=“DoctorGeoff”]
And at one local hospital, you have to register cars to a BB with a maximum of three cars per badge.
I think this is illegal - it is certainly beyond the spirit of the BB
Geoff
[/quote] Probably not illegal. If the parking isn’t on the public highway the landowner can put whatever conditions it likes providing that they are not, in themselves, discriminatory. They can charge for blue badge use (my hospital does) or time-limit it (a nearby supermarket does). They could even insist on you obtaining a disabled parking permit over and above your blue badge if they wanted. I think that your hospital might be an example of where some dodgy people have been using their blue badge as a " ommunity resource" and passing it round their friends and family. Or, of course, your NHS Trust could just be a bunch of bureaucratic t*****s 
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Boblatina - could the disabled bay outside your house be used by anyone with a disability i.e. by someone wth no links to the house?
Not sure if this is right but a friend tells me that it’s not illegal to park across someone’s gateway so long as there is no car on the drive.
As I understand it, it’s illegal to block access to the road, from your house…but not illegal (just inconsiderate) to block access to your house from the road! Bit of a grey area, with many variables, but annoying just the same…
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As it was told to me, anyone at all can park in an “Advisory” disabled parking space. No need to show a BB.
I have to say that since I have had my advisory space, all the neighbours have respected it.
But, with two schools within 200 yards, we do not go out during the “school run” hours.
Geoff
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I am 31 the looks I get when my husband parks in a disabled bay is horrible more the elderly mine is more the tiredness and type one diabetes I see people parking in to disabled and are not disabled because they haven’t even got a badge like I went shopping Christmas Eve went in the muti storey car park 2 young girls parked across the disabled bay because the level was the same level as the shops was going to take a picture but got into there pimped up car and drove off ?
[quote=“krakowian”]
Boblatina - could the disabled bay outside your house be used by anyone with a disability i.e. by someone wth no links to the house?
Not sure if this is right but a friend tells me that it’s not illegal to park across someone’s gateway so long as there is no car on the drive.
[/quote] The bay outside my house is not for my exclusive use! It was installed by the LA and the roadway is formally marked with the necessary signage on a metal pole. I asked for one to be installed when we moved here when I saw a mention of them on the LA website and thought I would ask! I never expected to get one and I was really lucky with my timing with their budgets.
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[quote=“Boblatina”] [quote=krakowian]
Boblatina - could the disabled bay outside your house be used by anyone with a disability i.e. by someone wth no links to the house?
Not sure if this is right but a friend tells me that it’s not illegal to park across someone’s gateway so long as there is no car on the drive.
[/quote] The bay outside my house is not for my exclusive use! It was installed by the LA and the roadway is formally marked with the necessary signage on a metal pole. I asked for one to be installed when we moved here when I saw a mention of them on the LA website and thought I would ask! I never expected to get one and I was really lucky with my timing with their budgets.[/quote] When the lady from the LA phoned me to tell me that my request had been approved she was very careful to emphasise that the bay was not for my exclusive use! My house is on a busy road and is near to the town centre shops so parking is at a premium here - hence the need for residents’ parking. If my husband is out in the car the bay certainly doesn’t stay empty long!
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[quote=“Fracastorius”]
As I understand it, it’s illegal to block access to the road, from your house…but not illegal (just inconsiderate) to block access to your house from the road! Bit of a grey area, with many variables, but annoying just the same…
[/quote] Parking accross a dropped kerb isn’t “illegal” per se - ie you won’t get a ticket for it because it is not expressly prohibited by the Road Traffic Acts. Unless there are other road markings it simply falls under the “you SHOULD not” advisory provisions of the Highway Code rather than the “you MUST not” mandatory provisions.
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That’s right. As I said, parking across a dropped kerb is not a “crime” (is a breach of the Road Traffic Acts).
Preventing somebody getting ONTO their drive is not an offence.
What COULD be an offence is preventing someone from legitimately accessing the highway by blocking their car in. This could be the offence of Obstructing the Highway. The Police could get involved to move the offending vehicle.
That is the criminal law of course. Someone blocking access or egress from a property would potentially be committing a Tort (is a breach of the CIVIL law). So, if you have a neighbour who consistently parks in a way that interferes with access to your property,you are perfectly able to sue them in the County Court!