Firstly, I haven’t been fined. But visiting the hospital yesterday to see the MS Nurse I noticed a fairly obscure sign next to the revolving door from the company that manages the hospital car park saying that if you park in a disabled by and have a valid blue badge you have to call to inform them of such within 24 hours or they will fine you £70.
The sign was not obvious at all and you certainly couldn’t have seen it if you were in a wheelchair.
I was astounded.
Surely, this is disability discrimination. Able bodies people don’t have to phone them to tell them they have parked legally!
Is this because they don’t employ wardens and rely on a camera to check number plates?
If so, surely it’s their problem, to prove that you’ve parked illegally in a disabled bay and not yours. Having said that though, if they are relying on cameras to police their car park, then unentitled people could be using the disabled bays. Which would drive us all even crazier.
Oh, I seem to have talked myself round into thinking it’s sort of reasonable. After all, NHS budgets are so pared down, using actual traffic wardens, employed by the hospital to enforce eligibility to disabled bays would be wrong. So a simple phone call within a day would be OKish. They should make the sign bigger!!!
Our local hospital has recently changed to charging disabled drivers, even with a blue badge. Before they were charging, you had to call at reception and show your badge.
Another story…2/3 years ago, my hubby dropped me off in a chargeable car park, but didnt actually park. Then he returned some 4 hours later to collect me. We used this car park, as it was safe to unload me…with a tail lift and me, we needed quite a lot of room, so regular parking spaces were too small.
About 3 weeks later, a parking fine came in the post…about £75. Well how could this be? They produced a photo of us arriving and then leaving…but not the arriving and leaving in between, so it looked like we had parked up for 5 hours without paying.
We fought it…it took some doing and threats from them of taking us to court…we fought on as we refused to pay a fine we didn`t deserve.We won eventually.
So, something needs doing about that difficult to see notice!
Our local hospital charges for parking even with a blue badge. My hubby refuses to pay - so drops me off at the door and parks outside of the hospital grounds.
The hospital has nothing to do with the car park other than it being on their land. The company that manages it is ParkingEye that does rely on taking photos of vehicles and they can’t check the blue badge against the disabled parking space … that is their problem, not the disabled persons. They should employ people if they need to, not just assume the guilt of the person.
Outrageous! It would be really difficult for me to phone, I’m deaf! We have enough to contend with without things like this. Am I right in thinking the England is the only UK country that charges for hospital parking? There was a debate requested recently, that didn’t happen due to psychopathic MPs talking drivel to waste time and forced it to be shelved, to try and overturn this. Grrrr!
I do agree it’s not the hospital’s fault. On the other hand, it might be worth letting them know, as presumably, they do have a say in what third party contractors get up to on site, especially if it’s not only to the detriment of patients, but to a particular group of patients - namely disabled ones.
It’s ridiculous that they should have to phone in their “claim” to have the right to park there, within 24 hours, or face a penalty.
I’m not a driver, so my problem will eventually be getting to the hospital at all - not parking fines - but I do have a tendency both to put off or forget phone calls AND to get stressed about daft things, so having to make a call within 24 hours or face a fine would not be good for me at all. Plus I’m always knackered after visiting the hospital - even if I’m not having anything done - so the following 24 hours are quite likely to be “sub-optimal” functioning, when I might not get things done that I otherwise do.
Would hate to have this extra bit of bureaucracy to complete.
I think the whole hospital parking thing is a racket. When we lost my dad, the hospice for end-of-life care was situated within the hospital grounds, and there were no parking concessions (either reserved places OR fee concessions), even for people who might be visiting their dying relative for literally the last time. On top of all the trauma of knowing you’re going to lose someone, you’ve got to drive round and round the grounds, looking for somewhere to park, and eventually stop miles away, and have to walk all the way back to where they are.
I do understand that nobody is at a hospital “for fun”, but there should be some sort of precedence for people who are either disabled themselves, or visiting someone whose condition is critical or terminal. You don’t want or need a half hour search for a parking place, on what may turn out to be the last time you ever see your dad. And you certainly don’t expect to get fined, if you’re eventually forced to leave the car somewhere you really shouldn’t, because there was no other place to put it.
In contrast, the Great Western Hospital, Swindon has increased the number of FREE spaces for disabled drivers.
I take a guess that there must be about 60 spaces available - certainly I have never had to wait more than 15 minutes for a space.
Hi I got a £90 fine at Whitechapel taking my girlfriend for Lemtrada after being told I could park all day and then a £130 fine at the UCL whilst going for check in for the MS Smart trial. Its lucky Im loaded with my DLA and ESA payments. pheeewwwwwwwwww
But whilst having to make a phone call is inconvenient I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask for someone with a Blue Badge to have to make a call.
As presumably there isn’t a warden in the car ark permanently I’m not sure what else the Parking company can do - seems to be the only way ensure that only BB holders use the designated spaces.
Being as you can also email them I have decided that I will set up a daily email that emails them my car reg and badge number every single day on the basis that one day it might be right. They don’t say there is a fine for emailing when you don’t park. That way I don’t need to worry.