Victory for disabled people as ASDA impose parking abuse fines

I’m cautiously optimistic that Monday March 10th will be a very significant day for disabled motorists. After a successful trial at their supermarkets in Liverpool, ASDA are starting to roll out a programme nationally where they will fine drivers £60 for parking in disabled bays without a blue badge and also if they misuse parent and child bays.

This is great news for campaigners, primarily from the Mobilise organisation, who have been supported by the British Polio Fellowship and Disability Now magazine in their Baywatch campaign, which has monitored parking bay abuse in supermarkets. Sadly for many years, they have identified that as many as 1 in 5 bays are regularly occupied by non-badge holders.

I’ve heard the excuses myself; “I’ll only be two minutes”, they say, while others don’t care less and are likely to give you verbal abuse.

I really hope this initiative works and that ASDA both keep the pressure on and also benefit commercially from their efforts, as this will then encourage the likes of Tesco, Sainsburys and Morrisons to follow suit.

In my opinion, the key to this being a success is a change in attitude by members of the public who abuse the privilege afforded to wheelchair users and parents with push chairs who need wide bays to access their cars and to those with walking difficulties who need to be parked close to the store entrance.

I have had two experiences only in the last week that leave me sceptical that this attitude change will occur in the short term. Firstly, at the Royal Mail sorting office in Gosforth, a postman was using the only disabled parking bay to load his car with his deliveries, and I also noticed that 3 of the 7 wide disabled parking bays in a Newcastle city centre car park were occupied by cars without a badge.

I think it’s tragic in this day and age that organisations like ASDA have to revert to imposing fines, but if that’s the way the public want to treat disabled people, then that’s the way it has to be. Good luck to them as this is one positive move in the direction of making the World a better place for disabled people. There’s still a long way to go!