‘Penalise thoughtless parkers’
Tuesday 24th March 2009, 2:29PM GMT.
Jason Lockwood, with guide dog Harry, near one of the parking places for the disabled on The Bridge. He has called for stiffer penalties for able-bodied drivers who ignore such signs. (Picture by Peter Frankland, 0742529)
A VISUALLY impaired man is calling for tougher measures against drivers who abuse disabled parking spaces.
Jason Lockwood holds a disabled badge because he needs a larger space for his guide dog, Harry, to get in and out of the car.
Mr Lockwood, 36, said drivers who are not disabled and park in spaces allocated to badge-holders need to have a bit of decency and respect.
‘If it has a disabled badge on it, don’t park there unless you want the disability,’ he said.
He said tougher penalties are needed to discourage people from using disabled-badge parking spaces.
‘A small fine is not enough,’ said Mr Lockwood, who moved to Guernsey five years ago and is registered as blind.
A fixed penalty notice of £30 is issued to drivers who are caught parked in a disabled space and who do not hold a disabled badge.
‘I think they should be fined £500 and taken off the road for a few months,’ said Mr Lockwood.
‘Currently, people who get caught just do it again.’
Wheelchair user Dave Purdy, 60, a resident of the Guernsey Cheshire Home, said he has been forced out of a disabled bay by a non badge-holder.
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Totally agree about increasing fines for this type of parking offence. I used to work in a shop that looked out directly onto a disabled parking area. These spaces was used throughout the day by people who felt they were there for public convenience. I also saw traffic wardens hesitant on several occasions to issue tickets for these offences, not too sure why this is, but certainly something should be done.
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Decency and respect from a Guernsey motorist? Good luck with that Mr Lockwood….
Why not charge a peppercorn parking fee for disabled spaces? Say a penny an hour? We know how passionate Guernsey motorists are about not paying for parking so it follows that this would be the ultimate deterrent.
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Your idea, Student Bob, sounds the perfect solution. Guernsey motorists would bring down the government rather than pay for car parking.
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Absolutely agree charge these thoughtless people. One of the worst places is outside B&Q where lorries and vans park quite blatantly in the disabled spaces. I suppose this is private land and not much can be done about it, it is also as bad at Checkers.We could probably go a long way in filling the black hole with fines from people parked in disabled spaces.
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Registered blind people driving cars! You couldn’t make it up could you. I thought that a requirement for obtaining a driving license was that you had to be able to read a registration plate from twenty five metres. Yes that was ‘able’.
When I was a young lad riding a motorcycle a driver pulled off from a yellow line right in front of me. This driver in mitigation said that his eye sight and hearing was failing and that he neither saw or heard me. Both myself and pillion passenger were eighteen at the time and could quite easily have been killed or paralyzed by this driver. He was fined five pounds.
This Mr Lockwood talks of decency and respect. If he has respect for the damage that he could inflict on other unsuspecting road users then I implore him to do the decent thing and relinquish his license. Just think about it Mr Lockwood, this time next week a young child with their whole life ahead of them could be killed or paralyzed for life.
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I don’t condone thoughtless idiots who abuse disabled parking at all. It is a common problem in Guernsey and also is those that hold badges just because they can rather than having a genuine real need.
What I am shocked by is the fact that Jason Lockwood has got a licence? If he is partially sighted and registered as blind with the need for a dog then I hope he is driving nowhere near my children ever or anybody else’s.
What the hell is going on with our licensing authority then? I was on the understanding that one needs to have the ability to read a licence plate from a certain distance. Maybe things have now changed and they are going to start producing them in Braille then?
He should not be driving full stop. If he needs the dog for walking about does the dog also navigate with reference to the driving side of things?
I do agree with his comments completely but not the driving at all.
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Have any of you thought that perhaps he doesnt drive but has someone who drives him around but they still need acess to a disabled parking space.I used to do the same for my mother and display the disabled badge if i was out with her.I never used it at any other time.
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I think that maybe rachael is right and if it’s the guy i;m thinking of his wife does drive him around.
Also, paid parking for disabled parking spaces? as if they don’t suffer enough by actually being disabled and now some of you want them to pay to park their cars!?!?!?!
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Being Disabled is hard enough without these arrogant people taking their car parking spaces.
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Those that park illegally in the various disabled spaces around the island are just thoughtless and lazy.
If you want to talk about hotspots for this happening then what about outside the front of Checkers?
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Point taken that this gentlemans wife may do the driving. However to claim that a disabled badge is required in order for a guide dog to be able to get out leads me to believe that using an unloading bay would be more appropriate
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We need rationalisation of the “Mother and Child” spaces too. How is it fair that a father is prejudiced against when taking his child shopping? Why should a man have to suffer juggling baby and buggy in a slightly narrower parking space simply because of his gender?
Why the assumption that it is the woman who will go shopping?
This blatant sexism in the 21st century is an insult to us all.
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I don’t think any able bodied person should be legally permitted to use a disabled badge at all. There is many places and spaces that are more than adequate to set a disabled person down, depending on their condition, park up and then hook up again.
It generally tends to be partners or carers that completely abuse the system and see the badge as a convenient plum parking at ones leisure permit. I have a gripe with anybody abusing these spaces!
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Student Bob – I’m not sure whether your comment is tongue in cheek or not!
Nevertheless I cannot believe that those spaces are only reserved for women, more likely they are “Parent and Child” spaces and the picture of a mother and child was the simplest way of showing this.
Put it another way, when our child is born and I go shopping alone with him/her I fully intend to park in the “parent and child” spaces – and anyone who complains will be told, kindly of course, to remove themselves from my presence :-)
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A fixed penalty of 30pounds is enough. If anything then perhaps extra policing could be called for. Why not penalise people who abuse the parent/toddler parking as well? – easily policed by checking the car for a child seat.
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>>If anything then perhaps extra policing could be called for.<>Why not penalise people who abuse the parent/toddler parking as well?<< Because they are all voluntary and on privately owned land.
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Wrong thread I know but I couldn’t find another live one about traffic.
Today’s Press 26/3/09 page 2
To all those commuters who moan about Guernsey traffic jams….. that’s what the roads look like on any working day other than the morning and evening rush
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I drive around with a child seat in my car permanently but I have not always got my little grandson with me. I must say it is tempting to park in the mother and toddler spaces at all times, but my conscious would not let me, unlike some I have to say.
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If the States of Guernsey had offered compensation to Landsbanki depositors in the first place we wouldn’t have a problem with illegal parking.
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LMAO @CD :)
There should be a Disable Drivers Protection Scheme.
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I think you are all being a bit unfair – you obviously don’t realise that being a selfish lazy ignorant t**t is now an officially recognised disability.
It is just a sad symptom of the disability that none of the sufferes can be bothered getting a disabled badge for their cars ….
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Blind people do not drive, they are passengers in cars. I think there should more of a fine for parking in disabled bays, that might prevent people from parking in them all the time.
I am a wheelchair user, and I often cannot go and get my shopping because of ignorant drivers who park in disabled bays, despite there being many other bays they can use. I *need* the extra space to transfer myself from the car to my wheelchair, I cannot do this is a normal bay as they are too narrow.
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