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Inconsiderate Parking, or Opening of Car Doors

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Old May 12th, 2019, 21:38   #41
AndyJudge
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Originally Posted by Laird Scooby View Post
The big thing is here, not all disabilities are visible and may not be apparent until the person using that space has had to walk the extra distance and because the reason they have their Blue Badge in the first place is because of a heart condition so they shouldn't be walking far, they then suffer a heart attack of some form or another whether it's angina or a full blown heart attack.
Alternatively, their disability may be impaired hearing or vision, meaning that the increased distance increases the risk of them having an accident simply because it becomes a numbers game then - more steps = more chance of tripping, being hit by an unseen/unheard car etc

I'd like to see the people who make the decisions to move disabled spaces further away in favour of more "sprog & victim" spaces live as a disabled person for a month.

I suspect that there would suddenly be a lot more, easily accessible, disabled parking spaces closer to the store entrance and the sprog & victim spaces would be further away - preferably a lot further away!

Make the kids walk to the car, they have legs, it will give them exercise and help tire them out so they'll go to sleep in the car on the way home and the victims (parents) will think they've gone deaf!

Meanwhile, enlarge the normal spaces so people can park safely without risking their cars being damaged, put more staff on the tills so people don't spend 20 minutes shopping and 40 minutes queueing to pay. This would have several benefits - more people would find shopping lesss stressful so would be encouraged to use stores like this, the throughput of customers would be much faster resulting in higher footfall figures not to mention more customers willing to shop there as they wouldn't spend 2/3 of their time waiting to pay, it's a win-win when you look at it that way!

The extra throughput/footfall would easily cover the extra wages of the extra till staff and still make the retailer more money/profit.
You're in the wrong job Laird
Makes perfect sense to me, you should have a job in town centre, shopping centre planning.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 01:07   #42
Laird Scooby
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You're in the wrong job Laird
Makes perfect sense to me, you should have a job in town centre, shopping centre planning.
Thanks, it's just common sense really, something that seems to go out the window in Planing Depts these days!
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Old May 13th, 2019, 07:50   #43
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If they did, they'd need car parks 3 times the size at peak times.
Fewer spaces, sure, but I think 3 times is a over-estimation. Disabled spaces are not three times the size of a normal one. Parent and child spaces don't need to be quite so big, and the ordinary spaces don't need to be much wider to be reasonably sized. But I still wonder why there are "ordinary" spaces at all.

It doesn't sit comfortably with me that there's this unique VIP club to which you can only get membership by peculiar social rules. Where there is genuine need, I agree entirely. Where it's just a PR exercise (which i strongly suspect) and where statistical targets must be met (which I also strongly suspect) you end up with shoddy design: An entire row of disabled spaces, the furthest of which are more remote from the door than the nearest "ordinary" spaces in the next row.

But still I don't like the idea of their being "normal" and then "disabled" (read: privaliged) spaces at all. It would be fair to say that with so many disablities being recognise today, and almost everyone breeds at some point, it would appear to me that the amount of disabled spaces and parent spaces is nowhere near sufficient. So should we have more? If we're mapping the demographic properly, I would argue there's not many ordinary people around really. So we shouldn't need many ordinary spaces.

Throughout our society, more and more we are realising there's not really any "ordinary" folk at all. Everyone has some kind of disability. Mental health, allergies, food intollerances, flickering lights, sensory overload, agoraphobia, whatever.... There is a whole wealth of maladies to choose from. We need to get away from the idea of "most are normal, a few are not", and the whole set-aside bit of parking for those with "special" needs just isn't really appropriate in today's world. Different people have different needs, some are documented, some are not, some have doctor's notes, some people refuse them, the needs are as diverse as the people.

Just make the f'kin spaces bigger and then everyone can manage.

Nobody is normal.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 10:12   #44
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Fewer spaces, sure, but I think 3 times is a over-estimation. Disabled spaces are not three times the size of a normal one. Parent and child spaces don't need to be quite so big, and the ordinary spaces don't need to be much wider to be reasonably sized. But I still wonder why there are "ordinary" spaces at all.

It doesn't sit comfortably with me that there's this unique VIP club to which you can only get membership by peculiar social rules. Where there is genuine need, I agree entirely. Where it's just a PR exercise (which i strongly suspect) and where statistical targets must be met (which I also strongly suspect) you end up with shoddy design: An entire row of disabled spaces, the furthest of which are more remote from the door than the nearest "ordinary" spaces in the next row.

But still I don't like the idea of their being "normal" and then "disabled" (read: privaliged) spaces at all. It would be fair to say that with so many disablities being recognise today, and almost everyone breeds at some point, it would appear to me that the amount of disabled spaces and parent spaces is nowhere near sufficient. So should we have more? If we're mapping the demographic properly, I would argue there's not many ordinary people around really. So we shouldn't need many ordinary spaces.

Throughout our society, more and more we are realising there's not really any "ordinary" folk at all. Everyone has some kind of disability. Mental health, allergies, food intollerances, flickering lights, sensory overload, agoraphobia, whatever.... There is a whole wealth of maladies to choose from. We need to get away from the idea of "most are normal, a few are not", and the whole set-aside bit of parking for those with "special" needs just isn't really appropriate in today's world. Different people have different needs, some are documented, some are not, some have doctor's notes, some people refuse them, the needs are as diverse as the people.

Just make the f'kin spaces bigger and then everyone can manage.

Nobody is normal.
When i said 3 times the size, it wasn't a hard and fast figure. However i wasn't only referring to the width of the spaces but the length as well. When the "standard" size spaces were set down in law (maybe not in law per se but as some sort of guideline, governement or otherwise) the average small family car was 13' long and just about 5' wide (similar to a Mk1 Escort as an example), a medium family car would be about 14' x 5'6 and a HUGE family car would have been 15-16' x 5'9 - 6' wide. The old 145 was about 15'3 x 5'3 approx for an example. A typical modern Fiesta is getting close to those dimensions and weighs about the same as a 145 did when it was new.

Do the maths on floor area needed not forgetting to take into account increased turning room and you should get a figure, whether it's twice the size, 3 times or what i haven't bothered to work out. Also don't forget to factor in extra space between the cars so doors can be opened easily without risking damage to the car next door.

The point is, modern cars are now bigger, longer, wider and heavier than their 50-60 year old counterparts yet parking spaces have remained the same size during that time.

As for saying that being disabled is a VIP club, many people would take that out of context and give you grief for that - however, take it in the context of the other things you've said and it makes more sense.

The big point is as you sum up with - make all the spaces bigger.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 10:21   #45
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Agreed, 'LS'. At one time, as you say, a Volvo estate, be it a 1, 2 or 7/9 series car, stood out in the car park. We would say: "There it is over there, behind that Mini." when looking for our car in a crowded car park. Now, our current V70 is dwarfed by many other vehicles; relatively, it is no longer a 'big' car!

Regards, John.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 10:30   #46
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... the little yuppy-larva ...
That phrase is still making me chuckle
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Old May 13th, 2019, 10:49   #47
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Of course making the spaces a bit bigger in town centres would mean less parking, so less cars travelling into the town centre's, less pollution & bravo we could have met the pollution reduction targets without the need to introduce Pollution Charges. Strictly TIC of course.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 11:29   #48
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I’ve been in some car parks where there are marked spaces between the bays and the spaces themselves are big enough to fit a Vivaro in easily. For me, this is the way to go especially when I’ve gotta unload tools etc. It’d be great to see more like this.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 11:38   #49
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On my way to a job, hauling a little trailer, I decided I needed coffee. A sign beckoned me into a commercial district of large carparks surrounded by gigantic sheds, Costa! I love costa coffee!

So there I am, bouncing over the speed humps, traversing various styles and all manners of different blockwork, trying to distinguish between road markings and "classy" versions of same made of different types of stone, and trying not to collide with a generic hatchback and not to run over a generic child....

I decided on a spot, it was next to a grass verge so it was longer than the rest. I'd be in there, trailer and all, and I'll be out of everyone's way. Trouble is, it was a disabled space.

I got away with it. But I can imagine the argument if someone had decided to kick up a stink ... I mean, sure, I might not be disabled (at least not physically) but I do have a trailer which needs to park somewhere. I can't just leave it hanging out into the thoroughfare, can I?

Different people have different needs. I just feel it's unfair to rigidly class people into types. I mean, I wasn't there long. Just got me coffee and left. No harm done. BUT.... This dumb piece of painted asphalt apparently can make better decisions than me.
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Old May 13th, 2019, 11:48   #50
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Of course making the spaces a bit bigger in town centres would mean less parking, so less cars travelling into the town centre's, less pollution & bravo we could have met the pollution reduction targets without the need to introduce Pollution Charges. Strictly TIC of course.
"Less pollution?"

I doubt it! They'll all be driving around in ever decreasing circles trying to find somewhere else to park.

And, at the same time, these 'out of town shopping centres' have so many parking spaces such that people are too scared of how far they might have to walk to get to the actual shops! Or... they are so scared to use them on the grounds they might forget where they actually parked the car and not know where to find it!
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