Supermarket car parks

[tiggerblue10]

I know they have CCTV to monitor if you exceed 2 hours stay or something like that but does anyone actually monitor who parks in the disabled and parent & child spaces? The reason I ask is because I went to Tesco earlier and as I was passing by the parent and child bays a woman had just parked in one of them and was coming out of her car with no child/baby. As I walked past her car there was no car seat in there either. There were no other parent and child bays available and I thought this was so selfish of the woman.

Luckily my dad was looking after little Tiggs so I parked somewhere near the back of the car park where there was a few spaces where this woman could have parked.

[whiskeysheri]

My sister was given a fine for parking in one, Tiggs. She had my niece with her, but her child seat was under a coat... So, I guess they must do around here. I think that was in Sainbury's carpark.

[tiggerblue10]

I would like to think they all do Whiskey. I hope she gets fined, the selfish cow.

[redcrx]

they cant be watching them all the time, but often just a quiet word with customer service will get them onto it :)

[dustypuss]

Bastar8s me thinks

[redcrx]

laziness.

I know the disabled spaces need to be near the store but why cant parent and child spaces be further away, for the most part people are capable of walking from their car to the shop with their kids

[tiggerblue10]

Good idea Red. Most of the time I just want to get my shopping and go but whenever I need customer services there is always a massive queue and it puts me off.

Indeed Dusty.

[McMouse]

There's a woman who regularly parks in a parent and child bay with her well developed 12 year old daughter. The girl always seems very embarrassed.

[tiggerblue10]

The car park is small enough as it is and this sort of thing doesn't help at all. It would be agood idea to re-locate the P&C bays to the rear as it might deter other people from usimg them.

[paddywak]

They do check them, my niece is a trainee manageress at Tesco and it's one of her jobs to walk round the disabled/ mother and child parking lots, she's always moaning about the amount of people don't display their badges etc even when they got one

[tiggerblue10]

Maybe the well developed 12 year old should open her mouth and express her feelings Mouse.

[andy-hughes]

I think one of the reasons why P & C spaces are near to the store is to minimise the distance parents have to hike trollies, babes in arms, pushchiars, etc. It also minimises the distances tots have to walk, which again minimises the potential for that fatal moment of distraction where a little one gets separated, and can run across the traffic lanes.

On a separate note, our local Sainsburys has a cool deterrent for anyone parking in a Disabled bay - the stick a large poster on the driver's window confirming in massive black letters that the driver parked in a Disabled spacec without an appropriate blue badge. The poster is stucj on with seriously sticky glue, getting it off is a nightmare, takes ages, and gives the drive plenty of time to consider their selfish and inappropriate behaviour.

And yes, I hold my hands up and confess that i speak from personlal experience - for which I am duly ashemed and make no escuse - but I have never done it since, it was about fifteen years ago!!

[bookbinder]

Just as a matter of interest, how old does a person have to be before they are not regarded as a child any more? The reason I'm asking is that my late mother-in-law sometimes went to Tesco with me and my wife, and I used to joke that we could - legally - park in a parent and child space. But we never had the brass face to do it!

[McMouse]

ah.......what a good idea putting a sticky label on the window, thus ensuring the bay is taken up for an even longer period.

[andy-hughes]

Peter Kay makes a similar joke about that.

I have been shopping with my eldest daughter, but never had the brass face to park in a P & C space - she's thirty-five!

[redcrx]

bookbinder i think the signs now say parent and child up to age 5.

[DTCwordfan]

they could get sued for doing that - we had it happen at work. Someone had to leave work in a hurry and came out to find one of those glue-posters on his screen. He took a lot of it off but had to get going urgently - he was involved in a prang on the way back home and it was deemed that the action of the over-zealous head security guard that claimed he was ex-SAS (probably blanket keeper), was a significant contributory factor.

[McMouse]

When we take aged Ma in Law to supermarket we only use her blue badge when there are no ordinary spaces close to the store. Mind you she gets quite narky if we don't use a disabled space as she believes it's her "right".

[tigerlelly]

I expect quite a few people park in these bays because they can actually open the car doors when they are parked there and not because the bays are closer to the entrance. Anyone with a slightly older and therefore usually a bit bigger car is squeezed out of 'normal' sized spaces.

[andy-hughes]

To be fair McMouse, once it became clear that removal was a matter for detergent and scraper, i simply wound the window down and drove home, and dealt with it there.

I think sticking gluey posters on windscreens is not a good idea - but the way to avoid them is to follow the rules, so no complaint from here!

[andy-hughes]

DTcrosswordfan - the responsibility of driving a roadworthy vehicle rests with the drive - so if he drove without clear visibility, he'd have a hard job convincing the authorities that he was not at fault.

i know that sounds sanctimonious - but in view of my previous posts, believe me it is not meant to - i am simply pointing out the legal aspect.