trails

iTrader: (41)

so the sudden appearance of these type of bays must mean there has been a change of some kind relating only to those with children\babies I guess it has to be either car door sizes, larger baby moving devices (!) or just fatter kids...when in reality its just peoples expectations have changed and (IMHO), they have become generally lazier, cause I don't seem to remember them being around ten years ago...

Spoon

Afternoon, nice to see you have been brought up correctly.

In your case, I don't blame the parents.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

You forget the law of sods, no matter how big a space you park in, and no matter if it is in the far corner of the car park in the middle of nowhere.

If you have a nice car, you know some incompetent / carefree parker will park right next to you leaving a foot between both vehicles.

Then you look inside and notice it also has baby seats in the back.

Leslie

Can't understand why the barrack room lawyer bit has to be even considered in this thread. The whole point is that those disabled bays are provided for people who are worse off then others when it comes to getting about. In that respect, fit people should have the decency and consideration to leave those bays free.

Or are those ideals now dead in this greedy, selfish and largely "pig ignorant" society that we find ourselves?

Les

Spoon

Trails- Lots have things have changed over the years. It is damned hard to get car seats out of a car with little room, as is shopping per se with children running about a car park.

It is a nice touch by the supermarkets rather than enforcement, to offer the p&c bays but also a necessary one really. It's evolution.

Without thinking and listing of all the changes over the years to quantify my statement it's far easier to accept it's a help.

OllyK

As I said - a marketing ploy. If supermarket X has nice wide spaces near the door and supermarket Y doesn't which are you going to use?? If neither of them have them will you stop shopping completely, or just manage?

By providing these nice wide spaces they reduce the number of spaces in the car park overall.

TelBoy

Whether it's a marketing ploy or not, we're not saying they're intrinsically "wrong". Are we??

Spoon

Not having young children to wrestle out of the car it's not a problem I need to contemplate.

Having said that, it's fairly obvious you'd have to manage.

That however, is a daft reason to object to their importance.

Lots of things make life easier, shall we revert back to pre mobiles, pc's etc just so we have to manage.

By providing wider spaces doesn't necessarily mean less spaces. The supermarkets just buy/rent more land.

dharbige

Yes.
It is now law that children under the age of 4 must be carried in an approved child seat.
But even that is not really relevant. All that has happened is that the supermarkets have responded to a need of a sub-section of their customers. Just because you don't have that need, or are too blind to even see that the need exists, doesn't mean they are wrong to do so.


I don't see that the evidence fits your conclusion. If the supermarkets see a need, and respond to it, this doesn't mean it's a marketing ploy. If they all do it, maybe that's just because IT'S A GOOD IDEA!!!

OllyK

Not wrong - just un-important, unlike disabled spaces. People seem keen to complain about people without children parking in parent and child spaces and try to lump it in to the same argument as disabled spaces. They are 2 very different things. A child is not a disability it's a choice, when you make that choice do so with open eyes, accept that you will have to change the way you do things as part of having that child.

Jay m A

iTrader: (2)

Yep, as soon as I learnt that I was to become a father, I thought ooh goody, I can use those parking bays that previously I despised

TelBoy

Unimportant? To whom? The people who cannot now park as close to the front door as previously? Do you have, or have you had, kids under 5 years old and had to take them shopping?

Why should having children enforce a hardship like using normal sized parking spaces, when there is a solution available like conveniently (and therefore danger-minimised) over-sized parking spaces? I don't understand why making everyone with kids "manage" is the answer. Who does that benefit?

Bubba po

Eeennggghh!

TelBoy

LOL, sssshhhh!!!!

dharbige

Ah, now I see.

Seeing as you can only really speak for yourself on this issue, and not the rest of the population, I believe what you mean here is "un-important to ME".

Which is exactly the sort of self-serving, egotistical attitude that I object to. Just because it isn't important to you doesn't mean it isn't important. It's certainly important to those with small children (which is why they feel justified in complaining when lazy morons park there instead of walking a bit further), and in turn it's important to the supermarkets that assign the spaces.

OllyK

No - unimportant in the scheme of things, I am not disabled either but I consider non-disabled people parking in a disabled spot a significantly bigger issue than a person without a child parking in a parent and child spot.

Bit like the parents who park in the disabled spots because the parent and child spots are full really, except you have a choice to take your child or not, a disabled person can't decided to be "not disabled" for todays visit to the supermarket (or wherever).

Personally I don't use either - but parents trying to suggest that the parent child space issues is even on the same scale as that for people with disabilities need to have a serious priority re-adjustment.

gsm1

At our local Tescos no one ever parks properly in the 'Parent & Child' spaces anyway.

OllyK

Nor in the normal ones at mine

dharbige

Ia actually agree with you on this

I agree with you on this aswell!

However, just because this is (significantly) less important than the disabled spaces issue, than doesn't mean it should be ignored.
Disabled spaces exist because in a lot of cases, people with a disability need to open their car doors all the way to get in and out of the car. Or, as in my sister's familly's case, they need the space to allow the wheelchair lift to extend (sideways) from the car.
Parent&Child spaces exist because it is difficult to get a small child into and out of a car seat without opening the door fully.

Your previous posts, OllyK, seem to indicate that you don't think Parent&Child spaces should exist at all. It was this that I was responding too. This does not mean that I believe these spaces are as necessary as the ones for disabled people.

logiclee

Yes I know otherwise.

I'm a past patient and now volunteer at our local Cardiac Rehabilitaion unit.

Anyone diagnosed with a heart condition or a heart attack is immediately stopped from driving for a minimum of four weeks and your insurance company has to be informed.
The patient's arteries and heart will be checked using variuos methods like angeagrams, echo's and exercise tests. Many patients suffer angina which gives chest pains if you do too much exercise, rest or a GTN spay will open up the arteries and the pain will go away.
Any patient with a heart condition will have drugs to lower their heart rate, lower blood pressure, lower cholestorol and a few more drugs that increase blood flow and open arteries.

Although they may not be able to do as much, the medication and checks actually give them a low risk of a sudden massive heart attack. This class of people usually develop problems slowly getting chest pains and shortness of breath, the rule is 3 lots of GTN over 20 minutes and if pain hasn't gone ring 999.

Much more likely to suffer a sudden heart attack is the stressed Male smoker in his late 40's or early 50's who is walking round with his arteries full of plaque, blood vessels blocked, blood pressure sky high but he wont have the slightest idea.

Cheers
Lee

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

Cant beleive you lot still actually visit the supermarket, we have a nice man in a van to deliver ours, for a fiver its worth it, not having to go there, park, get 3 kids out of the car and mix it with the British public !

The parent and child spaces are open to abuse, I personally wouldnt use them, my 68 year old father in law does, well at least he did when he had my 36 year old wife with him, nobody could say that they arent a parent and child combo.

+Doc+

Get a life.

Claudius

Ok... so let's ban smokers from driving then

(how many million people less on the road would that be? )

Claudius

Haha, class!

zoog

I parked in the parent and child once - a guy got upset and asked

"where are your kids then?"

I replied with considerable hauteur,

"Eton and Roedean"









edit typo

TelBoy

Wrong, in the majority of cases. Olly, see how you feel about these spaces once you're in a position to benefit from them - your views will be altered, i'm confident.

the moose

TelBoy in sensible post shocker!

Leslie

OllyK

The point being this was a thread about "parking in disabled spaces" and all of a sudden the Parent and Child space users jump in as if people mis-using those spaces is just as important - it isn't, if you want to whinge about that, start a new thread - that's my point.

OllyK

Sorry??? You have no choice - you always have to take your child to the supermarket? You can't leave them with a parent, partner, child minder etc or go shopping when they are at school, in nursery, in bed (with partner / baby sitter looking after them) and go late night shopping?? You are not trying very hard if you ask me.

I see - if I have a kid I will suddenly consider myself as worthy of priveledged parking as somebody with a disability??

You know nothing about me otherwise you would realise how absolutely ridiculous the above statement is.