Disabled people who use blue badges to go about their daily lives have said they are being harassed, questioned and even assaulted, as anti-benefits rhetoric becomes more mainstream in the UK.
About 3 million people in the UK now have a blue badge, including 1 in 15 adults in England. The number of people who qualify for the scheme – which allows drivers to park in more accessible spaces – has caused some to warn of misuse and fraud.
The AA has called for a crackdown on people using fake or stolen blue badges as the number on the scheme grows, while the Daily Mail “names and shames” drivers taken to court for fraudulently using a badges.
But the culture of suspicion has, according to the dozens of users who contacted the Guardian, given rise to a tide of abuse from members of the public towards badge holders, including accusations that they are faking their disability.
You know, given the way humans work at least some of those 3 million are going to be taking the piss.
I know someone who is registered disabled, has a Blue Badge, a ‘disabled parking only’ bay outside his home and a Motobilty Vauxhall Mokka.
Is quite capable of walking to the pub 1 kilometre away though…….
Not all disabilities are obvious. It’s quite possible that it’s his wife that has the disability and cannot drive. Or, of course, he could be an alcoholic………………………….
He is the registered disabled person, she doesn’t have a disability and she is the one who drives……..
Dozens of complaints, eh? This being the Graun I’d bet that half of the complainants are undeserving.
Bring back the blue three wheelers.
You can then get to watch the match at Upton Park right at the front.
There are no matches at Upton Park any more, Otto.
If 5% of benefits are claimed fraudulently, then 150,000 people are grifters on the make.
Anecdatally, it’s way more than 5%. I grew up on a council estate, wasn’t the worst but not the best either. Anyway, being on the dole was still frowned on in the 80’s, something you tried to hide from the neighbours. Even when unemployment was tearing through working class British men like the aftermath of a dodgy vindaloo. Now, there’s no shame. I see fat women waddling to the supermarket in their pyjamas all the time. I know people who have parlayed mild arthritis symptoms or dubious mental elf claims into:
* A free 4 bedroom house
* A free car
* The spouse being given free money to be a “carer” instead of working full time
* Various other gimmes you can get from the council if you’re pathetic enough
Instead of feeling ashamed, they feel entitled and they’re laughing up their pyjama sleeves at people who work for a living.
The average British professional benefits jockey is living a lifestyle they’d need maybe £100k a year before tax in the private sector in order to fund. And we wonder why they don’t want to stack shelves at Sainsbury’s.
Oh yeah, and these are the same kind of people who treat ambulances as a taxi service because they can’t be arsed driving to the hospital.
The piss-taking is off the charts.
If it is more like 10% and the benefits bill is set to hot over 400 billion then I can see where the additional money for defence will come from. Cut the grifters from the system and save 10% of 400 billion. Thats 40 billion that could go to defence.
According to the Spectator, just one person on PIP can enable a family of four to live a lifestyle that the family would need an income of £71,000 to afford.
The basterds turned down my PIP application, so back to the job websites.
“ at least some of those 3 million are going to be taking the piss.”
And even more have a ‘disability’ that doesn’t stop them walking a reasonable distance, ie from the far side of the carpark to the shop door. Its entirely possible that the vast majority of ‘disabled’ people in this country have no physical disability at all, given nearly 40% of claims are for mental health issues and many of the musculoskeletal claims (20% of total) will be for ‘bad backs’ that don’t seem to stop the claimants playing golf or going on adventure holidays.
Plus of course lots of the disabled are just fat b*stards who need to walk further anyway, it would be good for them.
It really doesn’t matter if people are abusing it or not (but they are). The question is, can you have an exceptional scheme for 1 in 15 people? That’s a lot of parking spaces.
Like many things, if you set the government incentive wrong, the bureaucrats will rubber stamp things. Like doctors just hand out sick notes because that gets patients to fuck off. Saying “no” is a bigger cost and no doctor is ever sued for malpractice by an employer even though signing people off who are not ill is.
The typical person seems to be in school until 25, then work until 65, then live on a pension until about 80. So that’s half their lifetime not working.
I wonder if one reason they’re so generous with disability badges is that then they’re not counted as part of the denominator when they look at percentage employed.
Your typical person doesn’t sound very typical.
You can have an exceptional scheme for 1 in 2 people, and we do. That’s why we have separate facilites for men and women.
The blue badge scheme is, like all bureaucratic schemes, a very crude approximation to what is needed. There is an incorrect assumption that everyone who uses a wheelchair needs to park much nearer to things, but the main need is extra space around the vehicle. There are people who do marathons in their wheelchair – so some could easily travel 100m further while others could not. Though if you think the scheme could be improved by more accurately targetting those who need closer parking, you’ve never seen bureaucracy at work, have you?
Yes, a very crude approximation but it is, at least, an attempt. I think (and some may disagree) that the disbenefits from abandoning the Blue Badge Scheme would exceed the disbenefits from retaining it even though there may be (probably are) a few people who abuse it.
We were parked in a Blue badge space a couple of years ago, blue badge showing.
Next to us pulled up a large white van; the driver put up his badge and then he and his mate, hefty strong-looking fellows, jumped down and strode off. The chances that either was genuinely disabled was half of bugger all. But you’d be a fool to enquire.
Tim, they started handing out blue badges to people with mental elf in 2019.
I qualify, and I’m physically perfectly fine (according to the ladies). But I don’t want to be one of those guys.
However, for the millions of Brits for whom being officially “disabled”, and therefore eligible for a lifetime of free bennies of all types is a career aspiration, the blue badge is a very desirable VIP ticket.
And doctors just have to take your word for it on mental elf symptoms.
It’s like SEND – the more cash we wave at people for “special needs”, the more “special needs” will show up to claim that money.
Build it and they will come.
Why do I have an image of Peter Kay in my head ‘Everything under one roof!’
It would be useful to compare numbers of these badges to other countries (like Germany), where, even if you can get “disability” for feeling a bit glum sometimes, you don’t get any motor privilege unless your disability does substantially impair your mobility. Which feeling a bit glum sometimes does not.
I won’t bore everyone by repeating my neighbourhood story, but hell yeah!
Those “abused badge holders” should of course be pissed off with the real abusers (i.e. those with the fake badges) and not those who are rightly tired about the abuse. (The same way that well-behaving and integrated immigrants (including myself) should be pissed off with not-behaving immigrants and not with the citizens that are concerned about not-behaving immigrants)
Mrs Womby doesn’t qualify for a blue badge because she can walk 50m, even though it takes her two or three minutes. Every visit to Tesco we see “disabled” people sprinting into the store.
When I briefly had a p/t job collecting Motability cars I often had a struggle to keep my thoughts to myself, seeing folk who were clearly able bodied switching to their new motor. I remember the family who had a Volvo XC90 because their teenage daughter had ADHD, even though she travelled to and from school by special bus.
The whole scam should be abolished. Very few handicapped parking bays are used, and when they are the people using them don’t look in the least disabled. It’s a costly scam.