Parent child car parking - so angry!

We have two local Waitroses which both have far more disabled spaces than child spaces - and most of the disabled spaces are usually empty. I have spoken to the managers about this and been told that the problem is that the land belongs to the local council and they insist on large numbers of disabled spaces. They have also told me to park in a disabled space with the baby as they don't police them anyway.

My cousin would have had to make the most of both the parent/child spaces and disabled parking. Her severely disabled child was in a baby seat until he was fourteen and she would lift him out on her own. She did take advantage though, parking her 4wd BMW in disabled parking spaces even when he wasn't in the car. One day I was with her as she had an appointment and I was summoned to accompany her. She knew exactly which disabled parking space she was going to use even though her son wasn't with us. As we pulled up I protested but she was entitled as far as she was concerned. I felt very uncomfortable from the dirty looks from drivers of passing traffic.

About a year later on New Years Eve a group of us were sitting in her front garden, situated on the esplanade waiting to watch the fireworks put on by the council on the beach. The traffic was very busy and a driver dared to make a three point turn using her driveway. She was furious, said "how dare he," and stood up to show her displeasure to the driver. Not long after she had a remote controlled gate erected to keep people off her driveway.

Thanks everyone! Do understand all points of view and will take on board!

Would have moved car but had a trolley full!

For eight years we have had child seats in our car and I don't think we have ever been able to park in mother and child space. These special spaces tend to be wider allowing you to open door more and get child out, GD2 is large and very heavy for her age and it would be great to be able to get her out without putting our backs out.

Parent and child spaces are a boon if you can get in them! Car parks are much more dangerous than they were when my children were small and I really think that it is unfair to take one unnecessarily! I have been known to have a go at someone who swings into a C & P having forgotten to bring a child with them.

Our Sainsburys car park is on a slope and I really struggle to control a heavy trolley and a toddler, on a slope, with traffic all over the place.

I know there is much, much more space in the US and a lot of the cars are bigger than here, but car parks also allow plenty of room! The supermarket I usually go to has a car park full of very large cars parked across two spaces. I commented to my DS on this and he suggested the bad parking was deliberate because the spaces are so narrow. The car park is rarely full and by losing half a dozen spaces, it could be made so much easier for everyone. I'm not registered disabled and don't usually have the DGS with me but I need to open the door wide to allow for my lack of agility. Why do the mother and child spaces have to be so near the entrance to the shop? I park a long way from the entrance to try to make sure I don't get hemmed in but before I had new knees I used to find the long hike to the shop then the trek round it followed by the long hike back completely exhausting.

I use them when the disabled spaces are all taken by people using mums blue badge to do their own shopping

Car Park Rage seems to be on the increase, along with rage on so many other subjects. So many people seem to see shouting and being verbally abusive as the acceptable response to any slight irritation they confront.

OP did say she had a text when she was shopping. Should she have gone out and left her shopping just to move the car? How silly. I realise she added that later but posters are quick to jump in and condemn .

I agree stansgran and she certainly didn't deserve being verbally abused by a total stranger who she was not harming.

Why is everyone on such a short fuse nowadays?

I think that the whole point of mother and baby/child spaces are nothing to do with how far the child can walk or the distance from the space to the supermarket. Surely they are designed to allow the car door to be opened more fully, which you need when taking and child in and out of a car seat. It is very difficult getting small children in and out of a car with only a few inches of space either side.

In answer to thge original post. Given that you arrived without a child you had no need to park in one of these spaces. Sorry.

Oooops meant to add that there was no need at all for the verbal abuse. Lam1507 Stupid woman needs something to worry about !

Exactly, gillybob so why do they always put them near the entrance?

So I still think that my solution is a good one - make all the parking spaces wider. And in response to (I think) Ana (yesterday), customer satisfaction = support for that supermarket = good economic sense.

Squashing in as many spaces as possible, and then certain groups having preferential treatment and getting nice wide spaces is what is causing the car park rage.

What about all the people who may have unseen problems (the majority) who don't have the right to the choice car parking spaces - e.g. people still recovering from surgery, people who walk with difficulty, overweight people, older people ...

Of course your solution is a good one, Grannyknot, I wasn't disputing that fact - wouldn't we all love wider parking spaces so there were no more of those heart-sinking moments when you return to your car to find it sandwiched between a huge 4x4 and works van ?

I was just saying that numbers through the doors seem far more important to supermarkets than the convenience of their customers.

Granjura Respect! I could never have done that.

People get too touchy about abuse of parent and child spaces. I blame Mumsnet. They egg each other on.

(Yes it is annoying when this happens. But perhaps they they could chill a little bit)

Ana, don't get me started on the 4 x 4's

I was beginning to feel rather special that I managed with ordinary parking spaces with both my children and my granddaughters - then along comes GrannyKnot, grandma60 and rosesarered saying they did too; thanks

And some of us managed without a car at all. I used to take a four-year-old, and two and a half-year-old, a baby, a shopping bag and a pushchair onto the bus.

The pushchair theoretically folded up, but it was not much smaller than when open. I had to fold it with one hand, baby in the other and shopping on the ground, busfare ready in pocket.

No wonder the other two learnt early that they had to stand still beside me while I did this, and not run into the road!

Of course we did Elegran . Like you I used to juggle the kids, the pushchair and all of the shopping onto and off the bus. No such luxury as a car when I was a young mother.

Young uns today Hmmmmph they dont know they're born !

I couldn't afford the bus when the children were young ! So, the baby sat in the usual place in the pram, with some of the shopping at the other end of it. The girls (about 6 and 4 at the time), walked beside me....or trailed behind, more like! One day the axle broke on the pram and so it was a case of lifting it upwards on the one side and keeping walking! Aahh, them was the days.....

Pure luxury. I couldn't afford a pram Marelli just had a kind of homemade barrow with one wheel at the front.

"Them were the days alright !