There are however some advantages in concessions and considerations, which try to compensate, or at least ameliorate, the effects of disability.
If you can get the latter advantages without the disadvantages of the former, that would be good wouldn't it?
Not under my rules it wouldn't.
Example...Unauthorised Parking in disabled spot - Penalty: One year in prison, making aluminium walking sticks.
You need to be old to remember the old blue, sliding door, 250cc two-stroke A.C. three wheeled cars for the disabled? They were terrible, and cost about as much as a Ford Cortina. So it’s much better for disabled people's cars to be normal models.
I am surprised though that many seem to be top of the range, pretty powerful. Can't be for fetching paving slabs, or carrying the tools for a scaffolder. I would have thought Micra's would have done. It may be (I don't actually know how it works) that extra money can be contributed by the disabled person to a basic amount provided by the Department of Providing the Basic Amount, to get a better car. Perhaps the amount allowed should shrink by the amount added. At the extreme, buying the whole car themselves. We should remember that the money to buy these cars is provided by a low paid couple called Mark and Laura, with two small children, in a starter home, who look down the side of their settee every Thursday for lost change. They have a G reg.Fiesta.
I believe that more than one in ten (I'm not sure of any facts on this subject.) people are registered disabled. It seems a lot until you see the number of cars with disabled badges that park in City Centres. I wonder why all these disabled persons shop in the Centre of the City? It can't be easy for them, you need to be fairly able-bodied to survive in the madding crowd. I suppose it’s not so bad in fact, as normal parking becomes more and more difficult, so City Centres are becoming the preserves of the disabled. It may become an exclusive area with a preponderance of wheelchair and hearing aid shops.
There are two different badges for parking privilege, Orange or Green. I don't really understand the logic of that. Either you are disabled or you are not. We could progress through various colours to a purple badge for being a bit rough on Monday Mornings.
You can't check on the people who park in disabled spaces for two reasons. First, if they are disabled you look pretty bad. If they are not disabled then their general level of reasonableness is likely to be very low, and they would probably have as little compunction in beating you up, as they had in parking there in the first place. Incidentally, if they say they were just nipping in for something and wouldn't be a minute, then the one year sentence in my Court is automatically doubled. To stop all this let us develop a microchip for all cars, to radiate ‘disabled’or ‘non disabled’. Easy enough. A chip implanted in the car parks reads the chips in the cars. A Non-Disabled car in Disabled space is detected. Result, jagged ramps rise, car immovable, Police only can remove. In all cases chummy is soon banged up in special chokey making the walking sticks and zimmer frames.
I will be accused of lack of sympathy won't I? If a brief explanation will help this is it. Being disabled myself I wish to be as hard as possible on abuse by the able-bodied of the facilities provided for the disabled, and vice-versa.
Peter
