People flouting disability parking at train stations

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    Scrooge McDuck on 27/02/2015 - 16:46

    +1

    I've seen a lot of $500k+ cars (Rollses, Bentleys, Lambos, Ferraris, etc) parked in Sydney with MPS permits. The owners wouldn't be fazed by a fine, so demerit point penalties are a good idea.

    Ideally, most fines in general should be proportional to the offender's income.

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      fruit on 28/02/2015 - 11:48

      +1

      Since when did a fancy car cure disabilities?

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        [Deactivated] on 28/02/2015 - 18:50

        +1

        It's more the luxury sports cars you see in disabled spots which clearly do not have permits showing. Whenever I've seen them I just presume they've parked there because the spots are wider than normal and thus accommodate (and create a nice buffer zone around) their exxy cars.

        Those are the ones that make you realise that a simple monetary fine for parking there probably isn't going to faze them much. Demerit points, maybe..

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    fruit on 28/02/2015 - 11:42

    It's 1 demerit here in NSW

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  itstuan on 27/02/2015 - 13:19

  Don't just look and guess. If you suspect someone abuse the disabled permit, check its name on the permit and see if that matches the person (female name vs male appearance). Also call the council who granted the permit and make an inquiry on the permit holder.

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    fruit on 28/02/2015 - 11:44

    I'll have to check my pass I'm fairly sure it doesn't show the name on the side displayed.
    I am 100% sure it doesn't show the photo.

    Remember there are people who change gender too.

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  snajper on 28/02/2015 - 07:17

  -1

  Heehee mate this is nothing new. These permits are handed out left, right and center. In all honesty you will find that 8 out of 10 drivers that park in the disabled spot are either using someone elses permit or using their own bcs they were pretty easy to obtain but should not really have been given one. We have two blokes at work that constantly use them, one goes for 5km bike ride during lunch time and the other one hits the gym. It is just sad that people that really need these spots will end up missing out.

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  greenie4242 on 28/02/2015 - 14:16

  +12

  My personal experience here: I've been extremely sick since 1992 with chronic crohn's colitis. Some days I'm in so much agony I can't get out of bed, or I only get out of bed to run to the bathroom. I can often only go out once every week or two, and often it's to do shopping or go to the doctor. Luckily, being tech-inclined and with the internet and laptop industry booming, I can work from home. I do have a disability permit, because my doctor insists I don't walk very far. Quite a few times I've ended up in hospital after carrying too much shopping or walking too far, because I thought it would be OK but it really wasn't.

  I was in agony for many years and used to wake up feeling fairly miserable regularly. Not depressed, just miserable because I couldn't do anything my healthy friends could do. I was working two part-time jobs a few days a week which was all I could physically handle, but I was too sick to go out afterwards. If I didn't work, then I didn't have money to go out. It wasn't much fun. But I pushed on.

  I decided to do something to cheer myself up, so back in 2001 I bought an old Porsche 928, something I could enjoy looking at even if I was too sick to drive, and which was so fun to drive it felt like a holiday every time I drove it. It changed my life, I woke up happy to drive it every day instead of dreading each day, and I met heaps of new people as nearly every time I drove it, people would come up to me and tell me how just looking at a nice old vintage car made them happy, and we got chatting. It was twenty years old and cost less than most of my friend's new Hyundai cars (my friends and I were in our early 20s.) The car was so much fun, my 75 year old Dad ended up buying himself one.

  But unfortunately my health declined a lot in 2004, and I was barely able to even drive it. And a big problem was, when I drove it to the doctor and parked with a disability permit, I would cop abuse from people. People yelled at me to stop bludging, or told me I was being unfair, to pay for my parking like everybody else etc etc. But I had a friend who also had a disability permit, and drove an old Toyota Camry, but nobody ever said anything bad to him.

  In 2005, an idiot in a Volvo drove onto the wrong side of the road and completely destroyed my Porsche, and put me in hospital. I was horribly sick, way worse than before, and haven't properly recovered to this day. I've since required two big operations to try to correct problems that were caused by that horrible crash. I had no car at all, and my 75 year old Dad was taking care of me. Insurance companies are criminal entities and did everything they could to avoid paying out. For months, my dear old Dad had to drive me back and forth from hospital for treatments, to different specialists, even to get groceries.

  My 75 year old Dad didn't have anything wrong with him, but when driving me around he would use my disability permit to park his old Porsche close to the doctor or shops so I didn't have to walk far, as it's perfectly legal to do. I can barely walk, but I often have to run to the bathroom because, you gotta go, you gotta go! But people would hurl abuse at us, because I was very young and didn't "look" disabled, and Dad was driving a nice car. However when my Mum was on holiday and drove me to the doctor in her old Ford Festiva nobody gave us a second glance.

  When Dad drives the Porsche and parks with my uncle who has Down Syndrome, people tend to be friendly to us. It seems to be that if you 'look' disabled, then it's OK, you can drive a nice car and park with a disability permit.

  Just because somebody drives a nice car and doesn't look disabled, doesn't mean they're not. Sure, there are some people out there who are abusing the system, but please don't assume everybody is. A lot of people who genuinely need the disability permits try not to use them, as we know there are people worse off, so we only use them when absolutely necessary. And if somebody is disabled but still working, don't you think it's nice for them to be able to buy themselves a nice car? What else can them spend the money on? They may be too sick to travel overseas, or to spend money on 'normal' things people their age spend money on. The nice car might be the only nice thing they have that reminds them they are still alive. If a healthy person suddenly find themselves sick with a disability, does that mean they should immediately sell everything nice they own, and buy crappy things? Sell their Porsche or Mercedes and trade it in for a Hyundai or a Camry? How exactly will that help them become healthy?

  Another story, my friend was diagnosed with Leukaemia and wasn't expected to pull through, so his Dad bought him an old vintage car so he could enjoy the last few months of his life. Unfortunately, like me, he copped abuse with people yelling at him for using a disability permit because he drove a nice car and didn't look disabled. Thankfully he pulled through, but he actually stopped driving the sports car to the hospital for his treatments, because he didn't want to cop the abuse.

  Most people understand this after it's explained to them. Unfortunately there's a whole bunch of 'fake outrage' churned up by rubbish TV shows like Today Tonight and A Current Affair. Please don't fall for that. I know from reading comments here that most OzB people are better than that.

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  altomic on 28/02/2015 - 17:05

  -3

  I use a diability parking permit to get the closest parking spots to the starting line for my triathlons.

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  snivy on 01/03/2015 - 17:05

  +2

  If you absolutely believe those are people abusing disability permits, report it to council and get the rangers there. I only learned recently that parking on those spots without permit gets your $700 fine, whereas parking there with permit but with the absence of the person who has the permit lands you a whopping $2000.

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    fruit on 13/04/2015 - 21:54

    permit but with the absence of the person

    Wait.. so if someone was parking to pick me up?

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      snivy on 18/04/2015 - 15:59

      if you're the reason why the permit is there, it's only a problem when you're not in the vicinity.

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  outlander on 01/03/2015 - 21:18

  +1

  Whenever I have such a moment, I ask myself, what would Jim do?

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  RocketSwitch on 02/03/2015 - 10:10

  +1

  There's no doubt it gets abused, but IMO it's a small minority.

  It's better to realise disability is not always visual, like RA for example, some people with this chronic disease are in hell due to the pain, but they carry on and can still walk and run and yet you can see how depressed they are because they try to make it through. I believe it's best for them not to wear the abuse and stares from other people as well because they simply assume.

  I prefer to mind my own business, but if there's obviously someone that's setting off your sirens, I guess you could call the council to check. But, I rather give them the benefit of the doubt.

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  altomic on 02/03/2015 - 15:19

  Bikies

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  fruit on 13/04/2015 - 21:53

  I checked and mine faces up without any personal information. The personal side and photo faces down.

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