Pregnant Woman wins battle over illegal parking fine

[Si Hunt]

This is an interesting little story:

A pregnant woman from Leicester has won her battle for a refund after being given a £90 fine for using a mother and toddler space.

Laura Howard, 25, who is two weeks overdue, parked at Tesco in Beaumont Leys and returned to find the ticket.

"I was uncomfortable and it was disgusting that they waited and then slapped a fine on my car," she said.

A Tesco spokesman said it will pay her fine and Safe Park UK said the matter has been resolved.

Safe Park UK , which enforces parking regulations on the Tesco site, also said it is considering whether or not to review its policy on mother and toddler spaces.

Ms Howard, a children's nursery manager, said: "After shopping for half an hour I returned to find a ticket for £90 and I was quite shocked.

"I felt I was well within my rights to park there and I didn't give it a second thought," she added.

"If I had actually had my baby on my due date I would already be walking around with her in a buggy."

The pregnant mother said she was finding it hard moving around as she was shopping on 21 November - so that is why she used the space.

Safe Park UK said it had a duty to manage the site according to the sign-posted rules.

Director of operations Iain Vann said: "If you park in one of the spaces without a child present then you are going to have a ticket.

"With all the information we are now in possession of, we would have dealt with this in a completely different way."

Should she have got the ticket?

On the face of it, human decency suggests "no". A pregnant woman, out shopping? Hardly fair to charge her £90 for parking in the wrong space.

And yet! Those were the rules. I find her argument that "if I'd had my baby when due I'd have pushing a buggy around" difficult to comprehend. Can I park there then, on the grounds that IF I'd been a woman with a buggy I'd have been ok too? She may be pregnant, but that's not having a buggy is it? Do they bend the rules for people with broken ankles too? A stomach ache? Heavy bags? In fact, how is carrying a baby any different to having lots of heavy shopping?

You decide!



Howard: Pregnant Woman Flouts Rules

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

An interesting case. I am, however, inclined to think that she should have stuck to the rules. The point of a mother and toddler space is to allow extra space for getting your child out of the child seat and setting up the buggy somewhere other than at the back of the car in the roadway. It isn't there to make it easier for uncomfortable pregnant women just because they will have a toddler at some indeterminate point in the future, any more than you'd expect a man with his friend who had his leg in plaster to park in one just because they needed the extra space to get out of his car

I also find the implication that they waited before slapping the fine on her quite ludicrous. It sounds like she thinks they watched her park and go to the shop, then sprung out of hiding, slapped the ticket on, knowing she was heavily preganant, and disappeared into the shadows. How about the more likely possibility that, while she was shopping, someone noticed that there was no child seat in her car, and hence she either had no child or was driving illegally without a child seat?

[WhiteCrow]

Actually we took classes when Colly was pregnant. They very strongly advise that when you're THAT pregnant you DO NOT drive. At that pregnant she'd not be allowed to fly for Christ sakes. If she'd started labour, had her first contraction and been behind a wheel, all kind of tragedy could have happened.

So NO she shouldnt have been fined, but NO she shouldn't have been driving.

[Si Hunt]

I'm afraid I simply don't believe her that she was too uncomfortable to find a space further away. Think about it. She's not so uncomfortable she can drive to the supermarket then walk round the shops for half an hour... but she can't manage to get a space slightly further away from the door. You can gather up quite a bit of shopping in half an hour, especially as it's a food shop. She managed to load all that up in the car okay then?

Si.

[Jason Thompson]

I agree, Si. She can squeeze herself behind the wheel, drive to the shop and spend half an hour on her feet pushing a trolley around. How is having to walk an extra twenty yards on top of that so problematic that she has to park in a restrcted space?

Again, the mother and toddler space is for the mother to have the extra space needed to lean into the car and retrieve a child from a seat and to set up the buggy somewhere where cars aren't going right by it, as well as minimising the time spent with a small child in the car park. It isn't for uncomfortable people. OK, she was pregnant, but what about people who've recently had operations who are uncomfortable?

Why was she driving to the shops when two weeks overdue and maybe going to pop the sprog any minute?

[duncan]

I also find the implication that they waited before slapping the fine on her quite ludicrous. It sounds like she thinks they watched her park and go to the shop, then sprung out of hiding, slapped the ticket on, knowing she was heavily preganant, and disappeared into the shadows. How about the more likely possibility that, while she was shopping, someone noticed that there was no child seat in her car, and hence she either had no child or was driving illegally without a child seat?

That's not so ludicrus, as newborn baby car seats are normally portable. Commonly known as carrytots, these kind of car seats can be carried by a large handle that locks into place. So a woman with a newborn baby can have a car in the space without a car seat on view. These sort of seats are also designed to be placed directly on to a buggy frame and become a buggy seat.

At the end of the day, as sympathetic as I am towards her, she had no child and therefore should not have parked in the space. I have osteo arthritis in both knees and have been told that I could end up in a wheelchair later in life. So should I park in a disabled bay based on that principle? I think not. So her argument that if she had given birth on time she would now have the baby just doesn't really wash.

[WhiteCrow]

I'm afraid I simply don't believe her that she was too uncomfortable to find a space further away. Think about it. She's not so uncomfortable she can drive to the supermarket then walk round the shops for half an hour... but she can't manage to get a space slightly further away from the door. You can gather up quite a bit of shopping in half an hour, especially as it's a food shop. She managed to load all that up in the car okay then?

Si.

When you consider you can now shop online for a relatively small fee as well.

[Paul Monk]

Thats a ridiculous story. She didn't have a child so there's no way she should have parked there. The idea of Parent and Child spaces (non of this sexist "mother" stuff") is that they have extra room so that you can get children out of car seats (not as easy as it seems) and into buggies without having to leave everything in the road or bashing over cars. I was shocked that anyone actually policed this because they don't anywhere near me.
The big problem with these spaces and the main reason they're abused, is down to a misunderstanding of the needs of parents by the store owners. Store owners believe that Parent and Child spaces should be next to or very close to the shop. This isn't the case. We're putting our children in buggies which are easy to push so frankly I don't care whether they're next to the shop or the other end of the car park. I do however need that space around the car.
People are lazy gits so if they can park next to the shop they will regardless of whatever the space is. So move those spaces away from the shop.
We're always asking people to move out of Parent and Child spaces and every time we get abuse and moaned at!

[Phillip Culley]

I don't know whether it's got to the UK, but over here I'm seeing more parking spaces for 'expectant mothers' appearing near malls. Of course the definition of expectant is suspect - how do you prove you're two-weeks pregnant, for example? And at the same time if you are a few weeks pregnant you are expectant, but odds on that space wasn't created with you in mind).

[Lissa]

Several things occur to me.

Firstly,

I felt I was well within my rights to park there and I didn't give it a second thought

Which not only means she thinks it is well within her rights to park in a parent and child space despite not being either a parent or a child but that she's obviously done it many times before if she didn't need to think about it.

Secondly,

a £90 fine for using a mother and toddler space

A £90 parking fine in Tesco? Surely this is the really unreasonable part of the story. I can understand large parking fines on public roads for those who cause inconvenience but £90 for parking in the wrong bay in Tesco? If it is meant to be a deterrent then any fine would serve as a deterrent. No one would think saving a twenty yard walk was worth £10 or £20 so the fine should be set at the minimum level needed to act as a deterrent. Clearly Tesco have decided this is a good way to boost their already obscene profits. And yes they use a third party but Tesco still call the shots.

Thirdly,

With all the information we are now in possession of, we would have dealt with this in a completely different way

Because obviously it is incredibly difficult to tell when a woman is nine and a half months pregnant.

Fourthly,

I was uncomfortable and it was disgusting that they waited and then slapped a fine on my car

If she hadn't made the remark about how she was entitled to use the space because her baby was overdue and therefore counted as a separate human being, this would've been the most absurd thing to come out of her mouth. She was "uncomfortable"? Could she have picked a weaker word with which to justify herself? "I was a bit out of sorts" or "I was chaffing slightly" would at least have shown character.

So, to sum up, everyone involved in this whole affair is a weasel. Tesco are weasels for profiteering, Safe Park UK are weasels for being private sector traffic wardens and she's a weasel for parking wherever she likes and using her condition as an excuse.

I'm letting the unborn child off for now.

[Rob McCow]

A pregnant woman from Leicester has won her battle for a refund after being given a £90 fine for using a mother and toddler space.

So she paid it, then contacted her lawyer who told her she might have a case.

Perhaps she should have parked in a disabled bay, or maybe just pulled up outside the front of the store and demanded a valet. Or rammed her car through the doors of the shop. "I felt I was well within my rights to park there and I didn't give it a second thought!"

"If I had actually had my baby on my due date I would already be walking around with her in a buggy."

So the doctor who gave you bad advice should pay the fine. Or your baby for staying parked beyond the specified hours.

What I want to know is where her husband was in all this. If a man doesn't do the shopping when their wife is heavily pregnant, then they never will.

[Larry]

well I think the fine was totally justified as a disabled person with and a Blue Badge parking holder I get bloody furious with all the selfish arrogant people who park in the disabled bays when they have absoloutly no right to be there. There are at most supermarkets very few disabled bays and I just wish that this strict parrking policy was carried out at all car parks I will admitt that I have parked in a Mother/child bay but have only ever done this if there are no disabled bays left.

[Si Hunt]

I raised my eyes when I visited Tesco last night and a perfectly able-bodied man was heaping shopping into a 4x4 parked in a disabled bay. It's even more annoying that Tesco are paying two burly security guards to stand on the door ten paces away and they don't do anything. No doubt his wife or mother-in-law has a badge or something, but it's not right is it?

Si.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

So that would seem to be an overwhelming "yes" vote to the original question then

[WhiteCrow]

I raised my eyes when I visited Tesco last night and a perfectly able-bodied man was heaping shopping into a 4x4 parked in a disabled bay. It's even more annoying that Tesco are paying two burly security guards to stand on the door ten paces away and they don't do anything. No doubt his wife or mother-in-law has a badge or something, but it's not right is it?

Si.

Sounds like the average Briton there who claims "incapacity benefits".

Though let's face it, he drives a 4x4, so he's bound to be a bit retarded ...

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Seems unfair to me that my 72 year old father, who suffers from angina and heart failure, can't get a disabled badge. Yes he is able bodied, but he tires very easily and a long walk from the other side of a car park can leave him breathless before he's even got to where he's going. He also regularly has my arthritic mother and 92 year-old grandmother as passengers, both of whom need sticks and sometimes wheelchairs, but he can't get any recognition for them either because they're not the drivers.

[Captain Tancredi]

Bringing disabled parking into the discussion is blurring the issue somewhat, I think- supermarkets provide disabled parking spaces because they have to (or are leant on heavily to provide them), but they provide parent and child parking spaces because they know that if they can persuade families to go there for their weekly shop, they can reckon on making a good £50 a week out of them. As far as disabled parking goes, the orange badge seemed to be rather more practical in that when my uncle was terminally ill about 15 years ago, my aunt was allowed to use disabled spaces when she went out to collect prescriptions and so on because she was travelling on his business- once you restrict the definition of disability to people who are registered disabled, as has been pointed out you cause problems for those with conditions which make life difficult but don't count as disability, or has suffered an injury like a broken leg which makes it difficult for them to hobble from the far end of the car park to the supermarket front door. I've seen disabled parking spaces abused (and a disabled person kick off at the people who were doing the abusing!) but I think that with things like parking spaces, you risk a backlash if you provide too many which simply aren't used.

The problem with the pregnant woman's situation is that nobody seems to be prepared to be rational and pragmatic about these situations any more. From what I understand, private parking control companies are essentially licensed pirates in that they're paid based on how many tickets they issue and of course don't have to deal with the consequences of the complaint. Most people reading the story will register "Tesco" before the name "Safe Park UK", and it's Tesco who have to deal with the PR fallout- if anything, the fact that Tesco have agreed to pay her fine is slightly disturbing, as it suggests that they don't have the authority to tell Safe Park UK (who presumably sub-contract from them) to cancel the ticket. The sensible answer would be to have a statutory number of strictly disabled-only spaces, a few parent and child spaces and a few more with preference for customers with unspecified mobility difficulties.

[Si Hunt]

I still don't see why disabled people should be allowed to park on double yellow lines. Surely the point of them is that it's DANGEROUS to park there. When you crash and hit a pedestrian because a car on a double yellow is blocking your view, is it any comfort to the victims family that the car owner is disabled?

Si.

[Nathan]

Seems unfair to me that my 72 year old father, who suffers from angina and heart failure, can't get a disabled badge. Yes he is able bodied, but he tires very easily and a long walk from the other side of a car park can leave him breathless before he's even got to where he's going. He also regularly has my arthritic mother and 92 year-old grandmother as passengers, both of whom need sticks and sometimes wheelchairs, but he can't get any recognition for them either because they're not the drivers.

My father in law has a blue badge and he doesn't drive. I've used it when I have taken him out.

I'd never use one for my own use though even though it has been offered.

[Nathan]

I still don't see why disabled people should be allowed to park on double yellow lines.

They're not.

[Si Hunt]

I thought a yellow badge enabled you some, if not all, right to park on double yellows? Has this changed recently?

Si.

[Nathan]

Well I don't know what a yellow badge is (must be a local authority thing) but the national scheme is Blue Badge. Now I am sure it says on the badge that I used that you weren't allowed to park on double yellows, but having just checked the website it says that you can park there for up to three hours as long as you are not causing an obstruction. So you are right.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I thought the whole point of double yellow lines was that they were in areas where you would cause obstructions. So how are you supposed to judge that?!