MS charity boss hits out at 16,000 disabled parking bay offences
A CHARITY boss has said she is appalled at the number of people who still think it is acceptable to park in disabled bays.
Catherine Doran, who chairs the MS Society’s Northern Ireland council, was speaking after it emerged motorists here have been fined £1.4m in the past three years for wrongly using disabled bays.
She has called on road users to think of the impact they could be having on someone’s life before they park illegally.
More than 16,000 fines have been handed out to motorists who used the bays without displaying a blue badge.
The figures were supplied by the Department for Infrastructure (DfI) to the BBC, and show the number of penalty charge notices (PCNs) issued in 2016, 2017 and in the first nine months of this year.
A total of 4,859 PCNs were issued in 2016 for abusing onstreet disabled parking bays.
A further 6,521 were issued in 2017, while up until the end of
September this year, 4,851 more fines were issued.
Wellington Place in Belfast saw most tickets handed out, with 213 people fined.
Other hot-spots were James Street in Cookstown (138), High Street in Omagh (130), Queen’s Parade in Bangor (101) and Belfast’s Chichester Street (98).
Ms Doran, a 36-year-old mum of two from Londonderry, has lived with MS for a decade.
She was recently praised by Prime Minister Theresa May for her efforts in raising awareness of the disease.
She said she was not shocked by the figures.
“It’s not a surprise. I see it happening every day, but I am still angry at why they do it,” she said.
“It’s an essential part of my everyday life they’re robbing me of. I try to get out as much as possible.
“There are over 4,500 people living with MS in Northern Ireland and there are so many more illnesses out there that people need this assistance for.
“Being able to park close to where I need to go means I have independence, but a lot of the time disabled parking bays are occupied by a car without a disabled badge and I just drive past.
“People might save a minute, but there’s a longer term effect for people like me.”
The DfI said the blue badge scheme is designed to “enable many disabled people to do everyday things most non-disabled people take for granted”.
It added: “However misuse of the blue badge and accessible parking bays makes life very difficult for disabled people and ruins many journeys.”