Space Invaders - Blocking disabled spaces gives motorists a bad name

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Co. Council's campaign asks: You wouldn’t park here,
so why park in a disabled space

It really is tacky behaviour, but there is no doubt that there are plenty of people willing to jump into a disabled space if they are desperate for parking.

December 3^rd was National Disability Awareness Day, and the AA was contacted by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Co.Co. as they tried to do something positive to mark the day and try to provoke people's general awareness of their basic attitude towards people with disabilities.

Last year the council held a consultation session with people with disabilities to try to assess what was their number one biggest problem while getting from A to B on a daily basis - The response was emphatically that inconsiderate car parking was the greatest source of annoyance and caused them the most difficulty. Parking on the pavement or abusing accessible spaces being the main problems.

So they have put together an advertising campaign starting this week to try to highlight the problem and persuade the (surely a small minority of motorists) who chance their arm. I’m happy to support the promotion on behalf of the AA.

Apart from the space invaders we all should be making an effort to park neatly and carefully. Nothing drives you made like one car taking two spaces because it's parked sloppily across the lines. Especially in December, it's the type of thing that can really test your Christmas spirit...