The secret to happiness is low expectations
~ Barry Schwartz
[I] normally wouldn't agree with this statement. It seems like the defeatest's excuse to sit around moaning rather than trying to change the things in their life that they don't like. I hadn't counted on the ability of a traffic warden to piss me off quite as much as they did Friday evening though, and suddenly I'm wondering if there might be a shred of truth in the statement.
Round of applause for the NCP car parking attendant
This is what I found as I came off the train at St Albans City train station having been discharged from Great Ormond Street hospital with a little boy who was not feeling very well. It's not really very surprising considering that he had been injected with glucagon that morning which had caused his blood sugar to crash. It all got a bit panicky for a while and then he spent the rest of the day swinging between hypoglycaemia (very low blood sugar) and hyperglycaemia (very high blood sugar). Great Ormond Street, which never has beds free, was concerned enough that they even found him a bed for another night and it took both Roger (who joined me to add a pair of testicles to my argument) and me until that evening to persuade the consultant to let us look after an improving Dominic at home. Things are inevitably never that simple though, and on the train journey back my feeling of victory over the situation was short lived when Dominic showed me an enormous wet patch on his t shirt. He was a nasty shade of grey and saying how tired he felt. Sod's law had decided to step in and make his feed leak out of his stomach and onto his clothes. It was a tad inconvenient timing considering that his blood sugar was so unstable and to say that I was relieved when the delayed train finally arrived back at St Albans train station was an understatement. My car was close to the station entrance, so I knew that I could bundle Dominic in and get him home to try and fix whatever needed to be fixed.
At St Albans train station there are 4 disabled bays that are there to serve the thousand odd disabled people of St Albans (and all the bastards who use them 'just for a minute'). As you can imagine, more often than not you cannot park there as there are considerably more than four disabled people living in St Albans who would like to use the trains. Both of the NCP controlled multi-story car parks close to the station have no disabled spaces and even if I parked across two bays so I could get Dominic out of the car, we then couldn't get out of the car park as it is stair access only. So what is a disabled person in St Albans to do? Well, I did the only sensible thing I could when we first had this problem, I asked, and was told by a sympathetic soul in the ticket office to park my car in the 20 minute only bay and display my badge. Which I did, adding a little note to the blue badge explaining that the disabled bays were all full. I've done this now for three years and all has been well. Until yesterday evening.
The reason that I drove home that night with my eyes tensed into two small slits, shoulders hunched over with white knuckles gripping the steering wheel, is that it just seemed so unfair. Unfair because it was a crappy thing to find when you're already having pretty rubbish day, and also unfair because the company that gave me a ticket was the one that controlled the car park that I was parked next to. Yes, next to. I did not steal a space from their paying customers, I did not jeopardise, affect, get in the way of or even roll a wheel onto the concrete that is the NCP multistory. Furthermore this is a car park that I am excluded from being able to park in as they don't have any disabled spaces and even if we did manage to park somewhere, there is only stair access to each floor (including the ground) so we wouldn't have been able to get out. This decidedly non-inclusive car park is run by the NCP for the train company First Capital Connect. One of their employees saw my car, parked as previously instructed, in the 20 minute waiting bay close to the disabled bays, displaying the blue badge clearly and decided to ticket it.
So, let's play devil's advocate for a second. Let's just assume that this ticket is completely valid and somehow the NCP car park rules are allowed to leak out into the surrounding road and they can apply rules to cars parked outside their property in the same way that they can to those on the inside (you know, actually using their property) even though their parking tickets don't seem to think that they count outside the actual car park.
This ticket is only for people who parked at one of their car parks, surely?
As I never entered the car park, I neither saw nor accepted any terms and conditions...
Suspending our common sense for a second, lets imagine that this traffic warden is actually just doing their job diligently (and is in no way simply a miserable, friendless, jobs-worth-y bastard), where does this leave me next time I need to travel to London with Dominic? What am I meant to do when I arrive at the station to find all the four disabled spaces full, which happens approximately 90% of the time? There are no other places that I can obviously park and they haven't made the only two station car parks accessible. Are disabled people really meant to just think, 'oh well, better luck next time' and go home? This one ticket has posed a real problem for me that extends beyond the simple parking ticket (that I will of course contest) and it undoubtedly poses a problem that will make our lives considerably harder in the future. We travel to Great Ormond street a lot and I don't know what I'll do the next time I arrive at the station to find the disabled bays full. So I'll throw the question out to you. If you were in my situation, arriving to find the disabled bays full, knowing you might get another ticket for parking in the 20 minute wait bay, but with a hospital appointment to get to, what would you do?
I can honestly say that my expectations of First Capital Connect and NCP car parks have been lowered with no effort on my part. But am I happy? I'll let you decide.
Why not join in?
To learn more about the reasons that I started the Define 'Normal' blog hop click here. If you would like to join in the blog hop and tell us what your normal is like click on the link below and follow the instructions to add a link to your post. The subject of your entry is up to you, anything goes, show us a photo, a picture, dust off an old post that talks about any aspect of your normal life. All I ask is that you link back to this post or duplicate the linky in your post to make sure the entries get as many views as possible. Don't forget to tell us all on twitter using #definenormal and feel free to post your link on my Facebook page once you've linked up!
*if you come across this after this week's linky has already closed, click here to find the most recent one*
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Keep meaning to ask what the blog hop is, I keep seeing it, but wondered? I would park in that bay, and contest it over and over and over and over and over until they get it. I would also ask for written information as to what they expect you to do, or what they are allowing you to do. Surely also it is now illegal to have car parks that are inaccessable to disabled people? By not only not having any designated disabled spaces, but by having it all as stairs, unless they are expecting you to stop in the middle, get Dominic and his chair out the car and assembled, then move him somewhere ‘safe’ (in a car park!?) park your car, then walk back down the way you came in with the cars…..safely!?
Oh and sometimes it is better to lower your expectations, at least that way you aren’t constantly disappointed or let down, and are in fact pleasantly surprised sometimes. I find this works especially well when dealing with doctors.
Awesome post! Eloquent!! You asked what I would do… Personally I think you should send this post to the local paper, the parking company, and whomever else will listen.
Hugs!
@Leah Kelley Thanks 🙂 I’ve written to the parking company to contest the ticket. I’ll see what their response is and go from there I think. I’m not sure what our rights are to be honest. Looks like I’ll be adding another speciality to my list!
Claire a blog hop is where you link up a chosen blog post of yours to my post (at the bottom of it there is a ‘linky’ saying ‘your turn’ or something like tha)t. If you’re seeing the list from last week, you’ve gone too far! If you follow the instructions at the bottom of my post it should be easy enough. Give me a shout if not and I’ll link a post for you. The blog hop is anything to do with normal life *for you*. We all have our own definitions of it, after all.
I’ve found the parking companies appeals process to every bit as convoluted as anything I’ve had to do with special needs….. as if we haven’t all got enough to deal with!
The best people I’ve found for helping with this kind of thing is the consumer action group, I’d put money on that if you copy this post and a bit history onto their forum you’d get all the help/info you need to fix this.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/forumdisplay.php?88-Private-Land-Parking-Enforcement
Paul.
The kids are having a nap so I decided to spend 5 minutes googling this. This is my personal opinion and I would double check everything before relying on anything here.
Looking at the NCP website it shows that St Albans station car park has 590 spaces, 4 of which are disabled bays http://www.ncp.co.uk/car-park?cpid=800780&name=St%20Albans%20Station. As such, I would expect that the 4 disabled bays you refer to are in fact part of the NCP car park even though they are separate to the main car parks. As the car park is on private land, there is no legal requirement for disabled bays, and the car park owners are entitled to charge ‘contractual charges’ as they see fit as long as certain legal requirements are met. I would be very surprised if a large operator like NCP did not meet these requirements but it’s worth checking. Apart from a station employee giving you permission to park in the bay, which would be very hard to prove, it would appear to me that as far as NCP are concerned they have you bang to rights and an appeal could be difficult.
I think a much better option would be to contact the station manager. The building regulations part M and BS8300 list the minimum amount of allocated disabled bays that should be in every car park to be granted planning permission. No less than 2% of available spaces should be disabled/accessible bays; this requirement can be higher depending on the use of the building. While this legislation does not apply in retrospect, it does give you a strong argument to claim that you are being discriminated by the station by their failing to ensure equality of access by not providing enough accessible parking spaces. If First Capital Direct owns the car park then despite the fact that NCP operate it on their behalf First Capital Direct are ultimately responsible for what happens on their property and have the power of veto over NCP. Give them hell……
@Ixashe thank you so, so much for this. Very valuable information. I’m so glad I haven’t sent my dispute off yet. I really appeciate the time you’ve taken to look into this for me x
Yup, I too think you should go to the media with it! Local papers, and TV too. COMPLETELY discriminatory to not have enough parking places for disabled people.
@Susan Cuin I don’t want to come across as though I’ve got an ‘entitled to’ attitude, I don’t trust papers etc not to put a spin on it. Also I would like to use the firm but fair approach if possible. I’d be more likely to call on the local MP (who has had lots of run ins with First Capital Connect in the past) to step in.
i would dispute it, print your blog post and send it -there are several reasons why you are not obliged to pay it. I appealed one recently successfully x
@ekthompson I’m definitely going to dispute it, but even if they waive the fine it doesn’t solve the parking problem in the future 🙁
So frustrating, and the last thing you needed that night, especially as it presents you with a problem that now continues every time you need to park. Good luck contesting it, the fact you had verbal permission should sway it, and hopefully you can get something in writing from them that you can rely on in future. (Of course that depends on their being reasonable human beings and not corporate jobsworths just interested in how much money they can screw out of people – I hope they are! – if not create as much of a fuss as you can and shame them into acting like reasonable human beings!)
@SallyWilsonAllen Hmmmm asking them to be reasonable human beings might be pushing my luck!
This has completely enraged me! And when I get angry I spring into action – lots of tweets sent to FCC this morning by St Albans people trying to get them to read this. Email also sent to FCC and I’ve sent a link to this wonderful post to the Herts Advertiser too. 4 disabled spaces is a joke. Lack of step free access to the new car parks is also disgusting. Mothers with pushchairs also affected, but that’s not relevant here. Argh – just hope I can get some results for you here.
And more than anything I hope Dominic’s OK. x
@Mrs C I’m intrigued by your reference to ‘the new car parks’. Depending on the date it was built they would have been under Building regulations Part M (2004 and 2010 respectively) and so should be accessible. Itr would put a lot more weight behind an argument if the car parks were not compliant with building regulations! When were they built?
@Mrs C I’m overwhelmed by your support. Thank you. And yes, the car park problem affects may people, including those who aren’t very good with stairs but don’t have a blue badge. It’s a shame FCC didn’t tackle the car park when they made the station platform accessible (which made an enormous difference to us). Everything I have read about the newer station car park which is further away on the other side of the bridge doesn’t say anything about disabled parking (not on FCC or thameslink or disabled travel information sites), some say there is none. I have found two old articles written before the works were done saying that disabled parking spaces were planned. I’m not sure if they’re there and St Albans’ biggest secret or what. No websites that I have found seemed to think they are there though.
@RenataB I’ve only been in the new car park without my daughter so have not tested out buggy routes in it, but I did find (whilst there pregnant) that it seems to be impossible to get to some levels in the lift without walking up or down one of the ramps that cars drive up and down (i.e. a stairs free route) It is a loooooong way from the actual station though and a hard enough walk when heavily pregnant so I imagine having to push a wheelchair that far wouldn’t be easy for some, especially older customers.
Local paper and MP, train station manager… but definitely local paper. I think you an get it across without any sense of entitlement at all, more a sense of necessity. Good luck. I can’t imagine you’ll have to pay (my family got a ticket waived recently because of the blue badge, even though they were legitimately ticketed), but it would be good if you could get something in writing confirming you can park there in the future.
Can’t believe there are entire car parks with no disabled access though, that’s ridiculous.