Able Bodied persons parking in the disabled parking spots

Sue from New Lynn

I am going to talk about a matter that I posted on Neighbourly some years ago but this time I will hold back on referring to the skin colour of the people involved.

Earlier today I went to the local liqour outlet for a bottle of wine.

Whilst there a ute turned up and parked at a funny angle in the Disabled Parking area.

Another member of the public was angry at this and accosted the people who had popped into the local liqour for booze.

What the offending people did was pure ignorance and nastiness. They started yelling that we were racist and wouldn't pick on anyone of a different skin colour.

I had gone to the defense of the member of the public and said to the people "Actually he is right and you are wrong. You should not park in the disabled parking area". I spoke quietly and calmly.

They turned on me and the woman became all aggresive. I ended up shaking and I said that I am in my late 50s and could have needed that parking area due to a disability. They did not have a disabled parking sticker and their behaviour showed to me how lazy they were when it came to respecting others eg the disabled.

They carried on yelling the F word frequently to the point where I thought the F word is probably the ONLY word they can speak because they think it sounds all smart and intelligent.

I cannot stand hearing anyone use the F Word because it shows a low intelligence and a lack of proper vocabulary.

Fortunately when it looked like the aggressive woman who claimed we were being racist seemed to be looking like she would attack me one of the local homeless guys came along and told the people to "F off". He has known me a long time as I am always friendly towards him and give him food and sometimes money.

I told him that all that, what happened, had me shaking all over.

Out of all this there is one thing that really angers me and it's the incredible laziness of so many able-bodied people that park in the disabled parking areas. But when a person or persons react aggressively because they are in the wrong by abusing and calling others racist then that really does bother me.

I just remembered one more 'gesture' the woman who became very aggressive did and that was she went up to the guy complaining and presented a finger that one can assume is the Up Yours gesture.

 And so all that i.e the frequency of the F word(please be aware I do use that word myself but it's 99% directed at the traffic congestion of Auckland)and her hand gestures shows to me the lack of intelligence of the offender and her colleagues(all of whom were also behaving irrationally aggressively perhaps because they knew they were in the wrong but wanted to be right).

A disabled person must be able to park in a disabled parking area with the relevant sticker appearing on the windscreen area. Not have to contend with lazy able bodied people who think they are more worthy of the spot than a disabled person.