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Blue Badge - Disability Parking

The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

That obvious point aside what exactly is “it” that you think you’re seeing? How do you square “it” with the lack of successful prosecutions in your area and the fact that squares with the national picture given that it’s estimated that more than 80% of accessible parking is covered by working CCTV so evidence of “it” where “it” actually does occur is generally not that difficult to obtain.
 
around here abuse of legitimately obtained blue badges is rife - ppl talk about it openly in my local pub. We've seen a few prosecutions, as published in our local paper.
 
Big Tabs said:
It isn’t a myth from my experience.

See it almost everyday I go out.
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Apart from supermarket car parks, where disabled parking is discretionary and not covered by the blue badge regulations, what evidence do you have?
Remember a driver can be free of any disability and be using a badge legally as long as they are with the badge holder.
 
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Rcook said:
I am in agreement, it is any form where the government has to pay something out, they make it as difficult, complicated, and tedious as possible so you give up with it.
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And yet conversely, they make it remarkably easy to pay them money, such as for e.g. Road Tax .
 
Mullardman said:
And yet conversely, they make it remarkably easy to pay them money, such as for e.g. Road Tax .
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And HMRC runs two interest rates.
you owe them late payment interest, it’s set at base rate plus 2.5%.
They owe you repayment interest, it’s set at base rate minus 1%
 
gintonic said:
around here abuse of legitimately obtained blue badges is rife - ppl talk about it openly in my local pub. We've seen a few prosecutions, as published in our local paper.
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I love this. In my local there’s a bloke who had been bragging similarly for about a decade. In the end someone had enough and reported him. No prosecution. Turned out he was HIV positive and had mobility and continence issues caused by his meds and was bragging to cover up a lot of conversations he simply never wanted to have. There’s what you know and what you think you know. It’s like people who claim x gets PIP mobility and yet I saw him walking without a care in the world. Er, yes, and do you know on what basis x got PIP mobility and what the rest of his day looked like after that exertion to walk? No[e.

Similarly, prosecutions don’t tell the full story. In terms of benefit overpayments for example there are many which go ahead and are successful simply because solicitors don’t really know their way around benefit legislation and case law. Consequently, claimants are often advised to plead guilty to things where there is no overpayment let alone fraud. Blue badge prosecutions are not dissimilar in a lot of cases.
 
Mike Hughes said:
I love this. In my local there’s a bloke who had been bragging similarly for about a decade. In the end someone had enough and reported him. No prosecution. Turned out he was HIV positive and had mobility and continence issues caused by his meds and was bragging to cover up a lot of conversations he simply never wanted to have. There’s what you know and what you think you know. It’s like people who claim x gets PIP mobility and yet I saw him walking without a care in the world. Er, yes, and do you know on what basis x got PIP mobility and what the rest of his day looked like after that exertion to walk? No[e.

Similarly, prosecutions don’t tell the full story. In terms of benefit overpayments for example there are many which go ahead and are successful simply because solicitors don’t really know their way around benefit legislation and case law. Consequently, claimants are often advised to plead guilty to things where there is no overpayment let alone fraud. Blue badge prosecutions are not dissimilar in a lot of cases.
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blah blah blah too many words. Why so sneering and condescending to some reporting conversations they have had.....
 
Bob McC said:
Apart from supermarket car parks, where disabled parking is discretionary and not covered by the blue badge regulations, what evidence you have?
Remember a driver can be free of any disability and be using a badge legally as long as they are with the badge holder.
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Bob - you are unintentionally hilarious at times.

I will not lower myself to your basement troll antics.
 
gintonic said:
blah blah blah too many words. Why so sneering and condescending to some reporting conversations they have had.....
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I have worked in both areas for 36 years. There are lots of people who absolutely “know” this stuff; better instincts on fraud than sniffer dogs; HMRC, DWP fraud investigators and the fraud squad combined. My personal and professional experience in that time is that, without fail, the people who report such conversations on social media never report these mysterious definite fraudsters; believe pretty much all the media tell them and then, on the rare occasions they actually put up and report this alleged fraud, they spend an awful lot of time bitter on social media at the alleged “failure” to successfully prosecute. Let down disgracefully by the “authorities” etc. It will never ever occur that they were simply prejudiced and wrong.

So no, neither sneering nor condescending. I prefer simply that we discuss based on facts and knowledge. Everyone who knows this stuff has an anecdote but, as per my earlier post, the plural of anecdote is not and never will be evidence and, given the sheer volume of anecdote I would have expected fraud levels to be around 500% higher than they actually are.
 
Mike Hughes said:
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

That obvious point aside what exactly is “it” that you think you’re seeing? How do you square “it” with the lack of successful prosecutions in your area and the fact that squares with the national picture given that it’s estimated that more than 80% of accessible parking is covered by working CCTV so evidence of “it” where “it” actually does occur is generally not that difficult to obtain.
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Not sure where you get your high horse from?

Evidence is in the experience I have.

people using blue badge folders, but not displaying a badge, or carefully hiding the expiry date, or simply not bothering at all.
My comment was not a comment on the disability or not of the person/s
 
Perhaps it’s time to learn that it is not “disabled parking”. It is accessible parking. The parking space is not disabled.

You could also consider how you might feel if someone accused you and your health condition actually contributed to the problem. My child’s godparent has a blue badge and has been prosecuted unsuccessfully twice. On the first occasion he was able to show that the meds he was taking severely impacted on memory. He had the badge with him; it was in date but he simply carried it out of the vehicle with him in honest error. On the second he had a date stamped photo to demonstrate the position of the badge and wallet when he left the vehicle. It bent slightly on a very hot day and consequently slipped down sufficiently for it to appear to be an attempt to cheat. Since then he always takes a photo.

There may well be a fraudster in amongst this stuff you see. The point though is that you don’t know and the odds are simply overwhelmingly against that being the case.
 
Troll away. Your contribution is… what exactly?

You’re dismissive of someone who has literally dealt with thousands of such cases and deals with the stats on such things every week. You have as your grounds for dismissal… an anecdote.

Feel free to decide that you’re being condescended to. Happy to concede that I am on the edge of sneering.
 
Note: the thread started by me, was about how hard it is to fill in the form to apply for a blue badge when you have brain damage.
 
Indeed. The form itself isn’t especially complex but nowadays the length of the form does tend to be entirely disproportionate.
 
Mike Hughes said:
Indeed. The form itself isn’t especially complex but nowadays the length of the form does tend to be entirely disproportionate.
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It is complex if you have brain damage and have difficulty understanding what the questions mean.

Not complex if one has all of ones faculties.
i.e. not disabled
 
Current data on BB prosecutions. The total number of prosecutions in England doesn’t hit 4 figures. It represents 0.02% of all badges held. Notably the number of successes is not recorded. I know from my own broad area that whilst the number prosecuted runs into very low 3 figures the number convicted does not make 2 figures.

Equally notably, the lowest number of badges issued are in London and the South East yet 3 of the authorities with the highest prosecution rate, also lie within that region. The success rate gleaned from colleagues on that region again suggests success rates does not make 2 figures. When you read a story in the paper you may literally be reading about the only successful prosecutions in that area.

Around 50% of local authorities don’t even have a policy on prosecuting fraud as it’s often but not always seen as a non issue.

Deffo a fraudster everywhere you look then.

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...heme-statistics-england-2021#headline-figures
 
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