Think before you park

 

Maioro Barton is asking people to consider others before taking a mobility park if they are not entitled.

Local resident and wheelchair athlete Maioro Barton has started an online movement, encouraging people to commit to not using mobility parks without a permit and to speak out when they see others misusing the parks.  With a hashtag of #IWill, Maioro said he has had a good response to the campaign on the Cambridge Grapevine Facebook page.  The most common reason people give for their illegal parking, Maioro said, is that they are “just going to be five minutes”.  Hot-spots for this behaviour are the parks outside Rouge on Empire St and on Duke St outside the post office, caused by people just “popping in” for food or to use the post office, he said.

That five minutes can be just enough time for a mobility permit holder to miss out and have to drive on, Maioro pointed out.  And it’s not as easy as just finding a regular park, particularly for wheelchair-users who need the extra space of a mobility park to manoeuvre their chairs in and out of their vehicles.

Figures from CCS Disability Action showed there are 935 mobility permits issued in Cambridge – 888 long-term and 47 short term – with council advising there are 25 mobility parks available throughout Cambridge and Leamington.  That’s one park to just over 37 permit-holders, representing a low ratio of parks to potential users.

Keen to keep things positive, Maioro said that if the public is considering approaching someone they suspect is illegally parking in a mobility park, they should look for the parking permit on the vehicle’s dashboard, not at the person driving. “It’s not always visually obvious if someone is entitled to use it…look for the permit, not the disability,” he advised.

“You can approach the person by saying that they seem to have forgotten to display their mobility permit.  That’s a calm way to ask them what they’re doing and hopefully they will feel guilty for parking there and move it, or not do it again,” he said.  Alternatively, they might genuinely have forgotten to display their permit, something Maioro said he’s been guilty of in the past.

“It’s good that we don’t have fulltime parking wardens here, and that parking is free…I’d just like to challenge the community to just keep an eye out.”

Which doesn’t seem like too much to ask, really.

More Recent News

Honey bees-ness tackled

Local body moves to protect residents from showers of bee poo are being given a tick of approval by Mountain View Honey’s beekeeper Lindy Bennett. Ōtorohanga District Council has included the guidance notes for beepers…

Call to stall all waste incineration

Don’t Burn Waipā spokesman Eoin Fitzpatrick wants a moratorium on waste to energy incineration pending a national analysis. Fitzpatrick made the appeal to the independent Board of Inquiry hearing Global Contracting Solutions application to build…

Ken’s celebration

A new artwork titled Ka pua, te Koowhai, designed in partnership with cancer patients, has been blessed in the radiation therapy unit of the Lomas Building at Waikato Hospital. The interactive kōwhai tree mural offers…

Maths help equals 1000

A charitable trust has hit a milestone, helping more than 1000 children from low-income families with maths. Eight years ago, Te Awamutu-based Mathematics for a Lifetime chairperson and founder Jean McKenzie recognised a need. McKenzie…