This was kindly sent to me by Willie Bosch. I have left his words untouched.
Apart from the fact that parking for disabled is allocated close to the entrance of shops, they are designed to be a minimum of 3.5 meters wide.
The space is needed for the disabled persons car door to be fully open so that a wheelchair may be moved close to the seat for the person to climb or slide over to the wheelchair or the door must be fully opened for a person on crutches to be able to get out
In most cases the parking are designed with two bays next to each other, (as per above drawing) the one with the wheelchair sign on it where the vehicle should park and the adjacent bay, clearly marked in yellow with a cross through in the middle, where the wheelchair can be wheeled in for the driver or passenger to transfer to.
Should any other vehicle be parked inside the area allocated for parking for disabled motorists, there will be not enough space for the disabled motorist to get out of their car.
At the shopping centre in Seaview, there is a parking reserved for disabled motorists allocated in front of Seaview Kwikspar, but unfortunately a disabled motorist will never be able to use such facility because a silver Mercedes is parked there every day all day long.
After receiving complaints from disabled motorists that there is always a metallic silver Mercedes benze parked in that parking daily and they note that the car does not display a parking sticker for disabled motorists on it, I decided to find the owner of the Mercedes and politely discuss the problem he or she is creating for disabled motorists by parking his/her car there every day.
On Thursday (5/04/07) at Seaview Kwikspar, I was referred to a Mr John vd Berg and when I introduced myself and said that I wish to talk to him about his car parked on the parking reserved for disabled motorists, he immediately went into defence, saying that he can park where he wants and by parking there, he leaves the other parking open for his customers.
I explained that I am also a customer in his shop but I cannot use the parking allocated for disabled motorists, he replied that it must be four months since he had last seen me in his spar, but he knows who I am (he reads the w/post) and that I should leave him alone as he has work to do.
I informed him that I have parked my car in the parking for disabled and requested if he would accompany me to my car so that I could demonstrate to him that I cannot open my door fully and show him what problems he is causing by parking his car there and that a disabled motorist could bump his car with their door should they open it fully.
Mr John vd Berg replied that if that happened, he will respray his whole car and sue for expenses and that I must please go he is busy.
I explained to Mr John vd Berg that if he does not want to listed to reason (and I had even brought the attached drawing for him to see) then I will have no alternative other that to ticket his car with a R200:00 fine and let a judge decide who is right and wrong.
Many persons are under the impression that one may not enforce the law on private property. All traffic laws may be enforced at any property that has free access to the general public except where there are controlled access such as entrance booms etc, but then again if the landlord requests the traffic department to enforce the law on their property, it will happen.
The landlord of the Seaview Shopping Centre, Mr Leonard told me he has had numerous complaints about Mr John vd Berg parking his car on the parking reserved for disabled motorists but has had no joy when asked not to park there.
The above photo`s will show you my LDV parked next to the Mercedes and as you can see there is no space left for a disabled driver to get into a wheelchair
It is a shame that the management has no compassion for his clients that are disabled and would rather use our parking to give more space to his other clients that are not so disabled
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