Man swore at me and my daughter in Wirral carpark (From Wirral Globe)

As usual, there's fault on both sides of this debate.
A few months ago, in the hospital car park at Mill Lane I was approached by a red-faced idiot who was flailing his arms like a madman and shouting threats. He was doing this because my pal, whom I was talking to through the driver's window of his car, was parked in a disabled space. As it happened my friend has a blue badge and has every right to use disabled spaces; but once we made this clear, did we get an apology from the seething, volcanic dwarf? No, but we found his utter loss of dignity highly amusing.

This is not an isolated incident ,my wife and myself were trying to park in a supermarket in New Brighton ,last week ,and a horrible person waited till I had got ready to reverse into ,he raced in ,laughed at the slowness we were in parking and said a horrible thing when he heard our Liverpool accent ,we did report this ,but nothing could be done his number plate was taken and I do think he took a chance,if we were younger he would have been very sorry .this does seem to be on the increase ,people,s ignorance /arragonce. towards their elders .

I think you both need to re read this letter! Bickyboy you mention fault on both sides and then imply M Fox is wrong for questioning this parking. I think the point of this letter is to raise the fact that the younger generation are slated for bad manners when many of the supposedly polite and courteous older generation set no example at all. Dave301bounty you completely have the wrong end of the stick! I am a 30 year old woman with a young child and have nothing but respect for elders and always have, yet I often wonder why. I have also been spoken to in a vulgar fashion by an older gentleman when trying to park at West Kirby. I had not long had my daughter, was suffering from severe hip pain and awaiting foot surgery and politely asked a 60+ yr old man to move out of a parent and toddler space and was told aggressively to F off. I drove away in shock rather than hear more abuse from the generation I'm supposed to model myself on but hey ho.
I'm sure M Fox will be frowned upon by his elders when his young hold repeats the words she heard in the car park!

*child not hold sorry. (Predictive text!)

I have to agree with Lynsey on this one. I have often found that in West Kirby there seems to be a nonchalent attitude towards considerate car parking as well as driving in general I am afraid. You can wait ages to get out of junctions, where a little consideration could see some traffic build ups abate easily.

This is so evident in front of Hilbre school where it is just a free for all when school begins/ends. People seem to want to block access rather than let another driver through & the amount of blockages and honking horns is laughable sometimes.

I have also witnessed both disabled & parent child bays misused and it is more often than not, the elder generation. It falls under basic bad manners and rudeness I am afraid and perhaps they feel they have earned the privelages? I don't know, but the looks & questioning I get when I park in a disabled bay; until I get out with two sticks or tell them I am an Iraq Veteran.

We do seem to have lost that love thy neighbour friendship and respect for each other and it makes me feel downhearted that it can also be difficult for some people to return a "good morning" sometimes.

I do recall one incident in Morrisons when my wife & I saw someone waiting for a disabled bay and then another driver beat the waiting car to it. The plain ignorance from the offending driver and his wife as they seemed to run into the store was amazing. Yes, they were an elderly couple & who am I to judge their disability, but the agrieved driver was incensed and screamed at them; the air was blue!!

What is the answer though? West Kirby does have many elderly drivers and whether or not they do have blue badges they seem to feel they have a right to park where they want and yes, in parent child slots too.

I guess we can find fault with many different aspects of this issue, but I do feel there has been a breakdown in general respect for each other. Don't get me wrong, I think that in general we still have a strong Community spirit when it is needed, it just seems that life has got to easy & we all seem to be 'thinking of ourselves before others' sometimes. Perhaps we need to start saying good morning to at least one stranger a day, hold a door open for someone a day, just do one good deed a day? Dunno, but hey ho, just a few thoughts once again,

Oh dear; Cars, Spaces. and Car Parks are a leathal combination, there are drivers out there who do not give a monkeys. For life or limb.

I have been in some supermarket car parks where when someone sees a space they just go for it like exocet missiles, totaly ignoring signs, arrows, indicators, lanes and anything else in the path.

Then there are those super sensative monsters who see their car as very precious, taking offence if you even look at it.

And it always seems to be the case that the bigger the vehical is the more rude and cut throat attitude comes to the forefront.

Talk about jungle warfare, it is getting more and more savage as the days go by, Car Park Rage is outstripping Supermarket Trolly Rage now..

Lynsey, I implied no fault on the part of the letter writer.
I was merely recounting an experience of mine which underlines the fact that there are two sides to this particular issue.

This subject has been a bug bear of mine since I became able to use the parent and child spaces. I once asked an elderly member of the public if he had realised that he had parked in a parent and child space. He informed me that he was aware of where he had parked and merely parked there because there were no disabled spaces left! So parent and child had become an overspill car park for blue badge users! I was furious and asked him how he would feel if I were to apply the same principle when there were no parent and child spaces free. He got in his vehicle and moved allowing me to park there.

The thing is, if most parents were asked if they minded about the location of the spaces, I am sure the answer in most cases would be no. The main reason for me wanting to park in the child spaces is the extra room you have to enable you to safely get out children or secure seatbelts/carseats etc. I wouldn't care if these spaces were located right on the doorstep, or furthest away as long as we were given the extra room around the car for safety and to prevent bashing other vehicles with wide open doors.

Move the child spaces away from the disabled spaces. It will remove temptation from blue badge holders wanting to decamp in child spaces if they are not on the doorstep of the supermarket.