Posts by Reg Torso

Sorry, rant warning...

As a long time victim^H^H^H^H^H^H user of the blue badge scheme for one of our children I can agree that it is pretty badly broken and abused. As others have said, designated parking bays get abused by people with genuine badges who are not entitled to use them, dodgy characters with fake badges (I’ve seen a few, just get a colour copy and a laminator, and you can’t tell the difference through a windscreen unless you know what a real one looks like, which only genuine holders seem to be able to do), and the just plainly brazen gits who park in a disabled bay with no badge because they will “only be 5 minutes” or because it’s after 6.30, so disabled people won’t be out that late will they, and anyway everyone’s doing it and there’s nobody to check at this time of day.

The effect is that genuine holders are suspected and resented and ‘socially policed’. Being asked ‘are you disabled’ is fine - I ask other users if they are and am polite and honest when I am asked. To be told “oi, you’re not disabled” – well, things get nasty, and I give worse than I get.

Some other gripes:

Only being entitled to use a disabled badge and park without charge if you use a marked bay. If all the marked bays are taken, you have to pay, despite having a blue badge. Sorry, it’s too crowded for you to be disabled today, we’re already up to quota.

The bureaucracy to get and retain blue badge is flaky and sloooowwww. In our local authority getting a renewal has to be planned months in advance and chased up to prevent it from stalling or getting lost.

And a special mention for the arrangements at a well known hospital (think Jimmy Saville) where the ‘car park’ is a partially unsurfaced bomb site and the disabled bays are further from the building than the normal bays. You can park without charge, but to get out of the place on a free ticket you have to take your blue badge to the parking admin desk on the other side of the site (reminder: blue badges are for disabled people) and yet somehow simultaneously display it on your vehicle at all times. “Yes, we know it’s crazy, but there’s nothing we can do”.

What's the evidence of abuse?

I have to say I simply don't get it. What does Google do that harms me as a user? I'm not saying I love Google unconditionally, and if they are 'doing evil' then I'm open to evidence.

And I say this as someone who bitterly resents the way Microsoft has forced me to buy their products by virtue of the fact that Windows was bundled with PCs --- yes you could buy without but you were still paying the MS tax.

When MS used IE to distort the interoperability of the web we started to come close to an MS monoculture that would have required me to continue to pay that tax, both as a device user and service provider thanks to proprietary tech like IIS, Silverlight, MSWord etc. etc.

But when I sit at my computer or use my phone I don't feel I have no option but to use Google for search, or maps, or mail or whatever. I can switch away if I choose without penalty and use interoperable formats and protocols and this is in large part due to Google investing in tech that countered the MS monoculture (sponsoring Firefox, developing Chrome etc).

MS always used to say their critics were simply sore losers, and I'm sure that was true for some cases, but with Google's critics I really only can see sore losers complaining. No?