Councils are handing out blue badges to drivers with anxiety and ADHD despite rising fears of overdiagnosis as the number given out for “hidden disabilities” trebles in five years. The Telegraph has the story.
People with neurodivergent conditions are taking advantage of rule changes introduced in 2019 that allowed those with “hidden disabilities” to apply for the parking permits for the first time.
The change was hailed at the time as allowing people with dementia, Parkinson’s and arthritis to obtain the badges, as well as those with severe physical disabilities.
But the rules also extended to people with anxiety and other “invisible” mental health conditions, with the number of badges handed out for hidden disabilities trebling from 18,000 a year in 2021 to 55,000 last year.
Experts fear the change in eligibility has resulted in “abuse of a system designed for those with more profound, visible or life-altering mobility limitations”.
Videos circulating on social media show people openly coaching followers on how to obtain a blue badge for ADHD or anxiety, in particular encouraging people with anxious or autistic children to apply. They point to a number of perks that come with the badges.
Blue badges help people with mobility issues park close to their destinations, either as a passenger or driver, and allow holders to park on double yellow lines for up to three hours. They can also allow users to benefit from a string of other concessions, including exemption from congestion zone charges and road tolls.
A driver or passenger can qualify for a blue badge if they have a severe disability which makes it impossible or very hard for them to walk, including not being able to walk more than 50 metres, or if they have a “non-visible” disability.
Councils normally ask for evidence of a disability, such as medication, a doctor’s note, or a diagnosis.
In one video, a woman with ADHD said she received a blue badge from her council after applying “on a whim”, saying, “I completely did not think it would get approved but it did and it arrived the other day, and I can already say it has been a life-saver.”
She added, “Parking for me is so stressful, especially on a weekend or when you go anywhere busy.”
But in the face of critics questioning her need for a badge, she posted a second apology video, saying: “I was not making that video with the intention of bragging… that was not the intention at all.
“I just wanted to make it because a lot of people probably didn’t know that those with visible disabilities, ADHD, autism, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia – there are so many invisible disabilities out there that are eligible for Pip [Personal Independence Payment], blue badges, extra support.”
Worth reading in full.
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I just couldn’t be bothered to go through the rigmarole of getting a blue badge unless I was really disabled. However, a vast swathe of YooKay people actually see their ‘job’ as claiming ‘benefits’ of all kinds for their ‘disability’.
Parking for me is so stressful, especially on a weekend or when you go anywhere busy.
Sounds like my mother while she was still driving. But that some people freak themselves out on busy parking areas is certainly not a disability, just lacking car-handling skills combined with a too excitable mental disposition.
This blue badge policy seems inappropriate to me.
Follow the money? Favours for friends and family? Soon, car parks will be predominantly blue badge and we’ll be able to get a normal space more easily! Without the stigma of being a self-confessed mental defective who shouldn’t be in charge of a two tonne weapon…
In this case, I suspect this is rather an issue of pencilpushers following the letter of their overly broad regulations. While disability may be disability insofar benefits are concerned (I’m not making an argument for or against anything here), reserved parking space for the disabled should remain reserved for people having some kind of motoric impairment.
I used to do disabled parking bays for a council. On our site visits we had a plain-clothed police liasion officer, and a Chelsea supporter. With my assistant, the three of us were looking at possible locations for the bay and noticed what was the applicant’s car complete with Chelsea football shirts as front seat covers. Even the copper was laughing when this bloke came running out to demand to know what we doing around his car. I explained we were there for his disable bay and with that he limped back to the house he had run from.
We were at one location and spotted a sports car with a badge probably indicating the applicant. Not the obvious but I recall a friend’s sister who suffered from cystic fibrosis and required oxygen tanks. She could drive any sports car as her illness did not affect her driving but she struggled walking any long distance and sadly she died before she turned 30. So not everything is as it appears but I think giving out permits to the mentally weak is totally wrong.
Having to live with an overly sensitive subconscious sense of imminent danger, that is, constantly having to overcome irrational fears (and the corresponding oftentimes very painful physical effects) isn’t “a mental weakness.”
One of the rather harmless things which befell me recently (couple of months ago) was that my subconscious had chosen to declare a yellow stripe painted at the respective tops of the elevators in the local shopping mall (The Oracle) a danger. The first physical symptoms of this was that my left leg would jerk violently upward before I could step past it. I have since been battling “yellow stripe phobia” with good success by practicing elevator-riding while forcing me left leg into controlled movements at the top.
In the beginning, this was very uneasy and also triggered strong feelings of fear and I had only very feeble control over this leg whenever the yellow stripe approached which would start to tremble and general stopped feeling like something whose movements I could actually control. I had to learn an entirely new movement action for that, namely, intentionally relaxing the corresponding muscles. That’s something we normally never do intentionally because muscle ‘naturally’ relax on their own after a… Read more »
This girl is having an anxiety attack due to feelings of overwhelm brought on by her chronic Anglophobia which is symptomatic of her primary diagnosis of End-stage F*cktarditis. Should’ve worn a mask. Only a blue badge can save her now;
”Left-wing woman breaks down in TEARS while hugging mask wearing boyfriend after being triggered by thousands of people marching with British flags.”
https://x.com/OliLondonTV/status/2056257812469018990
Well, there’s the obvious way to prevent any more “dreadful, FAR-RIGHT marches”. They upset one person; upsetting people is Verboten in present-day UK; BAN THEM NOW!
I sniff an opportunity. Entire carparks may have to be painted blue. Where can I buy shares of companies making the blue paint?
Still, if the whole carpark is blue, then perhaps a new colour will be needed for spaces closer to the store.
🌈
Why are you here today, sir, madam?
To buy some bread.
OK, where are you on the spectrum?
Which colour is closest to the store?
Hm. Today it’s… orange, sir.
I feel orange today.
Sorry, sir, the orange spaces are full right now. Unless you booked in advance? Can I see your ADHD Spectrum App for your ADHDOrange status, please?
I am always anxious about finding a parking space. Can I have a badge please?
Hence why our local Tesco car park now has a vast swathe of “disabled” spaces – very often used by tattooed people who pull up in tinted window BMWs and Audis and seem to manage with zero issues.
I have found that they don’t bother in our local Tesco. They just leave their cars in the drop off zone in front of the main entrance.
Their issues are hidden, Tonka.
Not all disabilities are visible, Tonka.
Honestly, some people have zero empathy…
😉