"Blue Badge" parking permits extended to Autistics

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People with hidden disabilities could soon have blue badge parking permits

Folks with old age dementia are not usually allowed to drive. And autistics are not impaired in locomotion (our legs are normal) so I don't see how autistic drivers are entitled "handicapped parking" permits. We autistics and aspies can walk as far as able bodied NTs.

We might find it more difficult to navigate walking through a car park. Sensory input from all the moving cars around and people from all directions. Overstimulation?

Great, I thought, free parking. Then of course you'd need to apply for one and that would mean filling forms, going to speak to someone etc etc......

If I wanted to pop into a local shop I'd park well away and walk rather than risk another drivers ire by parking in a bad spot on double yellows.

My Grandma had severe Arthritis and found walking distances very difficult. She fell a few times too. Because the person who came to assess her saw her walking from the living room to the front door (on carpet) with no stick she wouldn't give her a blue badge.

I am not holding my breath.......

I get problems whether I park close to a shop or the other end of the car park.

If I park close to the shop , the intensity of the world immediate.

If I park further away , the intensity is less and it builds up slowly.

A Blue Badge would not make my life any easier except maybe at hospitals.

It is a good idea though if it helps people on the spectrum. I'd feel a bit of a fraud if I had one though.

That’s the thing: hospitals should have a place to park for real emergencies. An entrance where anybody could be put in and placed in triage immediately.

A patient with a real emergency should be attended to in a short time, thus allowing the driver to park in a more “conventional” car park.

For a few this might help, I'm thinking of parents/carers escorting children who do not have major physical disabilities but big sensory ones. This has come at the advice of the NAS who do not appear to be aware that there are autistic people who are not 'being looked after by others'. I'm not saying they shouldn't get it, I'd just like to see some awareness from the NAS that they are supposed to be representing the entire spectrum.

As for dementia, again it's for their helper/partner to be able to park when they are driving the person with dementia around

I hope this will only mean its easier for people with autism to get a badge when they genuinely need one, and not simply making them available to all autistics.

My uncle recently got a blue badge for my grandmother who has dementia. She doesn't particularly need one, and when my mother takes her shopping, she parks as far away from the shops as possible to force her to walk (she doesn't walk much normally and this causes her arthritis to play up).

You don't have to be a driver to be able to hold a blue badge. My mum has cancer and was given a blue badge, and she doesn't drive. You can still use a blue badge as a passenger.

No way I'd want one of those parking permits, even though I could probably apply for one due to health reasons.
Able-bodied people get abused, and sometimes have their car tampered with when they park in disabled areas.

i think ive heard of people getting a handicapped permit because their autistic children were prone to running away outside? i dont think many people who dont need one in some way would be getting them because government doesnt like to help people even when they do need it, and dealing with the public being a**holes would make it not worth it

Sweet, less door dings on my truck!