Sometimes failures of design are so ludicrous, they’re actually funny.
Scissors which come in packaging that can only be opened by cutting. Automatic doors that open outwards.
Carpeted bathrooms.
But when serious flaws in design put people at risk in a place they ought to be safe, that’s no laughing matter.
And that’s what wheelchair users are contending with at Ninewells Hospital’s car park.
This week, The Courier highlighted the “near misses” that wheelchair user Fiona Cummings has experienced when visiting Ninewells.
The car park, though free to use and seemingly “accessible” with plenty of blue badge bays, operates using an outdated and ill thought out ticketing system.
Drivers are required to obtain a ticket from one of the machines dotted around the car park, then return to their cars to display it.
Able-bodied pedestrians may not think twice about the walk across the car park and back, but for wheelchair users like Fiona, this presents a risky situation.
Fines show total lack of sense and decency
“There is no pavement on [one] side, so you have to go against the traffic to get a ticket and go in between the cars,” Fiona told The Courier.
She added: “The cars often don’t see me because of my height in the wheelchair, and I’ve had a few near misses.”
It is shameful that a wheelchair user’s practical experience would be so poorly conceived in any piece of modern infrastructure, let alone at a hospital.
But this is the reality for many disabled drivers. Even an “accessible” world still fails to take into account the nuances of the disabled experience.
Fiona took the decision to prioritise her personal safety and use the car park within the restrictions, without obtaining a display ticket – quite rightly, in my opinion.
No one should have to risk being clipped by a reversing car in order to visit the hospital.
She was fined by operator SabaUK, and even after she explained the situation, they refused to waive the fine.
Their refusal not only lacks common sense and decency, it borders on discrimination.
And not just against wheelchair users.
Feeble response from authorities
There’s no reason why any person with mobility issues should have to walk from a disabled parking space – which deliberately prioritises proximity to the hospital – to a ticket dispenser, and back to their car, all before leaving the car park.
The journey alone, never mind the risk involved for wheelchair users, completely defeats the purpose of using a disabled parking space in the first place.
Not to mention, it is entirely needless.
When registration scanners and cameras exists, there should be no need for anyone to waste time, energy and paper on a display ticket for a free-to-use car park.
And if they are deemed necessary, they should be situated at car park entrances, and accessed from the driver’s side window.
Certainly, no one should be fined for using a car park in accordance with its rules on stay length, just because they didn’t obtain a completely needless paper slip.
The onus should be on operators to prove someone breached the rules of the parking structure, not use a nonsensical system to extract money from sensible citizens.
SabaUK‘s apparent disinterest in true accessibility is unacceptable.
And NHS Tayside‘s predictably feeble response failed to even acknowledge they understood the issue.
It simply parroted the fact that the disabled bays are of adequate size and that there is ample signage to explain the operation of the car park.
In other words, it completely disregarded the needs of their service users.
Dundee‘s disabled drivers deserve better.
Conversation