Draft report: Research on the general public’s opinions and misuse of mobility parks

CCS Disability Action run New Zealand’s nationwide Mobility Parking Permit scheme, which currently supports more than 160,000 people to access their communities. In 2016, we commissioned this report into the misuse of mobility parks prepared by Research New Zealand.

Click here to download the full draft report.

Main findings (taken from draft report)

1. The abuse of mobility parking spaces is relatively high.

Seventeen percent of respondents interviewed for the omnibus survey, and who had no mobility impairment, reported using a mobility space in the last 12 months. The statistic does not take into account the frequency of misuse. An indication of the frequency of misuse is obtained from the observational study, with almost one-third (31 percent) of mobility space users not having a current mobility permit to legally park in the space. The majority of these had no mobility impairment.

2. Abuse appears to be an issue more in regards to private mobility spaces at supermarkets because of the time involved.

The observational study recorded that, while almost one-half (47 percent) of drivers who did not have a mobility permit remain parked for less than five minutes in the mobility space they were occupying, longer periods are observed especially in private mobility spaces at supermarkets, where the average length of time parked was 11 minutes. The results of the omnibus survey indicate that people misusing mobility spaces justify this on the basis that it is OK “in an emergency”, it is “only for a short period of time”, and it is at a specific time of the day “when it is quiet”.

3. Abuse of mobility spaces may be being encouraged as a result of the following:

• Lack of and/or ineffective monitoring. Just three percent of people in the observational study, who were occupying a mobility parking space without a current parking permit, had been ticketed.

• The relative lack of identification of mobility parking spaces. While three-quarters (73 percent) of mobility spaces monitored in the observational study had the international access symbol visible on signage, only 39 percent actually had instructions on who can use the park. Additionally, only one-half (52 percent) of mobility spaces were painted with more than just the symbol.

• Poor knowledge of the law and/or a lack of moral code. While the majority of respondents in the omnibus survey correctly stated it was never OK to park in a mobility space, one-in-five described a situation in which it was ‘permissible’ (20 percent).

Prepared by Emanuel Kalafatelis and Aaron McKay-Valentine.