Dozy parkers had better watch out

But nothing could be further from the truth.

The majority, perhaps, of motorists do not appear to have been taught to drive by Stevie Wonder or to have plucked their licences from a Christmas cracker.

The majority treat other road users – and that includes pedestrians, cyclists and anyone else going about their lawful wayfaring – with courtesy and respect.

But the lazy, disrespectful, ignorant and downright rude motorists out there give the rest of us a bad name. And they just don’t seem to care.

There has been much debate about parking recently.

In this column, elsewhere in these pages and on social media, the bad habits of some motorists when it comes to abandoning their cars where they like causes seemingly endless debate.

And the abuse of disabled and parent-and-child parking bays is always a hot topic.

So hats off to Tesco for actually setting out to try and do something about it.

Within the last few days the supermarket giant has said that, following a trial across several outlets, it intends to impose charges on people in either disabled or parent-and-child bays who should not be there.

Such dozy parkers will be asked to stump up £40, a charge that could rise to £70 if not paid within a certain time limit.

Not before time, even if it could prove difficult to enforce.

We all have our own personal stories about people with disabled parking passes who manage to sprint into the store to avoid the rain.

I spotted one recently whose only disability seemed to be an inability to read and a profound deafness to all the comments aimed at him.

We all have stories about people using parent-and-child bays with no sign of a child in tow. Those of us with either young children or grandchildren know just what a godsend these spaces are.

So just leave them to the people who need them!