Disabled parking on French aires

[Ralph]

We were on the aire in Honfleur (11 euros this year), my wife in her wheelchair, when we were stopped by the lady at the gate (concierge?) who asked if we had paid for our parking. When I said yes she told me that we didn't need to. Apparently since May 2015 vehicles with a blue badge can park free for the night.

She gave me to understand that this holds good for all aires, provided that they do not have a barrier system in which case the normal charge applies.

Does anyone have any knowledge of this? I'm nervous to act upon it in case I misunderstood and it's only Honfleur that it applies to. The only aire that I know which specifically offers free parking to disabled is Fort Mahon Plage where we have stopped a number of times to and from calais

[StuartO]

Parking authorities in UK certainly adopt varying attitudes to whether Blue Badge Holders should get free parking when everyone else has to pay and so I would be reluctant to assume any sort of nationwide scheme in France without specific information.  Have you checked the information in the CC European Guides, it's the sort of thing they would probably mention if it was kosher?

 

When we leave the EU British Blue Badges will presumably no longer be valid in France anyway.

 

[Derek Uzzell]

This 2013 forum thread discussed disabled parking in France

 

http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/blue-badge-parking/30096/

 

and this link is to the European Model Parking Card webpage relevant to France

 

http://www.disabledmotorists.eu/en/world_map/europe/france.htm

 

With effect from 19 May 2015 disabled parking was ‘rationalised' in France. A GOOGLe-search on "stationnement pour personnes handicapées mai 2015” retrieves various references to this:

 

https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=stationnement+pour+personnes+handicap%C3%A9es+mai+2015

 

And this translation should provide the gist of the legislation

 

http://tinyurl.com/zttrvsh

 

Motorhome ‘aires’ come in many flavours, and although those that are located on common-or-garden public car parks that have no barriers but do have parking charges should now be free to disabled motorists displaying the Parking Card, there are many ‘aires’ that are privately owned and (presumably) fall outside the legislation.

 

I don’t know how the May 2015 law might affect camping-car ‘aires’ dedicated to camping-cars. For example

 

http://www.laval-tourisme.com/votre-sejour/ou-dormir/aires-de-camping-cars/237323-aire-de-camping-cars-de-st-jean-sur-mayenne

 

has a charge that includes an electric hook-up and use of fresh-water and emptying services, toilets/showers, etc. There’s no specific charge for parking, so it should not be anticipated that staying at that aire would be completely free for Parking Card holders.

[Ralph]

Thank you Derek, this is just the information I was looking for.

It was the law of May 2015 that was being shown to me but I was unable to get the more than the gist of it between my poor French and her poor English.

The lady at the time told me that the law allows parking for 1 night which I expect is covered by the "up to 12 hours" part. However it seems that Honfleur has elected to allow disabled parking "sans limite". She did tell me that it only applied to pay & display or collected parks.

I take your point about aires that include services and this is obviously a grey area. Sadly my French (even with Google Translate) is not up to asking questions on French forums.

[Tracker]

My wife has a blue badge for parking and sometimes in France (and Spain and Germany) one can interpret a few key words from a sign on an aire or car park if there is one.

 

We use our discretion and if it's only about 6 Euros overnight we are just happy to be there and use the facilities so we generally pay up anyway if it is a nice spot and for more expensive Aires, as with most town and city parking, there will nearly always be signs with enough words that I recognise sufficient to be able to work it out.

 

We have never had a problem other than in Delft some 3 years ago where we apparently overstayed by a few minutes in a disabled parking bay and arrived back just as the warden was writing out an 80 Euro ticket. When I protested he apologised in perfect English and said that his boss was around and he had to write the ticket but as it was all in Dutch and I did not live in the country there was no need to pay it as nobody would ever follow it up - and they didn't!

[PJay]

I did not realise that you could use the disabled parking abroad. Is this just EU, though? If so I guess it will no longer apply, when we exit?

PJay

 

(don't have one by the way! Well not yet .)

[StuartO]

There are far fewer disabled parking bays in France (and Germany) probably because they haven't allowed the same sort of widespread abuse of Blue Badges we have in UK but British Blue badges are currently valid across the EU, allowing you to exploit whatever local laws allow. 

 

Note however that other countries don't necessary afford the same privileges to Blue Badge holders as we do in UK, so don't, for example, park on yellow lines without checking the local laws.  As Tracker found almost to his cost, there might be time limits too.

 

Unless our Brexit negotiators negotiate something different, British Blue Badges will presumably cease to be valid in the EU when we leave.

 

[Tracker]

StuartO - 2016-07-17 10:48 AM

As Tracker found almost to his cost, there might be time limits too.

 

The time limit was clearly shown but as it was absolutely hissing with rain we stayed too long in a warm dry and cheerful cafe sheltering so it was my own fault really!

 

The EU Blue Badge scheme works both ways so it should, in theory, not be beyond the wit of mankind to enable it to continue. Whether EU and UK mankind have enough combined wit is of course a totally different issue!

 

 

[Ralph]

Hopefully the blue badge will still be valid after exit as it's not just EU but Europe wide. For instance Switzerland is not in the EU but still takes part in the blue badge.

As Stuart, quite rightly, points out it is important to realise that the badge gives you the rights of that country and not your own so you can't assume that something that is allowed in the UK will be allowed elsewhere.

Try http://www.theaa.com/public_affairs/reports/blue_badge_abroad.pdf for details but it's not up to date. It certainly is too old to show the current state in France since the changes in May 2015.

As few disabled bays will take a motorhome it's not usually of much interest to us and I'd never considered using it for an aire until Honfleur.

[galaxyhunter 309]

Ethics is a great question and most relevant to our situation. My wife has the handicapped placard issued in Alberta, Canada. She is in a wheel chair as well. We take the placard with us when we travel and will again next spring when we start our European adventure. I will be certain to watch how it affects us.

 

Incidentally, to my knowledge the placard has no effect in campgrounds over here.

 

Fair winds and clear skies

 

Graham