TCC Campaign's for better rules on parking

Courier/Delivery Drivers often struggle to find the space to park their vehicle safely and legally before they unload their goods for a delivery.

This is especially the case when the load’s destination is a small premises or a business in a city that does not have adequate parking.

One of the main complaints from Courier/Delivery Drivers we have found is private vehicles and disabled badge holders who continually park in loading and unloading bays and often for long periods of time while they go off to do the weeks shopping.
Unable to park in the designated spaces this often means drivers wishing to deliver parcels and goods to local premises are forced to leave their vehicles on yellow lines.

In many towns and Cities around the UK we now find very little enforcement to stop vehicles other than designated delivery transport from parking in loading/unloading bays.

The Courier Club wants a campaign to help our Drivers and to get some clarification on the rules regarding loading bays. Also to campaign to local authorities and traffic enforcement departments to enforce the law regarding private vehicles from parking in designated loading bays and areas.

One of the many unclear rules regarding loading and unloading bays surrounds Blue Badge holders.

The subject of Blue Badge holder parking has often been brought up on many courier and haulage forums and discussion sites. 

It seems its one subject that does get our Courier/Delivery drivers quite worked up and we think understandably so, after all, if it is indeed stated that the reasons for yellow line marking on many of our roads is in place because parking at that point is deemed as causing an obstruction how is it that a vehicle parked with a blue badge on the dashboard is not the same obstruction?

From conducting a small and in no way scientific survey amongst our Courier friends we have discovered that the Blue Badge holder seems to be the worst offender for the loading bay parking and also seem to be a thorn in the side of a working courier drivers day.

The rules regarding loading bay parking and the disabled badge still remain very unclear. The Courier Club took a look at 10 different local authority websites on this subject, of the ten, five made no mention of loading bay parking at all, three others seemed to say it was ok and the other two simply said they should not park where there is a ban on loading or unloading but does this mean a designated bay or not?

We here at The Courier Club firmly believe that we should have not only clarification of these rules across the UK but also far more traffic enforcement to prevent loading and unloading bays being misused by private car owners off to do their shopping.

We have written to our local government officers, to our council officers and to local press on this subject and we urge you all to do the same and perhaps we can prevent the many parking tickets being issued to our Drivers simply because they cannot park in order to do their jobs and earn their living.