kathy_from_texas

We are renting a car in Ireland this summer, and we are so excited about this trip. We have handicapped plates here in the States for our daughter who suffered a brain injury several years ago and has difficulty walking. Is it possible to use our Texas blue handicapped placard on our rental car in Ireland?
Thanks for replies!

adrienne

Have you seen this thread that discusses the handicapped card in Europe? If you do a search here on handicapped parking you'll find other threads that give the same information. Basically, the US tag is not officially honored and you park in handicapped spaces at the risk of being ticketed. Sometimes the tag allows parking and sometimes it does not.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...permits.cfm?11

Ackislander

Plates or a hangtag that you put over the mirror?

I assume the latter since there is no way you could replace Italian license plates with Texas tags (license plates) without gettin' in a heap o' trouble. If you just stuck the Texas plate on the package tray behind the back seat, no one is going to have a clue what it means.

adrienne

Plate = license plate for a car
Tag = something that hangs such as the handicapped tag that hangs off the rear view mirror
OP is going to Ireland, not Italy

Dukey

Has anyone considered the possibility that ONE of the adults could get out of the car WITH the child who has diffculty and get out NEAR the actual destination point as the DRIVER then parks in a regular spot as close as possible to that destination and WALKS under their own power and without difficulty to join the others or is my thinking entirely faulty here?????

adrienne

Dukey - you're trying to apply logic to the situation! LOL Your method makes perfect sense and this is what a friend and I did in Italy sometimes.

Who knows why people don't want to do this. Perhaps they're afraid they will not meet up again?

daveesl

Two summers ago we took my 80 year old MIL with us on a 2 week trip to England and Ireland. We brought along the handicap thingy that hangs off the mirror. It was honored everywhere we stopped, and we stopped a lot. Cities and small towns. Pull up into the handicap place, unload the portable scooter and off we went. In several places in Ireland we even had the local police move delivery vehicles that were blocking the handicap spots.

Does this mean it is always honored? Probably not, but in my research prior to the trip we found that it is pretty much universally accepted. But for some reason, other countries do not seem to honor the red tags (from what I read), only the blue ones.

Dave

---Now time to hear all the people say I said this or that without actually reading what I wrote.

DeborahAnn

Kathy was simply asking if the handicap placard would be honored. I'm sure Kathy's family has the system down to make it most comfortable for their daughter when handicap parking is not an option and needs no instructions from anyone at Fodor's. Have a great vacation. Deborah

adrienne

Thanks so much for the scolding. That was a great answer for Kathy!

DeborahAnn

Kathy, I checked with Tourism Ireland which, if there is enough time before your trip to contact for brochures, might help your trip planning.

They gave me two websites that might answer your question. Go to www.ddai.ie or www.iwa.ie. I hope you find these sites helpful. Deborah

chartley

Trying not to be too picky, if you ask "will my handicap placard be honored" in Britain, nobody will know what you are talking about. We only honour the dead and the very brave. Placards are large pieces of cardboard, usually with a slogan, the sort of thing striking BA cabin staff carry.

Say "I have an American disabled badge. Is it OK to park here?" In some places it will be, in some places it won't. You really have to own local disabled badge to know all the different rules.

kathy_from_texas

Thank you, everyone, for your replies. I especially want to thank DeborahAnn who seems to have a little more sensitivity to the subject. All I asked was whether they might be honored in Ireland -- I did not need parking instructions from Dukey! Why are some people so blasted snide? Sometimes, it is just me and my daughter (who btw is an adult with mobility issues galore ever since some idiot made an illegal u-turn on the highway and left her with a permanent brain injury)in the car, and I am not going to leave her at the curb and go park elsewhere!

Bailey

Kathy....I absolutely understand your situation. My husband has severe physical handicaps...every step counts for both of us. I scope our every parking lot I'll be using...just to make sure that we can get in and out safely. In fact our world travel has become very limited since his 3 strokes.
I think it is fantastic that you are forging ahead....not an easy travel situation!!

Prior to my husband's stroke he had a US handicap tag for another issue....we've used it all through europe. But as others have mentioned, we may have just been lucky!

Have a fabulous trip!!!!!!!

daveesl

Kathy, I cannot remember the website where I found my info on the "universality" of the placard, but like I said, we had absolutely no problems at all in both Ireland and England.

dave

BigBlue

Some time back I posted a link to the following article:

"Mar 10, 2007 Jill Browne
Under a 1997 resolution, the European Union countries accept each other's disabled parking permits and those from Canada, USA, Australia and other associate EU members.

Disabled Parking Permits are Recognized in the European Union

In 1997, the European Conference of Ministers of Transport adopted a resolution where the disabled parking permits of the European Union member countries, and the associate member countries would be recognized everywhere in the EU member countries.

The badge must display the international blue and white wheelchair symbol.

The full list of EU member countries and associate member countries is provided on the ECMT website.

Currently there are 44 member countries and seven associate member countries.

The associate member countries of the EU are:


* Australia
* Canada
* Japan
* Korea
* Mexico
* New Zealand
* United States.

If you have a valid handicapped parking permit, blue badge, blue plaque (all of these are the same thing but the names vary between countries), entitling you to the disabled parking privileges in your home country, you may use it in the EU countries as well.

The ECMT website gives details for many of the individual countries' rules about disabled parking using a permit."

In addition, I've just been to the ECMT website which I got to by Googling ecmt disabled parking. The link is:

http://www.internationaltransportfor...y/parking.html

The thread to which Adrienne refers has been out-of-date for some time and I attempted to update it by referring to a different one which I've now imbedded above. As a result, Adrienne's warning is based on old information and the new has been provided for you above. The law is clear. The understanding and enforcement of it is heavily dependent on local authorities. The intent of the agreement is to remove the kind of speculation seen in prior postings and to provide a common reference for travelers.

The advice on proper usage of the English language is neither accurate nor appropriate. We've got several friends living in England who have no difficulty understanding any of the terminology discussed in this thread. Such sniping is churlish at best.

As to well-meaning but uninformed people and advice on how someone else should handle their parking situations: please! Help with what you know and allow people like the OP to evaluate their own circumstances. What works for you may or may not work for them. I could cite a variety of negative (and positive) experiences my wife and I have had using Blue Badges (one EU form of reference to disabled parking permits) which would demonstrate the hazards even of using EU-issued permits (we have held several legally).

sashh

Just to add, do check the local rules as these do vary. I'm not familiar with Ireland but an example is the city of west-minster in London - if you park, even with a blue badge, you will get a ticket.

I got a ticket for not displaying the time clock with my badge. Occasionally places in the UK (yes I know you are going to Ireland) ask for both the blue badge and and a 'disabled tax disk'. Some places give concessions to disabled drivers (and passengers) but only if you register first e.g. the M6 toll and the Dartford crossings.

As I said I know nothing about the Irish laws, these are just illustrations but it is worth checking.

BigBlue

As I age, not as graciously as I (and my wife) might like, I'm trying to become more tolerant of people and grant them the benefit of the doubt. I've given this thread a long think overnight and have concluded that two points need to be made before I'll allow myself to let this discussion pass:

The well-meaning suggestions by Dukey and adrienne are not practical in many cases. You might guess that since I've done the homework on the subject that I have need for handicapped parking and you would be right. There are some assumptions (it is my belief that they believe their recommendations would be workable in cases including, but not restricted to, those which obtain in Kathy's situation) made in giving those suggestions that may not be practical.

First, although I am limited in mobility I also do most of the driving when outside the US. So, my wife could drop me, I suppose, but she is not as comfortable driving some of the places we go and that would place an undue burden on her. Second, consider what might happen should someone be dropped off and the driver had to go around the corner or somehow out of sight. Now, think about the driver having a stroke, being involved in a traffic accident, getting impossibly stuck in a traffic jam, slipping and falling, or being mugged. Believe me, these things happen every day. What does the person left behind do? (We were stuck in Bologna for half an hour whilst our Italian host spent that time going from office-to-office just to comply with Bolognese regulations regarding use of my EU badge within the city center. His wife, my wife, and I had no possible clue as to where he was and what he had to do. Of course, he knew we would be having a coffee in the piazza but we could not have found him had we needed to.) Finally, with an acceptable parking permit, in many places, one can actually drive right up to a highly-desirable spot and park right at the front door, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively.

As to our instruction in the English language provided by a well-meaning (perhaps), but not very informed person, I went to my Shorter Oxford Dictionary of the English Language (a British dictionary, not American) and learned that the first definition for placard given is: An official document giving authorization or permission for something. The fourth definition for honour is: ...to abide by the terms of an agreement. Thus, the authoritative advice provided regarding proper terminology in the UK doesn't seem to be founded on appropriate research or knowledge of the language.

Fodorites provide some of the best travel guidance and advice in the world. When we stick to those topics we all benefit. When we make the assumption that we are, somehow, more intelligent than others and, therefore, entitled to give them gratuitous, or even downright wrong, guidance we do us all a disservice.

As to variances by either country or city within country, if one reads thoroughly the part of the cited ECMT document pertaining to where one'll be visiting, one'll get the official word. However, no one can possibly vouch for the actions of an individual parking warden anywhere. As for me, I'll be carrying the cover sheet and relevant sections for France and Spain when we go in September.

Kathy, you'll be right. Just be sure to get a parking disk.

Nikki

BigBlue,

Applause.

DeborahAnn

BigBlue, you first post on this thread was well written and informative. You second was just down right eloquent and so very thought provoking.

chartley's reference to the meaning of honor (honour) had me looking through my Webster's Dictionary which certainly came up "short" against your Oxford Dictionary (even in it's shorter form).

It is off topic but I found myself thinking here in the US we honor, along with handicap signs, heroes and the dead, grocery coupons!!! don't many stores say in their ads that they will honor their competitor's coupons? Deborah

chartley

My apologies for offending you with some instruction in colloquial English. I was trying to be helpful. I believe that "Will you honour my placard" would baffle most English speakers on this side of the Atlantic. "I am disabled. Can I park here?" would gain immediate understanding.

Different countries have different rules. On a visit to the United States, I was surprised to learn that parking in a disabled space on private property such as a supermarket car park would be an actual offence if one did not have the right badge. In Britain, it would largely be considered bad manners. My observation has been that American custom is to be very explicit about what is or is not allowed in particular circumstances, and to insist on proper authorisation. British practice is perhaps to be more flexible and forgiving of technical infringements.

For example. If you went to a National Trust property and asked if you could park in the reserved disabled area, they would not argue with you about the validity of your U.S. disabled permit.

If you want to argue about dictionary definitions and colloquial usage, I am up to the challenge.