Asda Price Abuse

According to the headline of this Talking Retail article, "Asda gets tough on parking abuse."

Which, apparently, means the store is proposing to whack a £60 fine on folks who park in disabled or child parking bays - assuming the offending parker is not actually disabled or dragging their brood with them, I guess.

Naturally, I appreciate the need for disabled parking bays, but I see no need whatsoever for those pesky "mother and child" spaces. They're a nuisance, and an insult to those folks who don't happen to have produced a field full of screaming kids, or who have the good sense not to drag their wailing progeny around the supermarket with them.

Mother and child bays are inevitably situated close the store, meaning that other, equally legitimate paying customers are forced to park further away, often on the far side of the car park's busy entry / exit route. Why should some customers receive such preferential treatment, simply because they have had an incremental effect on the nation's population? They haven't done anything special, and, in many cases, the rest of us wish they hadn't done anything at all!

It strikes me that, if anyone other than disabled customers are to be given special attention, that benefit should go to the elderly. Just because they're not officially "disabled", it doesn't mean they necessarily find it easy to fight their way on foot through a busy car park, in the pouring rain, laden with shopping.

Aging is a natural process that cannot be avoided, and should be given due consideration. Parenthood is not. If parents can't manage their kids without imposing on the rest of society, they shouldn't have them.

Asda really, really needs to rethink this ridiculous, pandering policy. One supermarket is as good as another, particularly to customers with cars, and I know from personal experience that a LOT of people already resent mother and child bays. It may be that, to many of them, this will be a good incentive to shop elsewhere.

Billy Seggars.