Why do able bodied drivers park in disabled car parking spaces?

I am well aware of the reasons people give: “The car park was full and no disabled people were using the spaces at the time.” Surely the whole point is that disabled car parking spaces are marked out specifically for disabled drivers to use. This is, obviously, especially important when a car park is full. Another reason given is: “There were two disabled car parking spaces free, so I thought it would be alright to park in one of them.”

I have never parked in a disabled car parking place and there are many other people who have enough of a social conscience not to park in them, either. So what’s the motivation here? Is it seeing other people breaking a rule or regulation that make it acceptable for another person to break them also? What a chaotic life we would have to lead if everyone felt this way.

I see these errant parkers around my local shops. Last Saturday evening the car park was full, apart from two disabled places at the far end, nearest the shops. Many people had parked in the adjoining street, rather than in a disabled person’s parking place. Within seconds of my parking , a young woman in a small, nippy, car races past all the vehicles parked in the street and weaves her way through the car park - right into a disabled parking space! She must have been aware that the two spaces were likely to be empty and she had no scruples about using one herself. What is going on in these people’s heads?

I have heard people who, when asked why they have parked in a disabled car park, give reasons like: “There are plenty of other spaces free. Why can’t disabled people use them?”

Some people seem incapable of registering the fact that disabled people are often not capable of moving as far, or as fast under their own steam, as those of us who are able bodied. It may be, also, that some people just don’t think about the needs of the disabled - or anyone else for that matter, beyond their close family and friends. Why should they? They have their own busy, self centred, lives to lead. And, after all, it’s not their fault that some people have a disability.