Disability parks unsafe for users

PUBLIC and private car park owners are being urged to provide disability car parks for rear-loading vehicles to improve safety for people with disability.

Motorists are also being reminded to drive slowly in car parks and be aware of people getting in and out of vehicles, particularly in disability parks.

Corangamite MP and Corangamite NDIS reference group acting chair Libby Coker has raised concerns about car parks failing to cater for rear-loading vehicles after a “frightening near-miss” for a local resident at a shopping centre car park at Ocean Grove.

Ms Coker said there needed to be improvements in the design of parking bays where they failed to provide safe access for all people with disability.

“I was horrified recently to learn that a car ran over the extended loading ramp of the modified vehicle of a disabled person with a wheelchair in a local shopping centre,” Ms Coker said.

“It was simply good luck that the woman was not on the ramp in her wheelchair at the time.

“Her transport vehicle’s extended rear loading ramp could only open into the path of oncoming car traffic.

“There were no carparks suitable for rear access disability vehicles.

“Rear-loading vehicles for transporting people with a disability are common.

“Safe accessible parking should be as much a right for people with disability and their friends and family as it is for the majority.

“As acting chair of the Corangamite NDIS Reference Group this has been raised with me as a significant safety issue which needs to be urgently addressed.”

Ms Coker said she had written to the City of Greater Geelong urging the reconfiguration of city-managed disability parks to cater for rear-loading vehicles and asking that it ensures that suitable rear-loading parks were mandated as part of all future city or private sector parking precincts for people with disability.

Greater Geelong acting director city cervices Debbie Leeson-Rabie said the council would be requesting that new private car park developments, such as the shopping centre where the incident occurred, consider appropriate regulations to ensure they met the needs of the community.

“Where possible, the council upgrades existing bays or introduce new accessible parking bays as part of the city’s annual program of works,” Ms Leeson-Rabie said.

“In addition, thanks to funding from the Victorian Government, this financial year we are upgrading several accessible parking bays in central Geelong and rear-loading accessible bays have recently been installed at Brougham Street, Lt Ryrie Street, Malop Street and Myers Street.

“New accessible bays are now constructed to a longer length and provide kerb ramps to connect to the footpath network,” she said.

“We also remind motorists to drive with caution when passing car parks where people may be entering or exiting vehicles.”