Lessening the gap

Automated enforcement of cars that misuse disabled parking spaces is a step forward

We have to support people with special needs in their daily struggles. Christopher Pike / The National

Allocated parking spaces solely for disabled drivers is a way to reduce the yawning disparity between the ease of their lives compared to the rest of the community. This explains why people often get so irate at able-bodied drivers parking in disabled person's bays purely for reasons of convenience or laziness.

Those who misuse disabled bays already face the heaviest parking fines available – Dh1,000 – but the level of enforcement has often been wanting. However, high-tech help is on the way through the Makani (Arabic for "my place") system that scans the licence plate of each car that pulls into an accessible-parking space, sounds a warning if the car is not registered to a disabled driver and imposes a fine if the car doesn't vacate the space.

One would hope that empathy for those less fortunate would be enough to ensure compliance. But the selfish few who abuse this and make the lives of the disabled more difficult will pay the price as the system is rolled out in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Fujairah.