During my time as a CAFT investigator, we interviewed a third year law student from the local university.

The student had displayed his sister’s child badge and was gaining a parking concession. Upon further checks, we interviewed this student under caution and he admitted that it wasn’t his first time using the blue badge this way. The student genuinely thought it was okay to use the badge to drop his sister to school and then to use it to go to university

A warning letter was issued to the student and he promised not to do it again. Four months later the student was found to be misusing the same badge on the same car. He was later prosecuted under Section 117 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984

During the IUC interview, the student genuinely thought it was okay to use that badge in that way and the complete rules of the blue badge scheme was not explained to him.

We are a charity that believes that education & awareness will highlight the consequences for drivers who unintentionally misuse the blue badge. From our experience, once someone has the rules explained to them, it would really make them stop and think twice before attempting to misuse the Blue Badge again.