It is a shame, but hardly a surprise, that the orange-badge parking system for disabled drivers is being abused in Shipley. It is no doubt being abused, too, in most other places. But it is in Shipley that traffic warden Anthony Hirst has decided that enough is enough.

The orange badge rightly bestows privileges on motorists who have mobility problems. It allows them to park in convenient places denied to other motorists. But Mr Hirst is annoyed about the scale of abuse of these privileges.

He finds friends and relatives of the badge-holder leaving their car, with badge displayed, in restricted areas despite not having the disabled person with them. Some motorists are using their badges beyond the expiry date. Others are putting too broad an interpretation on the rule which says they can park on double yellow lines and are blocking access points or causing other obstructions.

The orange-badge system is necessary to enable people who have problems walking to get themselves close to where they need to be. It is finely-balanced. If there are too many spaces allocated, non-holders of badges seeking a rare parking spot are likely to resent a large number of empty spaces dedicated to badge-holders. If there are not enough, or if a proportion are occupied by people who are cheating, where are all the genuine badge-holders to park?

If the system is to stand a chance of working properly, everyone needs to abide by the rules. Mr Hirst and his colleagues are right to have decided to make that clear.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.