Clarkson and May's Blue Badge shame

No strangers to controversy, Top Gear’s top dogs found themselves incurring the wrath of the disabled community when they strayed into an area which is close to home for Helen Dolphin and Disability Now

Earlier this summer, on Sunday 31 July to be precise, the BBC programme Top Gear featured Jeremy Clarkson and James May driving electric cars to Cleethorpes.

The piece, a comparative test between the two vehicles generated, you may remember, some controversy because of what one of the manufacturers regarded as unfair criticism of their car by Clarkson.

However, sparks also flew as a result of another aspect of the item.

When they pulled over into a car park to discuss the merits of the cars they were driving they parked in two disabled bays.

The national press were quick to spot this misdemeanour and within hours the Top Gear publicity machine had generated an apology on their website. In the apology the executive producer Andy Wilman shouldered the blame: “This was our fault, not theirs, and we unreservedly apologise to all the viewer’s we have upset as a consequence. Both presenters expressed deep concern to the film crew and me about using the disabled bays prior to filming, because of the disrespectful impression it would convey. They only capitulated when we assured them the parking had been approved by the owner, and that the disabled bay markings would not appear on television.”

Top Gear is known for being a little un-PC and is not averse to controversy. However, with disabled bay abuse at an all-time high I believe people in the public eye should not be shown openly using disabled parking bays as it sends out the wrong message to the general public. I would hope that no one watching the programme would think “Jeremy parked in a disabled bay so that’s OK” but there is a tendency for people to copy what they’ve seen on TV.

At the moment the only thing preventing non-disabled people using disabled parking bays in many off-street car parks (e.g. supermarkets) is their conscience. When it’s raining, or someone is “only popping in quickly” or “just using the cash point” these consciences seem to disappear. Results from the last Baywatch surveys show that there is still a large percentage of the population happy to park in disabled bays when they’re not disabled.

Top Gear say they were told by the car park owner to park in the disabled bays as it was a quiet spot for them to film but that in itself was the wrong thing for the owner to advise. He should have been keeping those spaces available for disabled people. The problem with parking spaces is that you never know when someone is going to turn up and want to use it. They may have been happy to move should a disabled person turn up but as a disabled driver I cannot see me readily asking a Top Gear film crew to move!

Having worked in television I do appreciate the predicament the presenters were under as sometimes you do have to film where you are told. However, there were plenty of opportunities during the editing of this report to either remove the wheelchair symbol or choose a different shot. What I cannot understand about this report is if the presenters raised their concerns at the time, and if these assurances were made that they wouldn’t be shown abusing disabled bays, why did neither of them check this was the case before the report went out? If that had happened the only controversy surrounding that report would then be what Jeremy and James said about the electric cars they were testing.