Livorno: Municipal Police checks to ensure people with disabilities and pedestrians can move freely.

To ensure that people with disabilities have autonomy in their movements and the greatest possible integration in every social sphere, current legislation provides for parking spaces reserved for people with reduced walking ability and the blind.

Once issued, the disabled parking permit is not tied to a single vehicle, but is strictly personal, tied to the disabled person to whom it was issued.

The permit may obviously be displayed on the vehicles of companions or assistants of persons with high or very high support needs, who may use the reserved parking spaces only in the presence of the person with disabilities.

Since 1 January 2021, an amendment to the Highway Code has also defined the category of “vulnerable users”: all those most at risk on the road (mainly people with disabilities and pedestrians) whose movements must therefore be facilitated and their inconvenience reduced. It is therefore important that the spaces dedicated to them are free from parked vehicles. Consequently, the Municipal Police carries out targeted checks on a daily basis to ensure that sidewalks, pedestrian crossings, spaces dedicated to people with disabilities and pedestrian areas are not used as parking spaces.

To this end, the Livorno Municipal Police has established the “Pattuglia utenze debole” (Weak Users Patrol), which verifies that public spaces remain usable where vehicles are parked in contempt of the right of people to move freely and independently. In addition to the normal checks on the territory, therefore, the Municipal Police has a patrol specifically dedicated to checks in favor of vulnerable road users.

Since November 183st, the fines issued by the “Pattuglia utenze debole” have been XNUMX and have affected all areas of the city, and in particular the areas of Borgo Cappuccini, Piazza Mazzini and Corso Mazzini, where there is a greater number of potentially dangerous parking behaviors for pedestrians and people with disabilities, who, often finding the sidewalks and road crossings obstructed by vehicles, are forced to move onto the roadway, exposing themselves to vehicular traffic.

Specifically, 84 fines were issued for parking on sidewalks, 34 for parking on pedestrian crossings and 21 for parking without a permit in a pedestrian area. In 44 cases the patrol intervened for spaces dedicated to disabled people occupied by vehicles without a permit.

Some “improper uses” were also discovered, that is, situations in which the permit for disabled people was used by people who were not entitled to it. In one case, a citizen was fined for displaying the permit of a relative who had been hospitalized for some time. In two cases, the passes of deceased relatives were displayed.

The fine for occupying a disabled space without a permit is 165 euros, with a deduction of 4 points.