Good news: new, more secure Blue Badges introduced

Southwark Councillor James Barber has blogged:

Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker has just introduced a new secure Blue Badge starting this week (1 Jan).

He states it’s “as secure as a banknote”. The previous Blue Badges were made from card and they were handwritten. Easy to doctor and forge. So the new ones with security features similar to latest driving licences – holograms, digital photos, etc should make stealing Blue Badges much less attractive. That’s the theory. Fingers crossed that’s the practice.

As with James, my fingers are crossed too – as in my experience a belief that Blue Badges are often forged has undermined people’s willingness to respect the scheme and places reserved for people using it. Plus of course each time someone with a forged badge takes up a parking space they are taking it away from someone who might be in genuine need of it.