Emily Brown
A mum has called out drivers who park in spaces designed for parents with children after being left struggling to get her young child out of the car.
Mum Chloe Cain has gone viral on TikTok after sharing her frustrations with people taking up the bays, which are usually identified with images of adults and children or depictions of carers with buggies.
The bays are typically bordered with two sets of lines, making them slightly larger than regular bays to allow the driver to easily unload and set up a buggy next to their car, or get their child out of a car seat without fear of getting in the way of other drivers.
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Such bays can be found across the country, but after having repeated run-ins with drivers without children taking up the spaces, Chloe decided to take to TikTok.
In her clip, she crouched down next to her child and explained that they'd just arrived in the town centre and witnessed the moment two bays were taken.
Flipping her camera around to show the cars, Chloe called out the drivers as she said: "This car here, two young lads going to the gym. This car here, which, bearing in mind can't even park in the space that there is there, just an old man."
The mum recalled asking the old man whether he had a child with him, to which he admitted he didn't.
With the parent bays occupied, Chloe said she 'struggled' to get her child out of the car because she was forced to park in a normal bay.
"When will people learn?," she asked.
The mother has received mixed responses from TikTok users after sharing her thoughts, with some claiming she was overreacting while others showed support for her opinions.
One fellow parent commented: "Someone reversed into my pram with newborn as [there were] no wide baby spaces left to fit pram [the] down side of [the] car. Spaces [are] for safety not coz we lazy."
Insurance company RAC explains that parent and child bays are reserved for parents or guardians with one or more children under 12 years old, though it is not illegal for drivers without children to park in the bays.
However, if drivers without a child under 12 use the bays, they could be at risk of receiving a parking fine. When the bays are found in private car parks, any rules about their use will be enforced by the owner.