Newsroom
A driver looking for somewhere to leave his car apparently decided that the wheelchair ramp outside Parliament would do just fine.
When he eventually returned to move it, his explanation was simple: “But I couldn’t find parking.”
The incident would almost be funny in its sheer absurdity if it had not prevented a wheelchair user from entering the building where Cyprus’ laws are debated and passed.
Themis Anthopoulou, president of the Cyprus Confederation of Organizations of the Disabled, made the incident public after she and wheelchair user Paola Frantzi were left waiting outside Parliament.
They had gone there to attend a meeting of the House Labour Committee. Instead, they found the accessible entrance blocked by a parked car and had to wait in the sun until the driver returned, according to a report in reporter.com
“Shame, and shame again on our way of thinking,” Anthopoulou wrote in her complaint.
House Speaker Annita Demetriou condemned the incident and instructed Parliament’s administration to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it from happening again.
The problem, however, is much bigger than one badly parked car.
Anyone who drives in Cyprus has probably seen the familiar list of excuses: “I’ll only be two minutes,” “There was nowhere else,” or the local classic, “I left the hazard lights on.”
But a wheelchair ramp is not an empty piece of pavement or a convenient place to stop. It is an entrance. Blocking it is no different from parking a car directly in front of a door and telling everyone inside to wait.
For a person using a wheelchair, there may be no easy alternative. A blocked ramp can mean being forced onto the road, taking a dangerous detour or simply being unable to enter a building at all.
The fact that this happened outside Parliament adds an uncomfortable layer of irony. The institution responsible for protecting equal access was, for a time, inaccessible because one driver could not be bothered to park somewhere else.
Demetriou’s instructions may prevent another car from blocking this particular ramp. But disabled people face the same problem every day on pavements, at crossings, and outside shops across Cyprus.
The real solution needs more than a sign or another warning. It requires drivers to understand one very simple rule: if a space helps someone else move safely, it is not available, no matter how difficult parking happens to be.
