DO you, like me, find it really irritating when shop assistants block the supermarket aisles with stock carts, causing you to struggle through narrow gaps with a heavy shopping trolley?

Or how about the opportunist who "steals"the last High Street parking space right under your nose, swooping in as you wait patiently, indicator flashing, for the previous incumbent to clear your path?

Perhaps you get impatient at tourists ambling five abreast blocking your passage along busy high streets, lazily window shopping, or worse, having interminable chats right in the doorway of that bank you need to get into?

Does your blood boil at the very thought of such lack of consideration? Well some of us have to put up with that kind of inconsiderate, thoughtless, and sometimes plain arrogant behaviour every day.

If you think blocked supermarket aisles are annoying, try entering high street clothing shops in a wheelchair.

Their sales policy is to impede prospective customers' paths with as much merchandise as possible hoping that if you have to fight your way past it then you will be consumed with the urge to buy something. All well and good if you can see over the displays and dodge and weave like Jeremy Guscott.

Strapped into a glorified pram with your eye-level at waist height, any attempt to manoeuvre between the stands ensures wheels entangled in coat hangers, sparkly tops fluttering from the brake levers and flimsy knickers and bras dangling daintily from the ears. Not to mention the potential to be poked in the eye by low slung clothes racks or to be beaten senseless by casually swung handbags.

Realising by now that you are in the wrong department, you look for the lift, usually situated in the deepest recesses of the store and barricaded by boxes because it is really designed for goods use, only to find a queue of teenagers who just enjoy the novelty of riding in a lift despite the perfectly serviceable escalator nearby. Naturally they will need to visit all seven floors individually before relinquishing it.

If, by some miracle, you actually manage to overcome all the obstacles and find an item that you would like to buy, the next barrier is the sales counter. I guarantee that the usually convenient counter you have used for years will have been replaced by something that resembles the side of an aircraft carrier. Craning your neck at an excruciating angle you will have to reach upwards like a toddler in a sweetshop. Anyone would think disabled people don't need to buy clothes.

At least the chip and pin system spares you some indignities. In the old days it was like trying to sign your credit card slip on top of the wardrobe. If only they would incorporate the roving keypad into bank ATMs it may then be possible to enter your PIN without everyone within 25 feet learning it.

All this assumes, of course, that you were able to park somewhere close enough to reach the shops without the need to display the athletic prowess of Tanni Grey-Thompson.

In some places I've seen a fantastic invention designed to help disabled people in this regard; it is a special wider parking space, painted with a yellow wheelchair sign and situated near to shops, ATMs and other amenities to make access easier for them.

I've even managed to use them myself occasionally; unfortunately many non-disabled people have got wise to these marvels and finding a vacant one presents similar odds to getting six numbers on the national lottery, especially on a rainy lunchtime.

In my opinion, abusing disabled spaces like this is lazy, arrogant and totally insensitive.

Offenders' cars should be impounded and crushed; and that includes those with a disabled aunt who lets them keep her Blue Badge in their car so that they can park outside the gym for free.

Most disabled people would give anything to be able to park in a distant corner of the car-park and walk to do their shopping, whatever the weather.

I too used to hate having to walk unnecessarily, but now that I can't, I realise what a blessing that was.

If you still have the ability to walk, relish that privilege and leave the disabled parking spaces for those who need them; one day that may include you.