Bumper Sticker Suggesting Disabled People Are ‘Just Lazy’ Removed From Ebay After Online Backlash

A sticker company has come under intense criticism after suggesting that disabled people are “just lazy”.

South Coast Stickers, based in Bournemouth, Dorset, is selling a car sticker with the disabled sign alongside the slogan: “Not really, just lazy.”

The sticker is selling for £2.50 on eBay with 11 already bought so far by customers.

People took to Twitter to express their outrage, with user @LeonC1963 reporting it to eBay “as an item promoting hate crime”

Disability Rights UK called for the sticker to be banned.

Policy and development manager Philip Connolly told the Mirror Online: “This is totally awful. It’s disgusting. There is already enough criticism in society from people saying the disabled are not genuine.

“This is just going to help bring this discrimination to the surface. It is going to encourage more hate crimes against the disabled. eBay should refuse to sell it.

“People might think it’s just cheeky without realising that actually it is legitimising discrimination against disabled people.

“It needs to be banned, and I would very rarely say that.”

A spokesman for disability charity Scope said: “It’s time to get this offensive sticker off the road.

“Disabled people still face negative attitudes. We hear from disabled people who are accused of ‘faking their impairment’ by strangers. It can leave them fearful and reluctant to go out.

“We should be looking at ways to improve attitudes and urgently need to send this sticker to the scrap heap where it belongs.”

South Coast Stickers, who also sell a number of other irreverent car stickers including “two beers and I am gay” and “four doors for more whores”, said they will remove the item following the backlash.

A spokesman said the company is “very sad” that the sticker caused offense.

A statement from the company said: “It is never our intention to offend anybody with any of our products.

“When purchasing this particular design from our designer we felt the joke was more about able-bodied people were using disabled parking bays rather than it being read that disabled people are lazy.

“Family members and friends of our company are disabled and have often found disabled parking bays occupied by able-bodied people.

“We are currently in discussions with an disabled racing team to be an official sponsor of their team and we hope this goes to show how much we are committed to raising awareness about all disabilities and not just wheelchair users.

“We sincerely apologise if this has caused offence to anyone. We have now stopped selling this product and we are currently reviewing our entire product range to ensure that no more of our products can cause offence.”

When asked if the company thought any of the other stickers in their range could cause offense, a spokesman said: “We wouldn’t go out of our way to offend anyone. It’s not within our marketing strategy.”

The company describes itself as a “family-run sticker company based in sunny Bournemouth in the south of England”.

On the website it says: “We hand-manufacture every sticker on site in our workshop ensuring every sticker we produce meets our high manufacturing standards.

“Over the past year South Coast Stickers has rapidly expanded due to our continued success and we now ship to every country world wide.

“We take pride in everything we make which can be seen in the quality of our product.”

The offending sticker features in the “funny” section of its website.