Dear Tesco,
Can we get a correction on your car park signs please? New wording should say;
DISABLED and LAZY, SELFISH BASTARDS only.
It seems unfair that the disabled should have to share parking spaces with the lowest form of human life, but since a good 70% of their spaces has already been given over to them, wouldn’t it be a good idea to get the signs changed just to clarify your new official policy?
Thanks.
The sign needs further clarification. It should read: Being over 50 does not automatically qualify you to use this space. The same rules for handicapped people under 50 apply to you golden oldies as well.
Can someone clarify what you two are actually complaining about?
This is a complaint right?
I’m guessing that some people abuse the use of handicapped parking? Why only TESCO? Happens everywhere.
Does everyone who parks in a “disabled” space in your jurisdiction need some kind of special license tags or sign, and the offenders lack such identification?
Or could it be that their disability is not immediately obvious to you (such as severe peripheral vascular disease that precludes their walking more than short distances without severe pain)?
I’m complaining because this particular Tesco does absolutely nothing about it. They’ve a security guy at the door who must see how they’re being abused. Why isn’t there a periodic sweep of the car park and a ‘polite’ note fixed to every offenders windscreen?
I’ve no problem parking further away and never having the option of the first three rows of car parking if they are reserved for those who really are disabled. But it certainly does annoy me when they’re fully occupied by those who are just too lazy and selfish to follow the same rules as everyone else. Why should I be inconvenienced for them?
And it’s not as if anyone could claim ignorance; these spaces are individually labeled and are collectively signed in a separate area from the rest of the car park by a pedestrian walkway.
Yes. That’s how I know when I’m walking past rows of them. And when I said 70%; I wasn’t pulling that figure out of the air. I counted.
Not a terribly original rant. But it had to be said.
I don’t mind the handicapped spaces, as long as the people who park in them have the handicapped license plate or hang tag that goes on the mirror. The ones that grate on me are the ‘Pregnancy Spaces’ at the Watefront in Pittsburgh that are right next to the bar. Three or four spaces at random intervals throughout the parking lot take up a lot of good parking that is in extremely short supply on Friday and Saturday nights.
Am I supposed to drive around the parking lot 65 times trying to find a space and ignoring those spaces because a pregnant lady really needs to park that close to Bar Louie?
I agree with the OP. Morally disabled would be another way of describing the lazy, selfish bastards.
I don’t get the pregnancy spaces either. Being pregnant does not mean you can’t walk across a car park. It’s not as if you’re having to carry anything heavy. Pregnancy is not a disease or a disability. If anything the walk will do you good.
Parent and child spaces, though, are wonderful. 
Yes. Any space that benefits me is good. If it doesn’t, it is bad and frightens me. I do not understand it and wish to smash it into many, many pieces.
I used to work in a gas station(well 2 different ones actually) and people who would come into my stores had no consideration for others when parking. Not only were the hadicapped spaces always filled by assholes who were clearly not disabled but there were the lovely people who would park across 3 or 4 spaces or just roar up and park right in front of the doors where it was marked “NO Parking Anytime”.
The best was the guy who left his car in neutral and had to go chase it down.
Around here most people are pretty good about respecting proper handicapped spaces. My beef isn’t with people who use their handicapped parking properly.
My beef is those lazy, selfish morally handicapped dumbfucks who think it makes sense to have a handicapped vehicle and a lifted SUV. I mean, WTF? I can think of no disability that would require someone to park in the front of a store, yet roll up in their lifted excursion and climb down to the parking lot and walk upright into said store.
I wish the state department of disability/health department/whoever handles DP plate and placard requests would do a little more fact-checking before handing these damned things out. THis crap(the lifted truck example and other misuses of handicapped benefits), happens so often that I now assume most people who have these items are fucking cheats.
Sam
I can. Disabled parking permits are sometimes issued for temporary disabilities, such as a difficulty with walking after an accident. Accident victims are unlikely to purchase a new vehicle for a few months, just to avoid offending your sensibilities.
I think Sam’s point is that if you can walk without noticeable effort then you are cured and no longer need the sticker, or the parking spot.
Jervoise, in reality one out of a thousand people would fit that description, and it’s even less likely that Sam happened to notice one of them. I think he’s just playing off the emotion of that one abuser that he happened to come across, not the legitimate users of these things.
The gentleman I was referring to in my post didn’t have a temporary anything. He had permanent plates. If his back hurts too much to walk one or two rows into a store, then getting out of a lifted truck is probably too much of a strain on him as well.
I have never, ever, begrudged anyone the use of DP plates or placards. I’ve never made fun of anyone who had them, never walked around and scorned little old ladies with walkers when I’m riding around looking for parking or old men who needed to get the wheelchair out of the trunk for his wife, or the young boy with MD, or the middle-aged woman with bone cancer. But certain people who request permanent disability status for their vehicles ought to have enough sense to know that if their mom is too old and frail and needs to be driven from place to place that a lifted SUV isn’t the best idea on the planet.
Sorry you see it so simply.
Sam
Futile Gesture, is parking in handicapped spaces against the law in the UK? Over here it is a pretty Big Deal, and you can be fined or towed for it.
Some of the disabled folks in my family (we have 4. Yeesh!) need to drive vans instead of sedans because the act of sitting DOWN into a car is near impossible, while the act of lifting themselves UP into a seat (a nice captain’s chair) is much much easier.
Before she became a near-immobile shut-in, my aunt drove a large conversion van for many years because she couldn’t sit “down” in a regular car. Now when she goes out she prefers to go in my SUV rather than my cousin’s Taurus.
Doesn’t really give excuse to anyone with a “lifted SUV” but might shed some light on it for you.
My father had a heart condition. It did not affect his muscular control, nor his agility. He could climb into and out of a large vehicle, he could drive (at least around town to run errands, etc.) but he didn’t have stamina and he was not permitted (nor able) to walk long distances or carry anything (like groceries) very far. He had a handicapped plate on the vehicle he owned at the time of his death, a large, big-tired Ford Ranger supercab pickup. He had driven semi-trucks bfore becoming disabled, liked large vehicles and continued to do so because it allowed him to retain some connection to the life he had to give up when his heart began to betray him.
Were he alive today, I don’t doubt that my father would drive an SUV, probably a Navigator or Escalade, knowing his penchant for luxury. (You should’ve seen how tricked out that Ranger was.) He would park his SUV in the handicapped space, climb out looking perfectly healthy (but with a replacement valve sewn into his heart, clicking with each contraction of cardiac muscle, keeping him alive) then walk slowly into the store and find the nearest bench to sit on and wait for my mother to do the shopping. If he could swallow his pride, he might ride around the store on one of those little mobility scooters, but I doubt it. That’s not the kind of man he was. Better to sit and wait than ride around looking handicapped.
In short, you cannot discern a disability by looking at someone. One need not look frail or have a limp or be bent and hobbled to have a reason to need to park close to a building and limit their exertion. Until you become a doctor, you have no ability nor right to judge anyone else’s need for accomodation of a physical condition.
I am totally aware of the myriad health issues that can cause lack of mobility, pain, exhaustion etc. And I understand that peole NEED disability benefits like this. I also understand that people might be more comfortable sitting UP into something instead of DOWN into something. I’m not knocking people who use placards and plates for disabilities.
I DO see lots of abuse here in my area though. 2 weeks ago I saw a very upscale family at a restaurant in a very large Navigator. There was a married couple in their 40’s, 2 kids, and grandma. Grandma was in her late 80’s or early 90’s. SHe was in a wheelchair and was on oxygen. The wife had to wait for the husband to lift her mom into the vehicle. THen the wife struggled with the wheelchair for 5 minutes almost falling on her ass trying to heave it UP into the back of her Navvy.
Does this sound smart, safe or manageable? Not a fucking bit, and it irks me.
Sam
I’m also confused. Those handicapped parking spaces are enforced by law, and you have to have a doctor’s note to get handicapped sticker for your car.
Ivylad forgot to display his sticker once, and still got dinged $25, which although a pain, is better than the $250 that you are normally charged.
[QUOTE=Martha]
I don’t get the pregnancy spaces either. Being pregnant does not mean you can’t walk across a car park. It’s not as if you’re having to carry anything heavy. Pregnancy is not a disease or a disability. If anything the walk will do you good.
[QUOTE]
Sometimes pregnancy does cause the mother not to be able to walk long distances, such as when she has preeclampsia. And at least in my case, the local officials did not consider that to be worthy enough for a temporary handicapped tag or sticker.
Pregnancy spaces are also not, so far as I know, something that can be enforced by law.
What’s the most that Bar Louie can do to me if I park in the Pregnancy Space?