Oh shut up, you sanctimonious douchebag.
I disagree. Asking someone *how *they became disabled would have been a personal and intrusive question; asking them *whether *they were disabled isn’t.
I really don’t think you appreciate how lucky you were in this encounter. Waving your arms with something held in your hand around a police officer or reaching behind your seat when he is asking you questions, especially the part where you grabbed something metallic, is not something you do around here without guns being drawn. Maybe it’s because the cops here are a bit more touchy about their own safety.
One more thing: as I was sitting there, in the handicap parking spot, with my valid placard hanging from my rearview mirror, this police officer, upon approaching my rolled down window and engaging me in dialogue; as an on-duty, experienced police officer, should have noticed my huge spinner-knob and hand-controls that were plainly obvious on my steering wheel. They cannot be missed by someone standing right outside the driver’s window looking inside (or at least shouldn’t be missed by someone like a cop looking to ascertain whether or not I am truly disabled).
Jamie, you can’t be serious. You’ve thrown major fits about handicapped parking rules being inadequately enforced. Well, here’s an example of handicapped parking rules being adequately enforced. That’s pretty much the beginning and the end of it. I see nothing remotely inappropriate about what happened here and I’m surprised you do. This is exactly how cops enforce the laws.
And the people who say “of course” the cop lit me up, he saw a young, muscular guy in a sports car sitting in a handicap spot, so naturally he thought it was placard abuse; let me ask: so am I to be resigned to the idea of anytime a cop sees me parking in handicap parking, regardless of my legality to be there, they are going to “light me up” and treat me as if I’m a law-breaker, simply because of my appearance?
That’s true however there is nothing (other than training) preventing a fully ambulatory person from driving your car. The officer was trying to determine if YOU had a right to park in that spot, not your car. The reasons why he became suspicious are of course unknown but the fact that he couldn’t see your tag through the tinted windows could reasonably have contributed to that.
He was right to ask. That the exact words didn’t suit you is unfortunate but given how he reacted to the answer you did give I suspect that had you answered the politically correct version of the question he asked you would also have been fine. It’s actually a method I use frequently to subtly correct people who ask obnoxious and socially oblivious questions - answer a similar question that’s less rude.
Like I’ve said, this isn’t something that I have some major issue about. I just feel that the question was inappropriate and unnecessary. I’d rather deal with such questions that have no enforcement at all. Can’t I discuss the appropriateness of “c’mon, how are you really disabled” from a cop when I’m sitting legally in handicap parking, without it being some earth-shattering big deal that I am making?
Try making sure your placard is visible, dumbshit.
That’s the reason the cop approached you. No handicapped plates, he couldn’t see your placard through the tinted windows, so he approached you, saw someone who didn’t appear to be disabled, was, then he left. The fucking end. Stop acting like you’re going to be the victim of endless police brutality because you’re young and healthy looking. You’ve been in a wheelchair for something in the area of a decade now, and this has happened precisely once?
Y’know, Jamie’s shtick can get a bit old. In fact it can do so real fast. But then he throws something like this in, and I have to say, Jamie, on balance, damned glad to have you here! Gave me my laugh for the afternoon.
Do you want the damn parking laws enforced or not? The only way to effectively enforce them is to check out the drivers on a regular basis. Particularly the ones that don’t looked handicapped, because its the NON handicapped people that are abusing the system. You just want the perks without the hassle.
Quit working out, take up booze, slutty women, cigars, and jelly doughnuts and then the cops will leave you alone.
I can’t make it more visible than hanging it from the rearview, you nasty bitch.
And the tinted window remark was total bullshit. You can see the placard perfectly well through my windows. I’ve been driving that car for more than 7 years, I’m pretty familiar with it. Shit, I just went out right now and checked. He just used the tinted windows as an excuse. Like I’ve said, I’ve never had any ticket or anything because of them, they are perfectly legal.
I hope you realize that I, Joey P, could have filled your seat that same night, done exactly as you did, said the same words and made the same hand motions in the same car and also drove away without a ticket (except that I probably couldn’t drive your car and would likely have hit something…but that’s a different story).
You are annoyed that this cop asked you why you were handicapped and that he didn’t just ask to see your ID, yet you are also annoyed that he didn’t let you go on the basis of a suicide knob and hand controls (FTR, I have no idea what hand controls look like).
So IOW, you don’t want to have to tell people that you are handicapped because that would be invading your privacy…you just want them to be able to understand that you are based on some durable medical equipment scattered around your car?
What I think you do tend to not understand though is that just because YOU know you weren’t doing anything wrong…other people don’t know that and they can only find out by asking questions.* Something else. All the people that don’t belong in that spot that park there anyways…he asks them the same question as well. Are you planning to defend them as well? When you blocked someone in at the gym, if the cops came out and their first question was “Why are you handicapped” would you have stopped them and said “Wait, officer, you can’t do that, just ask for her placard and ID”
*That goes for some of your other stories as well. You tend to think that everyone automatically knows everything about you. No, I’m not going to dig up specifics.
God, I love this thread.
Well, I understand that the general public might not know what hand controls look like, but I would like to think that a police officer would be a little more knowledgable. But I might be wrong. But the combination of a valid placard with hand controls puts the likelihood of malfeasance pretty low.
No problem man! Glad I could help!
It was at night time, you disingenuous, sleazy fuck. It’s perfectly likely that he could not see your placard through the tinted windows while it was dark out, and you know it, which is why you held up your placard when he approached you. But I suppose in your world, it’s more likely that another person was just picking on poor little you, and not that someone was actually, you know, just doing his job and enforcing the rules.
I’ll just kick back and observe this trainwreck from afar now, since interacting with you is just plain awful. You are seriously about the third scummiest person on this board.
OK, so now it’s no big deal. You accuse the cop of mocking you and being prejudiced and ignorant. It’s a big enough deal to bother posting it here. You defend your point of view like your life depends on it, rather than saying you may have overreacted. You’re so angry and defensive with everyone, I doubt you can even see past the tip of your nose. I wish you would think about that, even just a little.
You know it’s fall here and it’s dark as hell at night. With the tinted windows, it is hard to see much. Maybe he doesn’t see well in the dark, I know I don’t.
Having hand controls doesn’t mean you are truly handicapped any more than having a handicapped placard means you are truly handicapped.
Unfortunately, people are judged every day based on their appearance. It isn’t right but it’s a fact of life.
I agree that Officer Smiley was a jerk for asking what your handicap was. He could have handled the situation a million times better. However, I’d bet every other time he’s seen a young, fit guy in a sexy car in the handicapped spot it’s been some punk with his grandmother’s hangtag trying to get away with something.
Again, it’s not fair that he thinks that way, and he handled it wrong, but I’m not suprised it happened.