What is you are handicapped but you don’t have a sticker?
Not true in Illinois - the removable hang tags belong to the disabled person, who may or may not be the owner of the vehicle. (Otherwise, how would disabled people with no cars, or disabled people who don’t drive, ever be able to use a handicapped spot if someone else is driving them?) I had temporary handicapped tags for quite some time after leg surgery - they gave me 2 tags. My mom used one, and my boyfriend used the other - but only when they were transporting me.
I wish the police would do more enforcement. It should be simple to issue a wallet-sized card to the owner of the handicapped tag, listing the serial number of the tag - I’d have no problem at all with the cops doing spot-checks.
It is illegal for someone to use a handicap sticker/plates in a handicap space unless that sticker/plate has been specifically issued to the person using it.
For example, you can drive Grandma’s car to the store and park in a handicap space if you are picking her up. You cannot park in the handicap space with her car if she is at home knitting.
I base this on 3 years as a parking enforcement officer.
edit: this is in Michigan, fwiw
You go ask your doctor for one, until then, you can’t (legally) use the spot.
If you’re in a city where the police don’t concern themselves much with it. Get you local media involved in it. Our Fox affiliate will do a thing like that every few years.
They’ll hang just out of site and when someone pulls into the handicapped spot, puts up the tag and walks away from the car…out come the cameras all To Catch a Predator style. Some get embarressed and fess up, some run, some defend themselves (or try to anyways)…
I don’t remember for sure, but I want to say they have a cop with them writing everyone tickets and taking away the placard.
My point is that it’s not the license plate, but rather the placard that licenses a person to use the handicapped parking spot. After all, one may own more than one vehicle, but one is still only one person.
BTW, Eva Luna, where does your posting differ from mine? I pointed out that it’s the hang tag (aka placard) that the disabled person must use for parking privilege.
p.s. I did not say, and I certainly didn’t think I implied, that the person must be using a car registered to him or her to be permitted to use the placard.
Because a disabled person standing alone a curb can be a target for human predators. Bad Guys like to target people who can’t run and can’t fight back.
Because a disabled person may not be able to tolerate heat/cold as well as an able-bodied person and thus should not be standing out in the weather.
Because some people who are capable of walking may have balance problems. They may need someone near them who can lend assistance without delay.
Because people who have communication difficulties may need a companion nearby so that if a security guard comes up and questions the handicapped person that person isn’t hustled off as drunk, high, crazy, senile, or otherwise needlessly deprieved of liberty.
My husband has had a placard for years. When he feels up to it, when the pavement is dry (he has difficulties walking) he often parks in a normal space so he can get a little exercise. In wet/snow/slush or if he’s having a bad day he parks close to the door, as he is permitted to do. While he can safely walk miles in a mall with dry floors he can NOT safely walk in slush, deep snow, or on ice. I guess the point here is that he is an adult, he knows his limitations, and it’s really his determination if he needs the handicapped spot and not yours. If he asks me to drop him at the curb or the door I do so, but it’s not always a practical thing to do, speaking from experience.
I have an application for the handicapped tag for Wisconsin. It says that the handicapped person needs to keep a copy of the signed application form with them. I guess if the cops wanted to verify it, they could compare signatures to a driver’s license or I.D. Also according to this form, you don’t have to have the handicapped plates. Just the tag.
What the heck? There aren’t enough normal spaces in large shopping centers for the non-handicapped, let alone all the handicapped taking them up. Why don’t they get ticketed at well?
(No, I’m not trolling; just remembering on old SNL skit about handicapped bathroom stalls. :))
Mistake on my part - I misread your post. But actually I had a problem getting my doctor to authorize a placard for me, even though I was clearly qualified - even as a board-certified orthopedic surgeon who certainly agreed that I was temporarily diabled (I didn’t have the use of one leg for nearly a year the first time around, and then on a couple of occasions pot-surgically trying to repair further the residual damage from the first accident), he thought the handicapped person had to be the driver and/or own the car. Yes, I did have a car then, but it’s difficult to drive stick shift with one leg. I finally had to dig up an application form and force him to read it before I could convince him otherwise.
Which is the point I’d like to bring up.
My mother is disabled and has handicapped plates on her car. When I use her car, I don’t park in handicapped spaces, I park in normal spaces. I’ve been confronted about not parking in handicapped spaces because of the plates. “It’s your right, use it!”
It’s kind of surreal to be confronted because I’m not being lazy.
Robin
In the UK the holder of a disabilty parking card usually has his/her road tax paid for by the Motobility System.
This tax disc has, instead of fee paid, the words, “DISABLED” so this is one way of proving entitlement to park in disabled slots.
Forgot to mention that our cards also have the photo of the disabled person on it
In the town where I work they actually have a handicap patrol made up of retired/handicapped police officers that patrol every handicap parking spot in the city every day. Try talking your way out of ticket with Grandma’s handicap card with one of these people. :smack:
In addition to the very good reasons **Broomstick **listed, I’ll repeat my own: My grandmother’s a stubborn old goat.
I’m able bodied. My grandmother is not. At least, not entirely. She’s 80, with two artificial knees, one of which has been infected for five years and has never healed properly. She can walk, but it’s painful and she’s unsteady. But she won’t admit it. When I drive her to the mall, I drop her off at the door with the kids and ask her to watch them for me while I park, “because they’re so eager to get out of the car.” She knows exactly what I’m up to, but this appeals to her pride, and she’ll accept it. On the way out, however, she insists that she’s fine and can walk to the car, and there’s nothing I can do to keep her on the curb. If the car is in a normal space, she can’t make it without suffering badly for it. So after I drop her off, I park in a handicapped spot with her placard so it’s closer for her to get to coming back out again. I’m sure I’ve pissed off a few people as an able-bodied young woman parking with a handicapped placard, but screw 'em. My grandmother is more important.
My brother in law still to this day uses his mother’s handicap tag to park…she died 4 years ago :(. It is really despicable.
Drop a dime on him. I would.
Toronto has three times as many handicap plates given to people over 100, than it has people over 100. The system is widely abused, and people who abuse it should face severe fines, at least. My two cents.
It would seem to me that a combo of a dedicated force of people that do just that (I’m not sure about using handicapped people to do it though) and a tipline posted on the handicapped parking sign would get people to think twice about using that spot. To make it even more fun, offer a ten dollar reward for each ticket that get’s issued (and paid). How much is a ticket? Let’s say $70. Even with a $10 reward, if they could write 20 tickets a day, I’d think the $1200/day ($36,000/mo or $438,000/yr) could easily pay for maintenece on a few vehicles, payroll for a few employees as well as dispatching equipment, with plenty left over for the city.
I took my daughter out shopping, put her wheelchair in the trunk, and her placard in her purse, and drove to the mall. I got her out of the car, and into her chair, and off we went. I didn’t even think of it. When we got back to the car, an officer was writing a ticket as we go there. He looked at her, and just tore the ticket up.
“Are you allowed to just tear it up?” I asked.
He shrugged, “Hey, I figure explaining it to my desk sergeant is a lot better that sitting in court when you wheel the cute little kid in the wheelchair up to the witness stand.”
I showed him the placard.
Tris