You really think it’s only a *slight * inconvenience for a handicapped person to have to park far from the door???
Are you serious? You try it, and tell me. Get a wheelchair. Load it in your car. Go to the store. Drive past all the handicapped spots, pretending they are all full.
Now. Drive up the aisles, and park, say, 15 or 20 spots up, between two cars. Get out without using your left leg at all, get the wheelchair out of the car, get in the wheelchair, lock the car, wheel yourself into the store, go get your groceries, come back, it’s raining. Now wheel yourself & your groceries back to your car, repeat the whole process, like as not with your keys falling out of your hands and the rain soaking your head.
Suddenly each time a person contemplates parking in a handicapped spot its raining?
Its a probability thing… 4 free spots, 5 mins, spots are almost never used from historical data in your head. Chances of all four being needed in the 5 mins you will use it, to save 10 mins driving around the carpark hunting - exceptionally low… Which is why i must admit i have contemplated doing it, however as i stated i never do, because of the “i know its a slim chance, but just in case” - the lotto ticket buyers logic.
Around here it’s rarely raining but the handicapped parking spots are usually full. It does piss me off mightily when the car is not displaying a handicapped tag. I’ve got a kid with ADHD and autism who gets out of the car and just runs. The closer we are to the shopping centre, the easier it is to keep him safe.
Our criteria for a handicapped parking thingy includes diagnoses of ADHD and autism
You know at any point in time if i need to visit somewhere that requires me to park i will be more than 5 minutes? Wow, no wonder you have stated Karma will get me, you are obviously psychic.
Ivylass, I’d consider myself duly chastised if I’d ever done that in the first place. What I wrote was a hypothetical, preceded by “what if.”
My point was that although some people like buttonjockey308 and Dignan’s harassers work themselves into a lather over the idea of galliantly (and ignorantly) defending empty handicapped spots, it can be overkill.
The minimum number of handicapped spaces is typically mandated by law, but the ratio of handicapped spaces in a particular given spot isn’t necessarily the right number. Sometimes (often, IME here in Texas) there are more handicapped spots than needed. Other times there aren’t enough, as is the case with Mama Zappa’s mother in Pennsylvania.
We don’t have handicapped spaces down to a science. If we did, we could just plug in the numbers and ask a computer “How many spaces do I need on this lot so that a disabled person can park close up at least 95% of the time during peak hours and 99% of the time overall?” If I’ve been to a parking lot 73 times and never seen more than 2 of the 8 handicapped spots in the lot being used at once, it’s extremely likely that I’ll be safe parking in the 8th spot when I roll up to that parking lot for the 74th time and I see all of those spaces empty. Now, I don’t actually do it for the same reason that 2 click twiddle flare doesn’t - there’s a (very) slim chance that someone will need it, and I won’t take it just in case they do.
I don’t park in handicapped spaces, and I don’t support people who do so without need. But some of the time parking in these spaces would do less public harm than hocking a loogie on the sidewalk, and I think people in here are over reacting.
Well, I now see that you are one of the very few people on earth who don’t mind if people take your assigned space or park in your driveway or cut in front of you in line or anything else that takes away something of yours, since it is only a slight inconvenience to you. You are truly a generous soul.
As to what good I have done for the world with my social conscience, if you only knew. You’d be mighty embarrassed if you knew who I am.
Your own social conscience is abundantly clear to everyone who has read this thread, so no need to explain the good you yourself have done for the world.
Coincidently I awoke this morning with a severely inflamed ankle. It had felt weird the day before, as though it was sprained although I had suffered no injury. I strapped it overnight but it was much worse this morning. Every movement involved leaning on furniture or walls while finding a position to put my left foot in so that I could walk. To get downstairs I ended up having to go down the stairs on my behind.
I drove to the medical centre and at the door there were 3 vacant disabled spaces but mindful of this thread I parked about 20 metres from the door. It took me about 10 minutes to get out of the car and hobble to the medical centre. In the 90 minutes I was there no-one used the disabled parking.
No-one there could tell me whether I would have been permitted to park there under the circumstances and the RTA site gives no hint of using a disabled spot in any circumstances other than already having a sticker. I will chase them up next week to see how they would have ruled since my doctor provided a medical certificate for work that said I was severely restricted in movement.
For the medical Dopers I will add that the doctor diagnosed probable gout and ordered blood and urine tests. He put me on Indocid and after taking 2, about 8 or 9 hours later I was walking 90% normally again. I was amazed. The only treatment I’ve ever had for anything painful that works quicker is chiropractic adjustments.
I don’t know about getting the tags, but the Loblaws grocery stores around here have posted parking spaces reserved for pregnant women and those with strollers. The sign is kinda cute/funny – big bellied woman pushing a pram. The spaces are next to the handicapped spots, just slightly further out.
I don’t believe it patrolled or anything, I think it relies on the honor system.
I think it’s more rude for stores to prioritize parking for people for issues which have no bearing on how close to the building someone needs to park. If you’re pregnant, you’re benefiting from the walk. Painful or annoying as it may be sometimes – though if it’s really painful then you’re at a point when you really don’t need to be at the store – the exercise is recommended and if you don’t have stamina to walk from a regular spot and do your shopping, what in hell are you going to do when it’s time to start pushing after 14 hours of labor? If you’ve got a stroller, you’re rolling the kid, if you have to park three more spaces away from the door (or even fifteen) you’re not doing that much extra work.
You have a very strange way of looking at things.
Firstly, “a truly generous soul”, for letting someone turn around, or park in you driveway for 5 mins when chances are you are not going to need it? Most people would not consider that an amazing act of kindness.
Secondly, the notion that i would be embarassed if i knew who you were. I would not care if you were Mother Theresa, let alone be embarrassed, In my opinion you are over reacting to something which isnt that much of a big deal, my remark on you social conscience was a sarcastic way to portay that.
Now since you have made the implication you have done great things in this world, and you are obviously someone highly respected. If you know that i, who you dont know, will know who you are. Why dont you regail us with your stories? im sure many will be interested, in your amazing acts of kindness, and also your grand social stature. If the way you police handicapped parks is any indication, im sure we are in for a treat!
I disagree with you about being pregnant and in pain. When I was about 8 1/2 months pregnant, I was having a lot of pain in my legs and back. It was difficult for me to walk very far - this wasn’t a stamina issue as much of a shooting pains issue. It had no bearing on me being able to lay in stirrups and deliver a baby. Yes, exercise is recommended, but moderate exercise and not to the point where it’s causing sharp pains. Also, I’m sure that there are people out there who have the luxury of taking it easy and lolling around in the final days of their pregnancy, but I think most women are still out running errands and running a household, so not going to the grocery store probably isn’t an option.
The stroller spaces are not necessarily closer to the store (although they sometimes are). The benefit of parking in them is that they are extra wide, so that it is easier to get the baby out of the car seat and load them into the stroller without the stroller having to sit near the traffic in the parking lot.
I’m not pregnant now, so I don’t park in the spaces designated for pregnant women. When I don’t have my baby with me, I don’t use the spaces designated for people with strollers. How difficult is this? It’s no big deal and it’s the nice and right thing to do. The spaces aren’t mandated - like Eats_Crayons said, they’re on the honor system. Not parking in them is a matter of consideration and politeness.
Once I saw a teenager park in a handicapped spot at the drug store. I was walking to the door near him. So when I got to the door I opened it for him and said, “I wouldn’t want to go ahead of a handicapped person.” Or something like that. He just said thank you.
I have no idea if he was handicapped or not so I felt bad for awhile. Maybe that was a really stupid thing to do. All I can really do is follow my own conscience, which means that I don’t park in those spaces and I put my grocery cart in the cart cage and if I accidentally go out of the grocery store without paying for something I go back in an pay for it, even if it is 59 cents. Oh well.
People that are handicapped will usually have other medical expenses, be it medication, or wheelchairs, scooters, whatever. Yes, health insurance does cover stuff like that. Do you feel like you’re being cheated since grandma isn’t plugging the meters? If you want to trade, I will happily pay for parking for the rest of my life, and you can be paralyzed. It’s only fair to warn you that if I was in your position, I wouldn’t take the trade, but I also don’t think free parking is that much of a perk.
During the final trimester of my pregnancy, I had a not too uncommon complication of my pubic symphysis flexing too much; at times each step was quite painful. It is not uncommon for it to actually separate. Walking is discouraged if it seems too stressed like it was with me. It is due to the general softening of just about everything to get ready for birth. I am lucky enough to have two other adults in the house with me to take care of me. Many women are not that lucky and if they need something, they have to get it themselves.
If were in that position, you can bet I would have been talking to my doctor to get a temp handicap parking permit so that as long as it was ok for me to drive I could make the best of it. There are lots of other complications of pregnancy that could also give reason for an expectant mother to be granted a permit, or just be glad of the stork spaces, especially in winter. The fewer steps in an icy parking lot the better. My balance was way off for the last half of my pregnancy.
BTW: I was on bed rest for the last two months of my pregnancy and I did fine in finding the stamina to give birth.
In Spain, both of those are not a reason for a handicapped permit… they’re reasons for no permit.
There are relatively few places here where you get handicapped parking, but mostly people respect those spots. They’re often used as “drop spots”, you get in, drop the rest of the group and go find an open space.
But people are very bad at respecting the parts of the curb that slope down and are marked “do not park, handicapped access”. Then again, people are very bad at respecting “do not park,” period… :rolleyes:
