Is it that hard to put your handicapped parking placard up?

The BBQ Pit
1

Okay, so my parents come into town, and we drive to the nearby St. Louis Bread Co. for a late lunch. My mom has a vaid handicapped placard, since she had a brain hemmorhage 7 years ago and needs to walk with a cane. We can’t park in the handicapped spot, since it’s taken, but we get the empty spot next to it.

We go in, we eat, and we come back out - to find a different car in the handicapped spot, parked practically sideways and with no placard. I ask mom for a piece of paper and pen, so I can leave a note on the windshield to the effect of “Don’t park illegally. Police will be notified.”

But before I do that, an old woman comes out with (presumably) her grandson in tow and gets into the car. I roll down my window and say “Ma’am, if you’re going to park in a handicapped spot, you need to have a placard.”

She turns and yells, “I have a placard! It’s right here in the glovebox!” She proceeds to get in, pull the placard out, and show it to me by waving it wildly and going “Yeeeeeeeeee” with a sneer on her face. She drives off.

What the fuck is wrong with people that they can’t display some common fucking decency? I mean, I didn’t say, “Motherfucker, you get your ass down to the ground so’s I can run it over for your lack of parking ability!” I was polite. She could have said, “Oh, you’re right, it was in the glove box and I forgot to put it in the window. My mistake.” And I would have said “No problem, just try to remember it in the future.” And no hard feelings.

I’m no police officer, but I don’t think it’s out of bounds for me to try and enforce some obviously violated rules when I see it being done.

2

What, does she think the cops have x-ray vision?

3

You did the right thing. What a bitch.

4

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Handicapped spaces are for the physically handicapped, not for the Clue-Impaired.

You did the right thing. It’s not your job to look out for the dingbats among us.

5

She sounds like fun. I wish to invite her to my home for refreshments and a ballgame.

6

[blink]

SanibelMan! Hiya!

7

I think the whole Handicapped Parking thing, while the original intent was good, is a bunch of crap.

SM, why couldn’t you drop Mom off at the door and park in the next available?

I swear, there is a woman who parks in the ‘zone’ at my office every day. She usually runs faster than me in and out of the building. Her ‘handicap’? Deafness. Why the fuck does she need to park any closer to the building?

It’s the abuse of the system that just pisses me off.

8

Do you have any idea of the paperwork and proof that needs to be provided to get a handicapped parking placard?

The point is not only to have others be able to take you around, but if you have the mobility to do it, so that you can easily get to and from your car.

It is not a bunch of crap.

9

Mockingbird, I have no problem with special parking for the mobility impaired.

I’m no expert, but I understand it’s not all that difficult to get a placard.

It just seems that there are too many people abusing the right, that’s all.

10

Ooh, a dissenter! Yay! My thread will go to zillions of pages now, thanks to an opposing position!

Now, in response to that: The space we got was actually closer to the door. It was just farther from the wheelchair ramp, which doesn’t affect my mom. But yes, abuse pisses me off, people who bribe their doctors to give them the necessary paperwork so they can get a closer parking spot when they go to the gym, the gym, fer chrissakes, I mean, isn’t exercise the point? Why not walk a little farther?

I know in Florida a handicapped permit is fairly easy to get, and there’s been a lot of fraud. Other states have more paperwork.

11

Oh, and Troy! Hiya! How’s life? Good?

12

My Mom has a placard. Not that hard to get, you just have to have a doctor sign a note saying you can’t walk over a certain distance without resting, or something like that. She got hers because of her lung problems, but she can get around OK, she just gets out of breath in a hurry.

We have forgotten to put the placard up sometimes…which is why I’ve stopped keying cars parked in handicapped spaces that don’t have handicapped tags or placards. I’ve started leaving it hanging from the mirror at all times, even though you aren’t supposed to leave it on while driving, just so I won’t forget to put it up (there’s a handicapped parking spot near our apartment I use). It’s really easy to forget.

And no, I do not park in handicapped spaces unless my mother is with me or I am parking at home (so she doesn’t have to walk as far to get to the car when I take her on errands).

13

I can answer the deafness thing, at least for a friend of mine. She was deaf, could read lips so well you’d never know it, highly functional, but she still couldn’t hear. And she was a college student who disliked the idea of wandering around poorly lit parking lots late at night not knowing if anyone was behind her.

I don’t know the official line on why deaf people get the cards, but I appreciated it on her behalf. I know I use two things to keep track of my surroundings late at night, I watch shadows and make sure no one is close to me, and I listen. The latter is more dependable and unavailable to deaf people.