This thread is interesting to me because I live in northern New Hampshire which is a fairly rural area and I never heard of anyone getting any sort of ticket for misusing handicapped spaces.
I transport my handicapped mother around to appointments and use HER placard. There are a few times i have forgotten to put it up and no one has ever said anything to me or noticed. The only town in my area that has an officer specifically for parking violations is the one with the local college. The other small towns in my area only have general police officers and I assume they are probably too busy to deal with parking violations.
So this thread is interesting and reminds me I have to be more mindful when I travel to southern part of my state that is more built up and urban.
The problem is that if you’re standing in a hcp parking space when a hcp person shows up, then they are denied the use of it. They would have to look closely enough to see that you’re actually sitting in the car, and then they would have to take the trouble to get your attention, position themselves somewhere where they can communicate clearly with you, and then have enough assertiveness to actually ask you to move.
I don’t know what the law is about standing in fire lanes, but it seems much easier for an emergency vehicle to grab your attention and get you to move.
Ann Arbor can ticket for standing in an hcp spot. I was doing exactly that when a cop came by and told that she could ticket me, but she let me go with just that warning.
Years ago, there was a columnist in the San Francisco Chronicle whose husband was quadriplegic following a bicycle accident, and wrote regularly about their struggles for the paper. One that stuck out to me was when she and a friend, who was also disabled and had a handicapped placard, went out for lunch. They took the columnists van, and parked in a handicapped space, only to get a ticket and have their placard revoked because the person the placard was assigned to wasn’t using the vehicle.
Yeah, valid points. I don’t feel terribly strongly one way or the other. Doubt I would “stand” in a hcp spot even if I were driving a hcp person - well, maybe if I had their placard hanging and the lot was otherwise full. Not something that happens to me - other than on a couple of rare instances in the past.
Haven’t conducted a survey, but my impression is that there are generally numbers of unoccupied hcp spots in the stores I go to.
I probably went too far equating the open hcp parking spot w/ the open hcp bathroom stall.
Odd to hear about on-street ADA parking tied to a specific person/vehicle. When our city installs on-street ADA parking at the request of a resident, they have to sign the line on the form that says they understand that anyone with an ADA license/placard can park there. Completely different.
Picture this…someone decides to stand in a fire lane in front of a store. Car’s engine is off and the driver is just chilling. No loading or unloading going on. There is a fire or an emergency in the store and it is evacuated. Now you have people leaving the store and possibly blocking the vehicle as they try to reach the parking lot. (And, to be fair, they are probably not paying a lot of attention to vehicles as they get out the door.)
This may sound like an unusual situation, but it’s really not. I’ve seen plenty of buildings evacuated (because of my profession) and I can tell you that semi-panicked pedestrians and vehicles don’t mix well. A vehicle really shouldn’t stand in a fire lane or near any exit door longer than necessary.
I skipped ahead, but the first responses are correct. At least in my state the placard applies to any vehicle the disabled person may be present in. It’s not unreasonable to say that the person should bring the placard or else the law could never be enforced, and enforced for the benefit of the holder of the placard. Seems straightforward and fair to me.
ETA: It also seems reasonable that in this day and time with technology that a virtual placard displayed on a cell phone should also be sufficient.
I’m sure the traffic enforcement people would love that system; write all those tickets only to have many of them dismissed because the phone with the virtual placard is in the store with the person. Not at all a total waste of time.
Well, if the person who parked there had a disability, then I’m not sure why they would be upset at a disabled person NOT getting punished for parking there.
They wouldn’t be upset at not being punished, They’d be upset that now they got a ticket and have to email a copy of the placard to get the ticket dismissed - if they were even capable of doing that ( I know my 81yo mother couldn’t do it herself) , when having a physical placard would have avoided the ticket being issued in the first place. You’d have loads more tickets being written and having to be processed just to ultimately be dismissed and it wouldn’t eliminate the fraudulent use of placards. In fact it might increase fraudulent use - I’ll just park in this handicapped spot and if I get a ticket, I’ll email mom’s placard to get it dismissed. Unless you are somehow going to track the location of the phone compared to where the ticket is issued - and won’t that go over well? And what about flip phones?
An even better point. I withdraw my argument about virtual placards and insist that a disabled person hang a physical placard on the rear view mirror of the vehicle that he or she is riding in or else be punished.
Some years back a group of men were having a “Safety Meeting” at the Starbucks in Del Ray Oaks California. One of the local police officers came into the store and yelled out that a white pickup truck was parked in the fire lane and if it was not moved right now it would be towed. One of our guys got up and moved his truck. As he came back in two officers came and orders their coffee and sat down at a table. After the meeting was over and we went outside what do we see. A Del Ray Oaks police car parked when sthe pickup truck had moved from. The curb was not painted red.
In California just having the placard may not be enough. An officer can request to see the form stating who the placard is issued to. My wife and both have placards, we keep a copy of both of our forms in both cars.
Another interesting point about parking where there is a meter, off street parking lot or on the street. If you have a disability plate or placard it is legal to park and not feed the meter.
That’s ridiculous. My mom has a placard, but doesn’t drive, she no longer has a car either. I use it when I take her places. I hope they fought that ticket.
Technically correct. The placard is issued to the person. Not transferrable. I’m wondering about the anal behaviour of a policeman who wants to see the details of a handicapped placard - unless the handicapped person did not look handicapped. You hear complaints all the time about “how handicapped can that person be???” I guess arthritis in the hips or knees may not be apparent to the eye. If you are not visibly struggling, expect such skepticism. Reminds me of the story of the young lady who hopped out of her car, and when someone made a snide remark about her lack of a handicap, she replied “I should kick your ass, but…” lifts pant leg to show metal leg “…I left my leg in Iraq.”
So if grandson is in town for the week in a rental car he can forget about spending quality time while driving granny around. Nor could I offer the lady down the street a ride to the store. When I flew into NJ to visit my dad, we didn’t bother with handicapped parking because he didn’t own a placard - but in a place where the car must be registered, how much fun is it to add or remove cars? If you can do it online for free in a matter of a minute, what’s the point of registering cars at all? Easier to have the anal policeman checking the details.
(Maybe a picture of the handicapped person should be attached to the placard application in the database, so when the cop looks up the placard number on his in-car computer it shows a picture of the holder sort of like a driver’s license photo.)
If grandson is taking granny to places with off-street parking and designated handicapped spaces , he can use granny’s NYS hangtag which is not tied to any vehicles. If he’s taking granny to places where he must park on the street , she can add his vehicle temporarily for up to two weeks on-line or by phone. But there aren’t any designated street spaces for handicapped parking in NYC - the placard simply exempts the vehicle from some parking regulations and time limits and payment for metered parking. There are lots of streets where the placard doesn’t help at all - for example, there are no spaces in my immediate neighborhood where the placard would be useful , as there aren’t any “no parking” regulations. There are “no standing” and “no stopping” zones but the placard doesn’t allow parking in them. So if grandson was bringing granny to my house, he’d have to drop her off and go find a parking space if there didn’t happen to be a close enough one , just as my sister does even though her vehicle is listed on my mother’s placard.
The NYC handicapped placard is mostly useful for areas with parking rules that allow street cleaning ( “No parking 8:30-11” on one side of the street on Monday and the opposite side on Tuesday for example). It’s really not useful at all in areas where there are no meters or other parking restrictions - it’s not like the placard creates a parking space.
And the photo of the placard holder won’t work unless the police officer waits for the person to return to the car before issuing a ticket - which might be days later if they are parked near their home.