Life's too short to tolerate arseholes!

The BBQ Pit
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Disclaimer: This post is in the Pit only because it contains swearing. It is not a work of art nor a beautifully-crafted rant. I apologise in advance.
Today, I went to the local shopping mall with MaxBabe. We were only stopping by to quickly duck into the food court and pick up some sushi for lunch. Yet, being Easter and all, every suburban mall-crawler was there, so parking spots were at a premium.

We circled two or three times before finding a parking spot a couple spots down from the disabled spots (ie right next to the entrance of the mall). We got out, relieved that we’d finally found a spot.

As we’d been circling, I noticed a guy driving his truck around looking for a spot too. To my surprise, when we got out of our car I saw this guy parking his big-arse truck in the wheelchair spots.

SPOTS. Yes, he managed to take up TWO wheelchair spots, by straddling the lines with his truck. In the process, he knocked over a sign with the unnecessarily-large dickheadmobile. The sign clearly identified the spots as wheelchair zones. And if the sign didn’t do it for him, then the very large wheelchair signs painted on the ground should’ve alerted him to this fact.

I stopped in my tracks. Everything about what he’d just done annoyed me. I waited patiently for him to start to get out of his truck, as I observed there was NO wheelchair sticker on his windscreen, and that he appeared to have two completely functional legs.

“You don’t have a wheelchair sticker mate”, I stated calmly.

“WHAT?!?!”

“You don’t have a wheelchair sticker on your car mate. That’s a wheelchair zone”. Foolish me, for thinking this nimrod would immediately realise the errors of his ways and move his fucktardmobile.

“Oh, and that’s a problem for you, is it???” replies dimwit.

I was stunned, but replied nonetheless. “Yes, I believe it is”.

He started ranting about how he was sick of “YOU people” , and how he thinks it’s “wonderful that you have a problem with it”, and (paraphrased), “boo hoo poor baby”, and he wasn’t gonna move his truck. Presumably, by “you people” he meant “people who know right from wrong”.

MaxBabe was getting worried. “Max”, she said, “just let it go honey, come on, let’s go inside”.

At this point Fucktard got out of his truck. Oh shit. He’s almost as big as that truck, and could kill me with a single punch. Time to walk away.

I turned away, threw my hands in the air, and started walking to the mall. I took note of his licence plate, with the intention of reporting it to mall security staff.

Meanwhile, two people were returning to the carpark from the shops. They caught the tail end of this conversation and berated him until he spat the dummy and drove his fucktruck away. Thankyou, shopping mall strangers! You did a great thing today! :smiley:

I feel great for participating in this! Why? I am SICK of cretinous fucks who think societal rules don’t apply to them! “Wheelchair zone? HA! I don’t see any wheelchair-bound people around, so screw 'em! I’m too lazy to find a normal parking spot, so it’s my spot now!” Fuck you arsehole! You got far less than what you deserved today, but hey, if it makes you think twice about it in the future, GOOD! You malodorous pond scum!

It’s just as well he left. If that truck had been there when we’d returned, I might’ve felt the need to let his tyres down. Except that it might’ve prevented legitimate wheelchair spot users from parking there.

I’d like to think that somewhere, this has racked up another point in the karma stakes. Yet there is a part of me that was highly disturbed by this interaction. The guy could’ve put my lights out in a flash. Worse, he would’ve walked away thinking he’d done nothing wrong. Still, I think I did the right thing. Far too often, people get away with bad behaviour because no-one calls them on it. Not this time!
Max.

PS I apologise now to the owners of any vehicle that might match the description of the above-mentioned knobheadmobile. Please rest assured that this guy’s vehicle was a dickwitcar only by virtue of being unfortunate enough to be driven by this particular knuckle-dragger.

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Stick to your guns, man. You did a good thing.

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Good on ya, Max.

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Great work!

Just a minor nitpick though – you don’t have to be wheelchairbound to get one of those parking permits. It’s one of my quiet nightmares that one day someone will take me on for parking in the disabled parking even though we have a permit. Neither of my kids have particularly visible disabilities but we qualify as P the Y bolts.

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One time i saw a guy in a handicapped spot who wasnt supposed to be there.
I said to him “mate, if you donty move your car, next time you come here you’ll be ALLOWED to park there!”
The man refused to move his car.

So i gave him bells palsy.

Jarrod

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What does this mean? I’m genuinely confused. The last part that is.

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NFI what “P the Y bolts” means, Primaflora, but let me assure you that the presence of a wheelchair tag on the car would’ve set my mind at ease. That, or a statement to the effect that the person concerned qualifies as P the Y bolts.

Hell, I think if he’d said he qualified as P the Y bolts, I would’ve just responded with stunned silence and left quickly LOL

Max.

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Lol! I think she means Primafloret the Younger (ie youngest child) has a tendency to run off at the drop of a hat. Very dangerous situation in a busy carpark when the child in question has a disability. Which is why Primaflora would be eligible for a disabled sticker, to get him out of harms way as quickly as possible.

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:confused:

Really? They’ll give you a handicapped tag just cause your kid has a tendency to run off? What’s wrong with just holding his hand as he gets out of the car?

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Um no. They give you a handicapped tag when your child has a disability where running off in car parks is one of many other issues. My second sentence pointed out the child has a disability.

The point was that people with disabilities other than mobility problems are also eligible for disabled parking. I know someone with a bad back who has one as well

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My mother is not in a wheelchair but certainly is very slow (she’s 93.) And she’s partially blind. So I have a handicapped tag for when I’m driving her somewhere.

Often, I drop her off at the door and take her inside and sit her down. Then I put the car in a handicap spot so that when we come out, she won’t have so far to walk. For someone watching, it can look as though I’m perfectly healthy and mobile, parking in the handicapped spot.

My point is, don’t necessarily jump to conclusions on a person’s needs based on what you see. If they’ve got a permit, it’s legit, even if it may not appear so to you.

Of course, the jackass who’s the subject of this thread didn’t have a handicapped permit, and thus deserves a place in the lowest levels of hell for his actions.

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I always check to see if there is a permit before commenting. My father had bone spurs removed from both heels and couldn’t walk long distances even after giving up the crutches.

What pisses me off is this. One of our local grocery stores has ‘parking for new and expecting mothers’ in the spots just down from the handicapped ones. That makes me happy… though I’ll never get to use one :smiley: The 20 year old boys in their basketball shorts who couldn’t be bothered to put on pants when it’s freezing out who park in these spots to be closer to the doors DO piss me off.

And there is nothing I can do about it. It’s not against the law… it’s just inconsiderate. Argh.

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On a somewhat related vent: I don’t think that people who are driving a car with a handicap permit, but have no need of the permit at that given time, should take these places. I’m not talking about situations like CK Dexter Haven, where the permit is for his mom, and he’s driving her places. But I used to have a roommate who had a handicap parking permit (legit), and sometimes, when I had errands to run, she’d say “why don’t you take my car, that way you can park in the handicap spots?” Nothing I could say to her would convince her that I think doing that is wrong. The car has a permit, true, but it’s for her, and when she’s not with me, I think it’s wrong to take advantage of it. I hate the thought of taking a space that a truly disabled person might need.

Good for you, Maxxxie, for standing your ground!

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In most places it is illegal to park in a handicap spot if the handicapped person is not in the vehicle, so norinew is correct in thinking that it’s wrong. We had gotten handicapped plates for our van based on my wife’s difficulty with walking long distances; at the time we got them she was still driving, and when her eyesight deteriorated to the point where she couldn’t drive we just kept them because the van was still mostly used by friends to drive her around. (I don’t drive.) Occasionally someone would use the van to take me shopping, and I refused to allow it to be parked in handicapped spots.

And when the plates were due for renewal in February, after my wife’s death, I replaced them with non-handicapped plates.

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You’re right, norinew. Even people who have handicapped permits are expected to not use them unless they need to (ie, some people’s disabilities have good days and bad days - on the good days when they aren’t particularly disabled, they are expected to not use their own permits).

Just wanted to add another “good for you”, maxxxie. I am also sick to the gills with people who don’t think the rules apply to them if they can get away with it. There’s never a consideration in their pointy little heads that the rules were developed for reasons, usually for the greater good of all the people crammed into a city that have to try to get along, living in each other’s pockets.

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Let’s say asshole doesn’t move his car. Do I have the legal right to call the police and have his automobile towed, or is that the mall’s responsibility?

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And even if he had been handicapped, what does he need with TWO parking spaces?

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The guy I’m dating is in a wheelchair, and he’s told stories of blocking people in who do that and getting them ticketed. I’m not actually sure how, but it’s still pretty funny.

A side note, I inherited my car from my grandmother. It has a handicap placard, but I’ve never used it. I’ve got two good legs, and I remember how lucky I am to not need an handicap spot. I’ll park in the back and walk, thanks.

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It is not at all unusual for the disabled not just to need a parking spot, but for that spot to be quite some amount wider than others.

Disabled folk might well have a differant requirement as far as cars go, they often need doors that are large and open wider, so they can manoever around to get out of the seat, there might also be a need for a helper to get a wheelchair around the side too.

Disabled parking bays are usually wider for this reason, and for some scumbag to have avehicle that actually is wider than a disabled parking bay, well that is just one very wide moter car.

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Depends. In most states, the handicapped parking sign has to bear the state’s disabled-parking legislation, either on a placard on the front, or a sticker on the back. Not the actual wording, just the name of the statute. (Here, for example, they have to say F.S. 316.1955- Florida’s HC parking enforcement statute.)

If the sign doesn’t have the statute on it, it means it was voluntarily installed by the owner of whatever facility you’re visiting, and the state can’t ticket or tow the vehicle unless authorized by the owner of the building. IOW, you’d have to go see mall security.

If it does have the statute, it’s a spot installed specifically to comply with ADA and the state’s HC parking requirements, and you can call local law enforcement and ask that the vehicle be ticketed (and possibly towed).

Again, this is in general; YS/CMV. (Your State or County May Vary)