I’d trade my handicapped placard for a good left leg any day.
So wait until the accessible stall is open. The rest of us have to wait all the time.
Yes, you’re being a douche. I understand the impulse to use the tag when your daughter isn’t around, but that’s not what it is for.
You are also breaking the law.
Don’t know about where you live, but if you’re caught doing this where I live not only do you get the fine for being able-bodied and using the handicapped space, you get an additional fine on top of it and your family loses handicapped parking privileges.
If you lived in my states you’d be running a small but present risk of being forced to drag your screaming maniac from the back of the parking lot because you couldn’t walk a few extra feet when you’re by yourself.
The same.
Is that fair, though? The person with the disability doesn’t stop needing to park closer just because their spouse decided to abuse the privilege. What if the spouse didn’t know the tags were being used in this way?
The situations aren’t comparable. Leaving a handicapped parking spot open just means you have to walk farther; if you don’t use the handicapped stall, that’s completely inefficient because it’s entirely possible there isn’t another stall for you to use. Also, a stall is generally in use from a few seconds to a few minutes, versus a parking space that will be taken up for probably a minimum of fifteen minutes, all the way up to hours or days.
IMO, bathroom stalls should function something like the check in counter at an airport. Think of the handicapped stall as the equivalent of the express line that’s used for people with Business/First Class tickets, frequent travelers with elite status, etc. Those people get the first shot at that special queue–if they’re there. But if they’re not, the customer service rep will take the next person from the line of people with normal tickets. So, too, with handicapped stalls–anyone who can only use that stall gets first dibs on it, but if there’s no one who fits that description, the next person in line gets to use it.
To leave a handicapped stall sitting permanently idle *just in case *someone *might *need to use it is ridiculous.
Yes.
thanks for the replies as I don’t want to be a douche. And I have had the experience of being with my daughter, handicapped parking spots full of vehicles without temporary or permanent tags, and having to cancel our plans and go home. So, I certainly don’t want to cause that same experience to another handicapped person when I’m alone.
I’m also checking with the Washington State DMV for clarification of what the law actually says.
Update on this story: The Washington Post got a lot of replies about the woman (ab)using the handicapped tag…one columnist joked that the story has changed from “police lose woman’s car” to “woman parked in handicapped spot.”
The Washington Examiner has some sobering statistics to offer:
Parking is especially hard to find in Alexandria…but that 90 percent rate is amazing.
Okay, this ought to please all of y’all with a need for some payback. Many years ago, a family friend with a degenerative muscle disease parked her converted van in a handicapped spot. The spot had the usual striped no parking space next to it, to accomodate a chairlift. While she was at dinner, some asswipe parked his car (I don’t know what kind, but I really hope it was something expensive) in the striped space. So my friend, on returning, could not get into her van.
She calmly activated the remote controlled chairlift and scraped it up and down the asswipe’s car six or seven times. Causing, I really really hope, thousands of dollars of damage.
Revenge is a dish best served with a hydraulic chairlift, mofo!
I love it! 
Though the kind of asswipe who’d park like that, is also the kind of asswipe who’d whine to the police about how his car was VANDALIZED, and sue your family friend. Presumably the friend had to wait around until asswipe returned and saw the mess?
Fortunately, no. My friend was with some other friends (including my mother, who is my source for this story) and one of them was able to get into the van and back it out. Tricky, since part of the conversion for my friend’s van involved taking out the driver’s seat, so whoever it was had to sort of hunch over the pedals and the wheel.
But that’s the best part - I just love imaging the look on the asswipe’s face when he came out to find his car scraped up, and had nobody to blame.
But himself!
Good for you! One of the worst things for a handicapped person to find when they REALLY have to pee is a Buick in the stall.
Well, two wrongs, and all that. The textbook method would have been to call the police and have him towed.
The 2 are unrelated, yes she parked illegally but they had no right to tow any cars, the president is just not that important.
Uh, having a car towed counts as something important?
Low-rent condo dwellers in my area can have cars towed with a phone call, but in your world the President of the United States can’t do that? He has to settle for having intercontinental ballistic missiles?
Hehe. Thank you for this.
Sailboat, you know kanicbird lives in his own little world. Please let him stay there.
My friend’s mom has a handicapped tag on her car. Whenever we take that car out we park in handicapped spots. 
I thought you were cool, man. That ain’t cool. 
Yeah, not cool.