# Nonsensical parking lot experience **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 18, 2011, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122 "2011-08-18T05:49:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/81 "2011-08-18T17:54:47Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I have a serious question, and maybe this has been answered in one of Jamie’s previous threads but… > > Anyone know if it is actually hard to find a handicapped parking spot? I mean, I realize parking there when you don’t have a permit is illegal and I wouldn’t do it in a million years. But is it really a problem that really makes it hard for handicapped people to get a place to park a lot of times, or is it more just a “Man, those people are assholes and also breaking the law” type of deal? I suspect this varies widely by location. Anecdotally, I will share that one of the local grocery stores has four handicapped spots in front of the store, and on more than one occasion I’ve been there when all four were occupied. (I didn’t check to see if all of them had a placard displayed.) ---
**Author:** ![ReticulatingSplines](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@ReticulatingSplines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReticulatingSplines)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/82 "2011-08-18T17:55:18Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > what activists do, and if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that he’s got the soul of an activist. Um, no. **Jamie** has the soul of a mall cop. ---
**Author:** ![jacobsta811](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jacobsta811/32/2893_2.png) [@jacobsta811](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacobsta811)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/83 "2011-08-18T18:02:55Z")
I figure, cops like it best when you make their jobs easy for them. Probably few cops will object to a big fine like a handicap violation if you don’t make it work for them - Jamie probably would be better served getting a camera and a portable photo printer and clearly taking pictures of the car in the space and clear non-display of both the placard and the license plate, and then calling the cops. I suspect they probably would write a ticket with that evidence every time even if the suspect had already left. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/84 "2011-08-18T18:06:32Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#): > > I have a serious question, and maybe this has been answered in one of Jamie’s previous threads but… > > Anyone know if it is actually hard to find a handicapped parking spot? I mean, I realize parking there when you don’t have a permit is illegal and I wouldn’t do it in a million years. But is it really a problem that really makes it hard for handicapped people to get a place to park a lot of times, or is it more just a “Man, those people are assholes and also breaking the law” type of deal? Around here, pretty tough in most locations. My wife’s doctor’s office has one(small lot). Guess how often that sucker’s open. Local grocery stores have 6-10, all full. The only place I’ve seen a surplus is the local megamall. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/85 "2011-08-18T18:17:19Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > LOL. Call the cops because the placard wasn’t displayed? > > Ha ha ha. “911 – this is an emergency! Someone’s handicapped placard is in the glove box, instead of being made clearly visible from the front window!” > > Okay, now that I’ve stopped laughing, what is indicative of not having a life is still badgering her after she showed that she has a permit, and his repeated insistence on haranguing people in parking lots across Michigan. Blocking people at the gym and heckling people all the time is strongly indicative of needing to get a grip and some fresh air. I think you read too much into this situation. Who suggested calling 911? ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/86 "2011-08-18T18:25:07Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > I think you read too much into this situation. Who suggested calling 911? alice in wonderland suggested it, for one. Don’t make MOL catch a case up in this here thread. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/87 "2011-08-18T18:27:56Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I don’t see the need to doubt someone’s truthfulness when they’ve just politely explained why they provided an anecdote that seemed irrelevant to a thread. What a very odd thing to think someone would lie about. I’m afraid you’ve misconstrued **Czarcasm’s** reply here. He’s not doubting **Ca3799’s** truthfulness in thinking it was a thread calling for various parking lot anecdotes. He’s doubting that it was the intention of the OP to have such a thread. His subsequent explanation clearly addresses indications of what the OP had in mind, not evidence that **Ca3799** was lying. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/88 "2011-08-18T18:29:35Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > I think you read too much into this situation. Who suggested calling 911? Apologies. I must have misread you when you said “jamie, the better way is to get on your cell phone and call in their license number. Make it the cops problem.” I erroneously interpreted “get on your cell phone,” “call in,” and “Make it the cops problem” as instructions to call the police. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/89 "2011-08-18T18:31:55Z")
> [@jamiemcgarry](#): > > Today on my way home I stopped at the Rite-Aid where I used to filled my prescriptions to grab a couple of things I needed (water, floss, gum, etc.). When I got to the counter with my things, I realized I had left my wallet in my car and told the cashier I’d be right back. > > When I go back out to my car to get my wallet, I notice a car that had pulled into the handicap-only parking spot next to me. It was a young(ish) lady and a much older lady, and the younger lady had gotten out of the car and was walking into the store (no permit on the dash, nor on the license plate), leaving the old lady in the car. She passed right by me as I was closing the door of my car and I asked her if she had a permit. “Yes but I ain’t gotta say _ **shit** _ to you!!” “I gotta permit bracelet around my ankle!” And she lifted her leg and pointed down towards her foot. 😕😕 She was _violently_ hostile immediately off the bat. > > As she continued on towards the entrance, I told her she was breaking the law. “It’s none of your _ **FUCKIN’ BUSINESS** _ what I am doing at all!” Do what you gotta." She then walked into the Rite Aid. I turned and looked at the old lady sitting there in the passenger seat in the car next to mine. The window was rolled down and she was only about 8-10 feet away from me. I made eye contact with her and kind of shook my head and shrugged my shoulders and threw my hands up in the airs, in a sign of exasperation. “We have a permit”, she says. > > She then opens the glovebox and _takes a placard out_. I look at her incredulously, “why wouldn’t you just put that up, like you are supposed to?” She looks at me with a blank stare and says “I don’t know.” 😕 And _ **then** _, she opens the glovebox back up and puts the placard back inside. “Ma’am, you realize that your daughter (i made the assumption) is breaking the law by parking there and _not_ displaying that placard?” “But I have a permit.” :rolleyes: > > I go back inside to pay for my things and I encounter the young(ish) woman, whom I’m guessing was the older woman’s daughter and was abusing her placard (but that part is just my speculation). “Ma’am, you need to take your permit out and put it up when you park in the handicap spots.” “Why didn’t you do that?” She was standing by the cashier and she said, “Oh, will you please ring these up _quick_ so I don’t catch me a case up in here?!” :eek: Um, okay, I’ll leave it at that. Geezus. > > But do people _really_ not realize that if you have a permit giving you legal access to handicap parking spots, you must have that permit on display in your parked car? Or was this just one stupid, unscrupulous exception?? It’s really no different than a car with no permit at all. I am absolutely not surprised that the first reaction that woman gave you was “who the fuck do you think you are?” Seriously, though. Who the fuck do you think you are? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/90 "2011-08-18T18:32:39Z")
You don’t have to dial 911 to call the police. Also, thanks, **Gary T**. Yeah, I misread that, which explains why it sounded so weird to me. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/91 "2011-08-18T18:34:10Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > You don’t have to dial 911 to call the police. Calling the police, on their emergency line or otherwise, over an improperly displayed handicapped placard is still --without hyperbole-- the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/92 "2011-08-18T18:38:52Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Calling the police, on their emergency line or otherwise, over an improperly displayed handicapped placard is still --without hyperbole-- the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Until it was pulled out of the glove compartment, for all intents and purposes it didn’t exist. Should Joe Citizen do anything at all when he sees what he thinks is an abuse of handicapped parking? ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/93 "2011-08-18T18:40:18Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > Calling the police, on their emergency line or otherwise, over an improperly displayed handicapped placard is still --without hyperbole-- the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. I have a cousin whose neighbor called the police on him because he went two days without raking his leaves in fall. There, now you’ve heard something stupider. Viewing the YouTube comments of the video of your choice would also be an option. ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/94 "2011-08-18T18:40:33Z")
Yikes, I thought this was the pit for some reason. Please delete my earlier post #89 ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/95 "2011-08-18T18:42:22Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Until it was pulled out of the glove compartment, for all intents and purposes it didn’t exist. Should Joe Citizen do anything at all when he sees what he thinks is an abuse of handicapped parking? I certainly wouldn’t go any further than notifying the property management. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/96 "2011-08-18T18:43:36Z")
> [@Mosier](#): > > Yikes, I thought this was the pit for some reason. Please delete my earlier post #89 Really not supposed to delete such things, but mistake, and apology, noted. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/97 "2011-08-18T18:58:33Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Until it was pulled out of the glove compartment, for all intents and purposes it didn’t exist. Should Joe Citizen do anything at all when he sees what he thinks is an abuse of handicapped parking? He found out there was a permit, and still kept pestering. But no, every time you spot a car without a visible permit, you shouldn’t go run off sniveling to the police. What a complete waste of everybody’s time to bother them with improper parking. Cops: Los Angeles Police Department; how may I direct your call? Me: Hello. I’m standing outside of a handicapped parking spot at Rite Aid, and I do not see a handicapped permit displayed on the car parked in it. I don’t believe it has one. Cops: \ > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I have a cousin whose neighbor called the police on him because he went two days without raking his leaves in fall. This is hilarious. I am dying. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/98 "2011-08-18T18:59:32Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > . . . Based on the speech patterns quoted by the OP, it sounds like this may have occurred where poor people live, and where poor people live there is higher crime. An always-displayed handicapped placard would be an attractive target for some poor people who commit crimes, and so if this were such a neighborhood, I’d leave my placard in the glove compartment, too (with my GPS, sun glasses, etc.) unless it were absolutely necessary to display. Short of busybodies, this wasn’t a case where it was absolutely necessary to display. While reading my placard instructions, I noted that it’s illeagal to leave it hanging from your rear view mirrow while you drive. I knowingly break the law and leave it there, though, because I know that if I didn’t, I’d forget to take it out of the glove compartment and display it. I’m guessing this is what happened here. Unless is was more like I’m just popping in and out, why bother? I’m glad I read the instructions, though. Otherwise I wouldn’t have found out that you can use the placard to park for free at a meter. ---
**Author:** ![expectopatronum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/expectopatronum/32/173_2.png) [@expectopatronum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/expectopatronum)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/99 "2011-08-18T19:00:12Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > I don’t see the need to doubt someone’s truthfulness when they’ve just politely explained why they provided an anecdote that seemed irrelevant to a thread. What a very odd thing to think someone would lie about. yeah, i was thinking the same thing. wtf? also wondering if we’re going to see an apology or retraction for the knee jerk reaction to **lukeinva’s** post. to the op, i can’t say much more that hasn’t already been said. i have to agree that you’re looking for trouble with this kind of behavior. it wouldn’t bother me if you just made one comment, but following someone into a store and harassing the elderly passenger is a bit much. let it go. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122/100 "2011-08-18T19:06:17Z")
> [@expectopatronum](#): > > yeah, i was thinking the same thing. wtf? > > also wondering if we’re going to see an apology or retraction for the knee jerk reaction to **lukeinva’s** post. > > to the op, i can’t say much more that hasn’t already been said. i have to agree that you’re looking for trouble with this kind of behavior. it wouldn’t bother me if you just made one comment, but following someone into a store and harassing the elderly passenger is a bit much. let it go. Kneejerk comment apologized for in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=620871), but since it started here, I apologize here also. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nonsensical-parking-lot-experience/593122.md?page=6)