I was in the Hancock Building and had to use the “Facilities.” The regular stalls were in use so I used the handicapped one.
Some man then said, since I wasn’t handicapped I shouldn’t have used it. I can see a parking space but I think if you have to go real bad you are as handicapped as the next person.
Should I have waited?
Just for the record: I wouldn’t’ve waited, for the same reason that I would use a handicapped parking place in an emergency.
No. Unlike the parking spaces, handicapped stalls are not exclusively for the handicapped. If you have just one toilet in your establishment, it has to be handicapped accessible - but that doesn’t mean your other patrons have to hold it until they get home.
From a logical standpoint, the difference is that a handicapped toilet is in use for what 3 minutes? before becoming available to anyone else. A parking place can be tied up for hours.
If there is a line, I would encourage any handicapped person to use the designated stall the next time it became vacant, figuring how much longer it probably took them to get to the line.
But if no handicapped person is waiting, why should everyone else wait longer?
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
So is it okay to park in a handicapped space when there are 10 other handicapped spaces open? The odds on 11 handicapped people showing up at once have to be astronomical. And even if they did, I’d gladly move my car.
That’s what I’m saying, Puffington. The number of handicapped spots is bullshit. What are the chances, statistically, that 5% of all persons in Wal-Mart at any given time are going to be handicapped to the point that they require use of a handicapped spot? Add to that the new ‘expecting mothers’ spots, and the new pharmacy spots, and you have to walk about two miles to get to the fucking store. I say cut the numbers of handicapped spots in half, thirds, even. You NEVER see them all full, at least, not full with people with tags. It’s bullshit.
Oh, and fuck the guy who said not to use the stall. Kick his ass. First of all, it’s not any of his business where you piss, and second, he’s breaking the ‘no talking in the guys room’ rule by talking to you. And third, he has NO RIGHT TO QUESTION WHERE YOU PISS! I’ve seen a handicapped person using a handicapped stall only once or twice in my lifetime. Persons should not shun using said stall because there is an astronomical chance that someone in a wheelchair (the only people who really HAVE to use a handicapped stall) would show up. He can go to hell for thinking he’s better than you.
My $.02
–Tim
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
Dance like nobody’s watching! …(Paraphrased)
Oh, I know about those blue spaces. First of all there is a set limit on how many there can be in a City. So, if one area needs one, they have to take one from another area.
They are based on a percentage of the number of regualar spaces.
I don’t think you are going to see 12 in a row, but even if you did its probably because they are next to an access ramp or elevator.
Actually, mangeorge, I talk in the bathroom, also. I was just referring to Dave Barry’s rules for guys bathroom useage. Like, not using stalls next to each other, not ‘glancing’ stuff like that. Very funny.
–Tim
I’ll see if I can find a link.
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
Perhaps this will settle the issue…
When I went to this fairly large Mexican restaurant (can’t remember the name) a couple weeks ago, the ONLY stall available was a handicapped stall. There was also only two urinals, both designed to accommodate little kids. Clearly the owners were covering their bases, but, Christ, only THREE bathroom facilities to accommodate a hundred people?! What idiots design bathrooms nowadays?
My company, a construction company, recently completed the new headquarters for their offices.
This building is 2 stories with 2 large women’s restrooms and 2 large men’s restrooms. Seeing as our company was the first tenant, we had two more restrooms placed in our office spaces. By law, we were required to have both restrooms handicapped accessable. (I think it had to do with the proximity of the two.) But if we aren’t sposed to use them, then I think you better call the toilet police because we all do.
Handicapped stalls are not under the same rules as handicapped parking.
So, to the those that need to pee, it’s first come first serve in my eye.
Handicapped parking places are protected by law and you can get a ticket for parking illegally in one of them. However, the last time I checked, there isn’t a bathroom police that tickets people for using handicapped stalls in a restroom.
I would think someone in a wheelchair would be upset if you used the handicapped stall if there were others one available and you were making him/her wait.
Other than that, I would just use whatever I could find available.
You might want tp reword that statement, chick. 
Peace,
mangeorge
Work like you don’t need the money…
Love like you’ve never been hurt…
Dance like nobody’s watching! …(Paraphrased)
I understand if a person uses a handicapped stall when the regular stalls in use. What I hate is when people deliberately breeze right past empty regular stalls and use the handicapped stall. It galls me to no end to have to wait to use the handicapped stall when it’s being used by a person who doesn’t need it and the other stalls are empty.
And, for the record, just because a person’s legs are strong enough to get them to the restroom without using a wheelchair doesn’t mean they are strong enough to stand a person up from a low toilet seat. These tasks are performed by different muscle groups, and some diseases are very specific in the muscle groups they attack. I have personal experience in this area. I can walk to the restroom fine, but if I don’t have a raised toilet seat or at least handbars available, I’m stuck.
Finally, on the matter of handicapped parking, we do have to PAY for the priviledge of using those spaces, so again it galls me when a person who is perfectly capable of walking “two miles” to the store decides they have the right to park there, potentially taking a spot away from a person who really does need it. I would estimate for every establishment I’ve gone to where there were several unused handicapped spaces, I’ve been to a dozen more where there are only a couple handicapped spaces, and quite often they are in use.
Jeez, if nature gave you a pair of healthy, strong legs, then be glad of it and use them. Believe me, I’d rather to park where ever and walk “2 miles” to a store if I had to than live like this.
“I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it,” Jack Handy
Thanks, Gr8Kat. Those of us who don’t have some trouble getting around can’t possibly undrestand what it’s like. I’m glad to walk the “2 miles”, just on the off chance that you might need the extra room of the reserved
space to get out of your car.
Those accommodations, required by the ADA, come out of need. Not out of some conspiracy to inconvenience you, Homer.
If you sense an edge to my replies, Homer, that’s because attitudes like yours piss me off.
Peace,
mangeorge
yeah, thanks, Kat, sometimes we forget why they are there. I for one wouldn’t be caught dead parking in a “handicap” parking space. When I had an emergency, I parked in a non-parking space without considering a handicap space as a posibility.
As far a the handicap stall goes though, I think that is a matter of giving preference to not using it if posible. Who knows, the next person thru the door maybe in a wheelchair. But when it’s crowded and there’s no wheelchair bound people around then I don’t think it is suppose to be excluded by us unhandicapped. I don’t think that’s the idea at all. Just to try to be reasonably considerate.
Mangeorge: if you’ve read some of Homer’s other stuff, you’d realize he seems to be wound a little tight.
I have, Jim, and I’m probably giving him just what he wants. I wish somebody would slip the man a Quaalude.
“What goes around…”
Peace,
mangeorge
I’d like to preface my statements by saying that it is only God’s good graces that I have no need for the handicapped spaces today. When I was 13 the doctor told me that I would be wheelchair bound by 18 or 19 (I really messed up my knees). I’m now 30 and I can still walk just fine (lots of pain sometimes - but I can walk).
That said…
Just because a person is handicapped why should their bladder take precedence over mine? I was always told that those stalls were not exclusive to handicapped people (unlike the parking spaces) but that they were the handicapped accessible stalls. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t go out of my way to use them, but, when ya gotta go, ya gotta go.
The parking spaces on the other hand, I would NEVER, EVER, EVER park in one of those. I would rather park illegally and risk a ticket than do that (regardless of how many of the spaces are currently unused). I get so furious at people that do that. My ex-mother-in-law used to do that. Yes, my ex-father-in-law was handicapped, but she would use the spaces when he wasn’t even with her. That used to burn me up. I would never put my car in one of those spaces, even when my knees are at their worst - I just gimp along from my spot “2 miles away”. And, then, usually, some perfectly healthy 20 year old bimbo parks in one and goes loping into the mall like she owns the place - GGGRRRRRR. The other spots, OTOH, piss me off royaly. In the mall near me, for six rows across, up both sides of the rows, in front of every door is the following: 6 handicapped spaces (fine, this mall is busy), 3 “for our senior customers” spaces (don’t really agree with it, but I can deal), 3 pregnant women spaces (give me a break), and 3 women with children spaces (you have got to be kidding me). That’s a bit excessive, don’t you think?
Hey! I’m only 5’2". Can I have some “short people parking”? My legs are shorter than tall people’s. I have to walk faster to keep up. I have to take more steps per yard to get where I’m going. That’s a lot of work. Why should I have to walk as far as tall people? I’m writing my congressman. (for the humor impaired: that was a joke)
There’s no snooze alarm on a hungry cat. =^…^=
Having worked as a parking lot attendant, I have to say, I have 2 opinions of handicapped spaces:
I worked at a theater. We had many senior customers, and the handicapped spaces would fill very quickly. I would get EXTREMELY pissed at the people who would park in the handicapped spaces and then hop out of their cars and skip to the show. They had the plates, so it was legal, but it was just wrong.
I worked at the beach. Being a standalone parking lot, we were NOT required to have handicapped spaces. People would come and bitch at us anyway. I should preface this by saying that we were “the cheap lot” at least 400 feet farther away from the beach than the other lots, which cost only $1 more. These handicapped people would come in and yell at us for not having spaces that we were not required to have, and who fully intended to walk an extra quarter mile, and most likely enjoy the amusement facilities that the boardwalk had to offer. Those people really burned me. A lot…it’s way too much to ask.
That said, I pee in handicapped toilets all the time. SOOO much more room.
Truth does not change because it is, or is not, beleived by a majority of the people.
-Giordano Bruno
While I don’t believe people where I live need to pay for the handicap parking placard, they do have to qualify under some strict guidelines, including approval/recommendation from at least 2 doctors.
My gradfather lost his leg 10 years ago, but he was still able to drive. He spent months learning to walk again with on a prosthetic leg (in his 70s). He was a very proud man, and it hurt him like you wouldn’t believe when he had to ask me to go into a store for him because some able-bodied person had parked in the handicap zone “just for a minute.”
Astronomical? I rarely ever see them empty. We only have handicap spots here, no pregnancy, senior, or woman with kids spots (you guys seriously have those? yikes! Little kids can’t walk across a parking lot?). The grocery stores all have at least 4 handicap spots each, the mall has about 15 handicap spots, and there are at least 2 spots on every block in the downtown core. And more often than not, the majority of the handicap spots are occupied by vehicles with the placard. There are a lot of seniors (used to be lots of veterans, but there aren’t many left anymore) and disabled people here, and they have to shop too.
There is nothing wrong with using the handicap washroom stall if there are no other stalls available, and in my training in disability education they said the same thing. A woman in a wheelchair was one of the people who trained me, and she said that it is perfectly all right for someone to use the handicap stall if all the others are full. However, if there are other stalls available, you should use those.