Very minor, but it put a knot in my knickers for the whole 15 minutes it took me to get home to post this.
Yes, you self-righteous bitch. I realized that the bright blue paint job on the spot, along with the bright blue sign with a picture of a wheel chair and the words “towing enforced” meant that it was a handicapped parking spot.
However, did you notice that I was lugging heavy equipment into my car? And as I was leaving the vehicle, the trunk remained open, and my hazard lights were on? It was quite apparent that I was there temporarily to load things into the car. There is no ‘loading zone’ for the building, so this was the best I could do.
The thing that pisses me off about this the most is that, look, for 10 mins or less, if I’m loading in or out, I’m going to pull up as close to any building as I can. Almost any time it’s ‘illegal’. I’ve loaded in from “taxis only” spots, fire lanes, “handicapped” spots, on street corners, and double parked in traffic if I’m not going to be away from the car for more than 60 seconds. Never have I had someone tell me, “you know, you’re not supposed to park there.” Everyone realizes that sometimes you need to pull up to unload heavy stuff. Police have driven by me on all these occasions and never once stopped to reprimand me.
I’m sure that if I had not pulled into the handicapped spot, and merely, say, parked behind it in the middle of the lot, rendering it inaccessible, she wouldn’t have said anything.
So, yes, I did know it was a handicapped parking spot. But for this moment I had needs that surpassed strict adherence to parking regulations. Thank you for your concern about my literacy.
Tough shit. Take it up with the building owners. I don’t know how many times I see people parking “just for a few minutes” in handicapped spots. I don’t really care. I don’t know how long you’re going to be loading or unloading shit. I DO know that in most places, there are not as many handicapped spots as there are people with legitimate handicapped plates/hangers.
I’m sure that’s going to go over real well with the meter maid. If it’s a matter of life and death, then you can break the law. Otherwise, someone else’s medical needs do surpass your convenience.
No, the best that you could do would have been not to park in a handicapped spot. It was not a loading zone spot. You are not handicapped. Having heavy equipment to load is simply an excuse for doing the wrong thing. Putting your hazards on does not mean “it’s OK to park there”. Your trunk remaining open does not mean “I have a right to be here”. Being there temporarily does not mean “I am not being a jerk”
Look at the OP, all innocent and naive. So cute. Oh, how I yearn for that sweet innocence. Join date 7 years before mine, and still so pure and starry eyed.
Yeah, this isn’t going to go well. No, bringing heavy stuff into a building does not justify what you did. Not even if it was really really heavy, you are still the asshole in this situation.
Yesterday at the mall. We park and get out and are headed towards the entrance. Across from us, bald guy in a Porsche double-parks across two handicapped parking spots and jumps out of the car.
I swear to god, I was this close to giving a quarter to my kid and telling him to go to town on that middle-age-crisis car while I acted as look-out.
Eonwe, you’re completely wrong. And apparently a classless dick to boot.
Look, my point is that there is a tacit level of approval for bending these sorts of rules.
Case #1: I’ve never gotten in trouble for any manner of illegal parking when I’m loading or unloading for a gig. Often this happens in plain sight of police officers.
Case #2: Almost every morning around 6:30 when I head out to work, there are delivery vehicles parked in handicapped spots on the street near convenience stores. They never get ticketed. They could park a block up and not be in the handicapped spots, and just wheel their pallets of soda and beer down to the store. But they don’t. And the police don’t enforce the handicapped parking rule in those circumstances because it would be just stupid to do so.
