"You know, that's handicapped parking spot!"

[Philliam]

@elbows

You kinda come across as an entitled ass, in this. And I agree that being able bodied and taking use of the handicap space is courting Karma in a way that would make me most uncomfortable.

As an entitled ass you’re revealing a somewhat thin skin over a comment as pale as, ‘You know that’s a handicapped spot!’. Hardly gritty, in your face confrontation.

This reaction tells me that it only made it through your tough ‘entitled ass’ exterior, because, inside, like even a five year old, you know you’re in the wrong. If you truly believe it was ok, it wouldn’t have bothered you enough to compose this post.

Also I’m tempted to call bullshit. If it’s a bar, there’s a load in dock at the back or side, no way are the beer kegs and empties coming and going through the front door. Of course, that doesn’t really fulfill the average bar performer’s desperate need for attention, like coming in through the front door does. I’m just saying, I ain’t new to bars, is all.

Don’t usually like to rain on a fellow musician’s parade, but I agree this practice doesn’t garner too many karmic points. I’ve done load-in/outs for many years and appreciate how exasperating it can be to handle band gear (bass player here), wrestling big, clumsy boxes up and down stairs and through passages.

I’d love to give you a pass, but I just think of the times I’ve loaded from a distance with that handicap spot just sitting there so shiny, convenient and unoccupied. It’s empty for a reason and not for our convenience. I’d really like to use it…just for a little minute…who’d ever know? I would.

[Philliam]

@elbows

You kinda come across as an entitled ass, in this. And I agree that being able bodied and taking use of the handicap space is courting Karma in a way that would make me most uncomfortable.

As an entitled ass you’re revealing a somewhat thin skin over a comment as pale as, ‘You know that’s a handicapped spot!’. Hardly gritty, in your face confrontation.

This reaction tells me that it only made it through your tough ‘entitled ass’ exterior, because, inside, like even a five year old, you know you’re in the wrong. If you truly believe it was ok, it wouldn’t have bothered you enough to compose this post.

Also I’m tempted to call bullshit. If it’s a bar, there’s a load in dock at the back or side, no way are the beer kegs and empties coming and going through the front door. Of course, that doesn’t really fulfill the average bar performer’s desperate need for attention, like coming in through the front door does. I’m just saying, I ain’t new to bars, is all.

Don’t usually like to rain on a fellow musician’s parade, but I agree this practice doesn’t garner too many karmic points. I’ve done load-in/outs for many years and appreciate how exasperating it can be to handle band gear (bass player here), wrestling big, clumsy boxes up and down stairs and through passages.

I’d love to give you a pass, but I just think of the times I’ve loaded from a distance with that handicap spot just sitting there so shiny, convenient and unoccupied. It’s empty for a reason and not for our convenience. I’d really like to use it…just for a little minute…who’d ever know? I would.

[Tom_P]

Huh. I thought there were no parking in the blue zone, and that you should use the white zone for immediate loading and unloading.

No stopping at any time in the red zone, of course.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Little_Nemo

But, for god’s sakes people, it’s not like he was running the showers at Auschwitz.

Yeah, that’s just what a Nazi *would *say.

@LilyoftheField

Still…it scared the living crap out of me when that damn deer came within a pussy hair of diving through my drivers side window!

I don’t even want to know why, a blink from death, you were busy staring at the deer’s vulva.

@Eonwe

A pretty extreme scenario of maximum benefit, bordering on need, was posited. Shot From Guns said, “well, then you’re a retard.” Given the seriousness with which she was treating what was begun as a legitimate attempt at conversation and understanding by Blaster Master, I quipped something snarky back at her. […] I “dug in my heels” there because even in the extreme hypothetical I (or whomever) was being called a retard.

Oh, I’m sorry, you think people who don’t prepare for unfortunate eventualities when those rare but entire possible circumstances would result in damage to expensive equipment and/or loss of a job *aren’t *morons?

Wait, no, not sorry. You’re still fucking retarded.

@tdn

Thank you for that completely original post. No one else has posted anything even remotely like this in this thread yet.

Isn’t there a waitress somewhere you should be creeping out by hitting on her?

@MsWhatsit

So, disappointed that this thread hasn’t made it to 10 pages: Yes/no?

I blame myself: gone for two months and then out sick for a couple of days.

@Tom_P

I thought there were no parking in the blue zone, and that you should use the white zone for immediate loading and unloading.

This *thread *is an abortion.

[Annie-Xmas]

Just this week I had to give hell to some young asshole who was madly twittering away in a car parked at the bus stop. She ended up leaving just to stop me.

The other bus waiters cheered.

[Knorf]

@Eonwe

I am the anti-America.

:rolleyes:

Nope.

You’re just a garden variety asshat/shitstain/douchebag.

Here’s a suggestion for something you can use to help your “heavy lifting.”

You fucking tool.

[Shot_From_Guns]

No, that’s a lifting tool, not a fucking tool.

I’d give you a link to demonstrate the difference, but I’m not going to look those up from work. But I assume you can figure it out on your own now that I’ve pointed out your mistake.

Is anyone else really bothered by the missing article in the title of this thread?

[Jack_Batty]

@Shot_From_Guns

Is anyone else really bothered by the missing article in the title of this thread?

Yes, but then **Eonwe **is worse than Ted Bundy, Ghengis Khan and Pete Rose all wrapped up together, so what do you expect.

[Omegaman]

@Jack_Batty

Yes, but then **Eonwe **is worse than Ted Bundy, Ghengis Khan and Pete Rose all wrapped up together, so what do you expect.

Yeah! well I fucked ted bundy (notice the lack of caps) and I found him lacking. Both in tension and action. Pete looks a might more lively, I’ll let you know when that’s a done deal.

As far as the big “G”, well hell, i’m not into necrophieala, even if I could find his narrow ass, but I’m going to go with “dead lay”.

Might as well as fucked dirt.

Wait!!! Is Eonwe still alive? Hide the wife and grease the cats ass! It’s party time!

[digs]

@Duckster

You broke the law and you gloat about it.

Or to put it another way, true character is defined as doing the right thing, even when no one is looking.

Second best would be:True character is defined as “When you do the wrong thing, even when no one is looking, at least admit it.”

I know I try to (I do my share of speeding and parking illegally.
But I do know that I’m being a douche).

[China_Guy]

@billfish678

Only a SDMB rabid BBQ pit pile on could make me seriously dislike handicapped people and their supporters (of which I am one).

So, just to be clear, you support the handicapped but think that other drivers should use handicapped parking when their best judgement says it’s okay?

[MaxTheVool]

@China_Guy

So, just to be clear, you support the handicapped but think that other drivers should use handicapped parking when their best judgement says it’s okay?

I’m no the one you directed that to, but…

First, what does “support the handicapped” actually mean? I mean, I sympathize with their struggles, believe they have the same rights and responsibilities as everyone else, and support government programs to help give them the opportunity to succeed or fail based on their talents just like the rest of us. I think requiring wheelchair ramps and handicapped parking is a good and just law. But I’m not like, I dunno, a fan of them or something.

Secondly, before anything else I want to stress that, as far as I know, I have never parked in a handicapped space.

A handicapped person is no more or less important than I am. Handicapped parking is a good thing, because its existence slightly increases inconvenience and frustration for most people while drastically decreasing it for a few, which is a trade-off I support… you might describe it as decreasing the standard deviation of suckiness in life. But the point is not that handicapped people are special and more deserving and due to their superiority they get the best parking spaces, the way a CEO might have a reserved space right next to the front door of a company, or the way season ticket holders might get specially good seats at a sporting event. The point is that setting aside particular parking spots for them has a huge positive impact for them, much more so than it would for anyone else.

So to me the issue is one of my convenience vs their convenience. In the vast majority of situations, whatever inconvenience I undergo by not parking in a handicapped space is trivial (oh no, I had to walk 5 minutes) compared to the inconvenience a handicapped person would undergo when there were no free spaces. That’s why I never park in handicapped spaces. However, if enough factors are in play, that ethical balance of inconvenience can change, with the three most obvious being (a) there are other free handicapped spaces, so it’s vastly less likely that a handicapped person will actually end up screwed, (b) my car will only be there for a short period of time, again greatly decreasing the chances of actual inconvenience to an actual handicapped person, and (c) for whatever reason the level of inconvenience to me is much higher than it normally would be, ie, I’m injured, I’m carrying a heavy delicate load, etc.

Now, I want to clarify two things. First of all, I keep using the word “convenience”, and I don’t want that to be misread as necessarily implying triviality. Handicapped spaces are there to make life easier for handicapped people, not to make life fundamentally possible. Handicapped people survived without them, but they make their quality of life better (barring extreme situations such as parking at the hospital when there’s a life threatening illness). So the thing to balance in the ethical scales here is not life and death but convenience and quality of life.

Secondly, I have absolutely no problem with the law as written, despite the fact that I think there are times when it’s ethically reasonable to break the law. This is for two reasons: (1) there’s really no way to properly codify the exceptions that couldn’t be abused, and (2) the penalty of paying a hefty fine acts as a deterrent, hopefully keeping people from getting complacent and abusing the system.
Hypothetical question: you have a magical orb that can see into the future and magically predict with 100% inerrancy whether a given handicapped spot will be needed/desired by an actual handicapped person in the next 5 minutes… so you’re driving around needing to park for 5 minutes, looking for a spot, and this orb beeps “clear” or “not clear” as you drive past handicapped spots. Would having this orb beep “clear” make you more likely to be willing to park in a handicapped spot during exigent circumstances?

Other hypothetical question: there’s a venue with a limited amount of parking in its official lot, and if you can’t park in its official lot, you literally can’t go there and all and have to turn around and leave (ie, it’s right off a freeway off ramp, no side streets at all, nowhere you can park your car and walk). You go there, and literally every single non-handicapped space is full, but several handicapped spaces are available. It’s very unlikely that any non-handicapped spaces will free up, because there’s a concert, so everyone is arriving at the same time, and will leave at the same time later. Is it ethical for you to park in a handicapped spot?

[stegon66]

Wow. For a board whose members are supposedly more enlightened than the heathen masses you sure do seem prone to a self-righteous mob mentality.

Was the OP wrong? Technically yes, but in the grand scheme of things it was a pretty minor infraction. Who among us hasn’t done something similar for the sake of convenience?*

As for the woman who called him out, she may have had a genuine concern about what he was doing but on the other hand she may have been acting out of a petty feeling of self-righteousness. People do that ya know. Hell, many of you are doing it right now. And posting spurious scenarios about how he’s forcing some cripple to walk across a hundred feet of potholed tarmac in blinding rain doesn’t make you any less annoying.

Why just the other day as I was leaving work I mentioned that I needed to get gas at the station across the street. The boss said she’d buy me an Icee if I brought her one back. I agreed (love Icees so I’m easily bribed with them). When I drove back into the parking lot at work I saw that my old spot had been taken. All other spots within an appreciable distance were filled. Except for the four* handicapped spaces in front of the building. All were empty. So I zipped into one, ran the drink inside to the boss, returned to my truck and left. This took about thirty seconds. Seriously. Was I wrong? Did I break the law? Sure. Did the world end? No. Am I an asshole? I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have done it had there been only one empty handicapped space. I do have feelings you know. I’m considerate of the handicapped (especially as I’m getting older and suffering from back pain more and more frequently). This was a judgment call; a minor infraction to save myself some time with the leeway of not really having to worry about inconveniencing an actual handicapped person (it’s safe to say the odds were against such a thing happening). I can also honestly say that this scenario is the only such one in which I would take up a handicapped space. Generally I don’t give a shit how far I have to walk.

FWIW, despite my evil deed I think I still have karma on my side: I once nearly threw my back out helping an elderly gent get his wife into their car. She was quite heavy and was having a hard time getting around after a recent surgery. I’m not sure why he thought it was a good idea to put her in that situation but he did. Me and a co-worker managed, just barely, to get her into their vehicle. My back was sore for days afterward. But hey, it was a good deed.

Of course there are assholes out there who really DON’T care about such things and they deserve the scorn heaped upon them. But sometimes, just sometimes, it really isn’t THAT big a deal. Yeesh.

**Four handicapped spaces seems to be the norm for restaurants in my hometown. I realize this varies.

[PlainJain]

@stegon66

For a board whose members are supposedly more enlightened than the heathen masses…

This is bullshit. Supposedly by whom? There might be a few more sheepskins on the floor around here than most boards but in the end we are people just like everyone else. We have our good sides and our bad sides.

[Disgruntled_Penguin]

@MaxTheVool

Should I jaywalk across this street? Well, there’s a crosswalk 2 feet away, so I should just cross there. What if there’s a crosswalk 50 yards away in either direction. It’s still just an issue of convenience for me, right? On the other hand, of course, jaywalking is a crime whose actual negative consequences are, in many situations, close to nil.

Really? I hit a dude and broke his leg because he was jaywalking and was in a blind spot. He got a broken leg and I didn’t even get a ticket. I felt like crap though.

I’m not taking a stand on it though. I jaywalk often myself although now I am a lot more careful. I’m just saying I thought it was a safe thing to do until I hit that dude.

What happened, since I figure it will be asked was that it was at dusk. He was standing at the entrance to the left turn lane. Apparently he was jay lingering or something. He had gotten that far but the light had changed so he was stuck.

There was a lot of traffic and I was unfamiliar with that road. I had a car directly in front of me so I never had the chance to see him until I merged over and I never saw him then either. I clipped him pretty bad with my fender and he took out my side view mirror.

After that for a while I’d get kinda upset when I saw people jaywalking and thinking “careful you idiots” but like I said, I’m one of those idiots so it strikes me as hypocritical to say the least. I am a lot more cautious though. Not for my own safety so much as to not inflict the grief I went through on someone else.

Apparently here in Phoenix a lot of people are hit by cars when jaywalking. I hear about people getting killed that way every so often and the cop said as much. So, maybe in some areas jaywalking is pretty safe but I’m betting it’s chance of injury in general is not close to nil.

edited to add wiki’s take.

While a 59% majority of American pedestrian deaths occur outside of crosswalks, fewer than one fifth occur in close proximity to a crosswalk.[9] When practiced with caution, jaywalking or crossing away from intersections where legal, can be safer for pedestrians than exercising their right-of-way at crosswalks that are not equipped with pedestrian signals.

59% is pretty high.

[MovieMogul]

@stegon66

I can also honestly say that this scenario is the only such one in which I would take up a handicapped space.

You say that the only circumstance under which you would ever use a handicapped spot is to run in to give your boss her ICEE.

I say that that has the be the dumbest reason ever to use the handicapped spot, and that you’re full of shit.

[Ambivalid]

@ArchiveGuy

You say that the only circumstance under which you would ever use a handicapped spot is to run in to give your boss her ICEE.

I say that that has the be the dumbest reason ever to use the handicapped spot, and that you’re full of shit.

Yes I agree with this sentiment. The underlying problem with the OP is the mentality regarding handicap spots and their significance in society. Many, including myself, DEPEND on the AVAILABILITY of those spots in order to get in and out of our vehicles. The OP shows a disregard for this by his willingness to potentially deprive someone who legitimately needs that spot for a TRULY trivial, insignificant matter (getting an ICEE). If THAT is all it takes for the OP to break the law and park illegally, I MUST assume that there are myriad other reasons why similar behavior would be repeated. Sure, you ran in and got your ICEE and got out and no one was inconvenienced in any way. But see, that incident serves as a “behavior reinforcer” which just leads you to make the same decisions again and again, until one day you DO really make someone else’s life harder than it has any reason to be. If everyone operates with this mentality (which MANY do) abuse is inevitably rampant (which it is).

[Siam_Sam]

When I saw the thread title, I assumed the OP would be complaining about some clueless asshole and had been the one shouting the quote at said clueless asshole. I am saddened that the OP is the clueless asshole.

[elmwood]

If want want to be a dick with regards to parking, yet not break the law, use a reserved, manager/owner, employee of the month or pregnant/stork spot. The owner of the parking lot might be within their right to tow you, but you’re not breaking the law. The only spaces on private property where misparking can earn you a court appearance are:

• Handicapped parking spots.
• Spots reserved for the police. (Usually used only when the cops are hauling off a shoplifter.)
• Fire zones.

[tumbleddown]

@jamiemcgarry

Yes I agree with this sentiment. The underlying problem with the OP is the mentality regarding handicap spots and their significance in society.

An acquaintance wrote a piece about accessibility for people with disabilities; she was specifically addressing snow/ice removal but her larger point holds:

@Haddayr Copley-Woods

Still, I wonder. Why it is acceptable to clear things enough for some of us to pass, but not all? Especially in a city where individuals are so kind?

I think it has to do with something disabled painter Sunny Taylor has noticed. “The disabled,” she writes, “are viewed with sympathy as victims of ‘bad luck’ who will simply have to accept disadvantage as their lot in life, not as an identity group that is systematically discriminated against.”

Well, like it or not, a system that keeps certain people off the sidewalks or trapped in their homes is discriminatory.

When you use reserved parking spots to which you are not legally or ethically entitled, when you block access ramps, when you keep people out of places where they need to be, you’re engaging in an overt and intentional act of discrimination.