I’ve never seen a delivery truck pay any attention to parking rules whatsoever. Fire lane, fire hydrant, double parking, it doesn’t matter – they park as close as they can get to the place where they’re making the delivery.
So I can’t see why everyone’s piling on the OP. He’s just doing what they all do.
If you ever watch Parking Wars, you’ll see that delievery drivers do not have any special dispensation to park illegally.
I’m kind of amazed that the OP really thought he was going to get any sympathy.
And Hitler always used his turn signals when merging.
Well, she wasn’t parked in a handicapped spot, so I can assume for all intents and purposes that she herself does not need the handicapped spots.
Yeah, I do agree with you that law enforcement is all of our business, to some degree. However, there are some laws that are more important to a well-ordered society than others. Your examples are crimes, while parking in a handicapped space is not (at least I’m fairly sure. Bricker or some other lawerly-type can pop back in and correct me if I’m wrong).
You and others have conflated my infraction with other actions that are clearly of a different caliber. Yes, if I felt safe, I would stop someone from shoplifting or tagging a building. No, I would never comment on other people’s speeding, lack of signaling, cutting in line, parking in the wrong spot, or the like.
Which is why when I do so I try to make it visually obvious that I am there for a short period of time. Leaving the trunk or door open (if, like today, I’m in a space where I feel safe doing so), flashers on, etc.
And, the strawmen are getting ridiculous in this thread. None of your scenario is true in this circumstance, as I’ve already indicated. There were other empty handicapped parking spots. There were other non-handicapped spots about 15 feet away. There was no “having to keep driving for blocks.” Get a grip.
Wait, so if I believe that there shouldn’t be handicapped spots, then it’s ok for me to park in them, but if I think they serve a useful purpose then I’m doing something wrong?
I did what I did because I know I wasn’t impacting anyone (well, let’s set that probability at 99.999% or something like that). That is a worse reason for doing it than just having a moral thing against handicapped spots, damned the circumstances? Whatever.
I’m with you 100% on the first part of this. I’ll repeat it again (and admittedly I didn’t argue this clearly in my OP), my issue is being called out by a stranger for disobeying a traffic violation that impacted nobody, including the lady who called me out. I hate hate hate it when people roll through stop signs, but IMO I’d be a jerk if I yelled out my window, “hey man, you’re not supposed to do that!” particularly if there was no one else at the intersection.
It bothered me because I felt she was being hostile to me. Not horribly so, but as a grown man I am not used to people explaining the rules of society to me as if I don’t know them. That’s the issue. “Did you know you’re breaking the rules!?!?” Yes, I did. Why did you ask me the question in the first place? Some random person walking by decided to be mildly confrontational with me, and it pissed me off.
Whatever. First, for this specific instance, it was a music building on a college campus. There is a loading dock, but the entrance is up some narrow stairs with no railing, and I don’t feel comfortable walking up the stairs with the heavier pieces.
Second, a lot of places around here bring kegs in and out through the basements on lifts. So shut the fuck up like you know what you’re talking about.
Third, yes, you’re right. I use the front door not because it’s the only option I have most of the time, but because I need everyone to look at me because I’m a “bar performer” who has a desperate need for attention.
Yes; definitely much more so than I expected.
Um, no. Actually, the downtown where I perform the most (and thus engage in my evil, evil practices) is the center of town which has a 4 block pedestrian mall running through it, and the police patrol it regularly. Weekends will see cruisers pulled up along the road and driving through all the time. It’d be fairly unusual for me to walk downtown between the hours of 3PM and 2AM and not see at least one officer/cruiser on those 4 blocks, if not more. So no, it’s not bullshit. Screw you.
Well, it seems the threshold for being a bad person is so low, that you can’t receive any worse responses than I have. I say go for it!
Exactly. Despite being instantly branded all sorts of things. The fact of the matter is; no, I did not exaggerate the initial scenario. When I park as I did in the OP it stresses me out because I know I’m in someone else’s spot. I try to do things as quickly and efficiently as possible in those situations so I can be out of there as quickly as possible. In this case it involved moving everything from the concert hall to just inside the door of the building before going to get my car and pull it into the handicapped spot.
Thank you. It’s nice to be taken at face value in this thread.
All of the straw men about how handicapped people have to suffer at the hands of unscrupulous parking-spot snatchers, and how everyone who says they’re just there for “a minute” is lying, is over-the-top, sanctimonious bullshit.
You’re right, pricciar, she probably meant to be doing good by confronting me. Or, maybe she, like many in this thread, just likes to point out to others that they are bad people compared to her. But, because I don’t know anything truly about her or her motivations, I responded politely and went on my way. Then I came here and let out the trivial negative emotions that the experience gave me, despite the fact that she was indeed only pointing out something that was true.
If she set my car on fire I would have called the cops, not the SDMB. 
So, in this thread I’ve been called a jerk, asshole, classless dick, morally handicapped, a bad person, a self-absorbed blowhard, desperate for attention, had my actions compared to stealing, been threatened (jokingly, I understand) with smashed kneecaps, been told that I must hate handicapped people, had people assume that I must be lying about my story because apparently parking in a handicapped spot makes me a liar as well, all because I parked in a handicapped spot for 5 minutes.
My actions: no one was inconvenienced. No one was hurt. I was polite to the woman in the OP.
Your (name callers) actions: you all sound like a bunch of crazy hyenas with no sense of perspective, nuance, or critical thought.
I know who I’d rather be in community with in this scenario, despite his deplorable actions. Me (of course, because I’m a self-absorbed blowhard!).
The entitlement is strong in this one.
If there really were 2 other free handicapped spaces and it was clearly a temporary unload, I cant see the problem.
Otara
There weren’t any kids in the crosswalk, so why stop at the stop sign? Am I close here?
You said:
Wait.
**There were other non-handicapped spots about 15 feet away?**And you really don’t think you maybe should have just parked there instead?
nm
But he’s also bitching about being called on it.
Uh, you really cant see the difference between those two scenarios?
Otara
And if someone had pulled into the two unoccupied spaces, we just know that Eonwe would have walked back to the car with that heavy load, and left, halfway through unloading. :rolleyes:
Don’t listen to the haters! Good on ya for striking a blow. I remember when I caught one of “those” people trying to park in one of our spots. I pushed him so hard I bet he still has friction burns on his hands!
Do you think this argument would impress a judge?
whines “But my stuff is heavy!” whines
I can think of any number of things that don’t satisfy the letter of the law that I dont see as morally problematic.
The aim of the spots is to ensure that there is parking available. There was still ample parking available.
I dont see this as the problem some seem to.
Otara
This OP and some of the responses are really confusing to me.
I mean, I’ve left my car somewhere it doesn’t belong with the hazards on lots of times but never in a handicap parking stall!! That just seems so… douchy.
We’ve all seen Backdraft so we know what happens if you park in front of a fire hydrant, but a handicap person doesn’t have the ability to remidy the situation - all the can do is wait or leave.
Nobody likes a busybody like the lady in the OP but I think generally they dislike self important douche bags more.
Seems somewhat contradictory to congratulate yourself for not castigating the woman in question because you didn’t know anything truly about her or her motivations… but it’s perfectly fine to accuse people in the thread of acting out of a desire to compare themselves favourably with you.
Perhaps it’s your belief that you truly know all those posters you include in that “many” there?
Nope. Because again, no one was inconvenienced, despite any hypothetical you’d like to throw at me, and I saved myself 45 feet of heavy lifting over three trips to the car (or something like that, probably a little bit more; five spots over from where I parked).
The other convenient thing about the handicapped spot is that since nothing was parked nearby, I could navigate the piano keyboard into the back seat of my car, which really needs some good clearance on the driver’s side of the vehicle.
This isn’t a blow against anything. I have no issue with handicapped spots, and think they are officially a Good Thing. I also have no issue with handicapped people using able-bodied-only spots, as long as they genuflect appropriately.
Not so. The law provides that there are parking spots for the exclusive use of handicapped motorists. It’s fairly black and white and dissecting the intent of the law is pointless. I can’t imagine the problems that society would face it it allowed it’s members to pick and choose which infractions they are obligated to obey and which they are free to ignore.
I’m taking the OP at his word. If nobody could have been harmed or inconvenienced in this situation, then no I don’t believe the OP did anything wrong and the woman who Tsk-tsk’d him was probably overstepping.
She has every right to say something (and I might have said something too, my wife uses a handicapped placard) and yes, the OP is quite thin-skinned to let this bother him for this amount of time after the incident but can the people who are so offended really say they have never gone over the speed limit for their own selfish reasons (late to a movie/work, etc)? Speeding can hurt someone, this incident, not so much.