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My wife has been a quadriplegic for over 30 years and is able to drive. I have been through the whole history of disabled access. In recent years I have noticed a huge increase in disabled parking abuse and something needs to be done or the whole program will be useless to those for whom it was intended. You will find four types of people who use handicapped.
1. Those who are clearly handicapped, like my wife. No question, no problem.
2. Those who are handicapped but do not appear to be. These people have cardiac, respiratory, visual or some similar disability and cannot walk or should not walk further than necessary.
3. Those who have asked their doctor for a handicapped sticker to make their lives easier although they really do not need preferred parking. Many doctors do not really care who they give placards to and many people only care about their own convenience, at the expense of a truly disabled person who may have to forego something because there is no parking or suffer a truly severe inconvenience.
4. Those who use a forged placard or someone else's placard.
This is one of those things which, relatively speaking, doesn't effect that many people - only those actually handicapped. However, in my opinion, this program is revealing a despicable class of people among us.
I was diagnosed with a painful, progressive disease several years ago. My doctors will give me whatever I request to help myself. I would not ask for a parking placard or anything of the kind. I exercise, I walk, I push myself and, guess what, I feel a hell of a lot better.
How would you like to be forced to remove a wheelchair from a crowded movie theater parking lot because all the disabled parking is taken. Seeing a Yukon and a HumVee with placards. And then go in the theater to find an obese family of five sitting in the handicapped row eating popcorn. Been there?
Too many doctors give the OK for the handicapped stickers now. I think they do not want to bother arguing with why someone should not get one. It is easier to sign the paper than have to explain. It is a shame and I see the misuse all of the time.
Just yesterday while I was pumping gas a women pulled up and started honking her horn for someone to come pump her gas for her. When the attendent looked outside she waved her handicapped card at him. While he was pumping her gas an old friend had pulled up and would you believe she jumped right out of her car and ran, yes I said ran over to hug him! But she could not pump her own gas?! That poor guy had to hurry the customers out of the store and lock the door just to help this one women. Pretty sad if you ask me...
You will find four types of people who use handicapped . . . .
You forgot the fifth type of person -- fully able-bodied people who park in the handicapped spots WITHOUT placards simply because they are too lazy to walk an extra few feet!! This is especially prevalent in Los Angeles.
Disabled parking abuse is my biggest pet peeve. I am all too familiar with it. Both of my husbands have been disabled. My 1st husband tested atomic bombs during World War II, which ended up destroying his respiratory system. For the 5 years before he died, he couldn't walk more than 30 feet without having to stop to catch his breath. This made going out in public an adventure! Because he was a proud (& REALLY stubborn!!) man, he didn't want to take his portable oxygen with him, & he refused to allow me to let him off in front of the doors at the store if the handicapped spaces were full. Almost all of the times the spaces were full, there were at least 2 out of the 6 spaces that had no placards hanging nor handicapped license plates on the cars. The spaces were taken by lazy "I don't want to walk an extra 10-feet" people" -- not truly handicapped people that just forgot to put their placard up. I know because I would ask these people where their placard was, & they ended up telling me they didn't have one. During these times, I could literally see his condition deteriorate before my eyes when he had to walk the extra distance.
My current husband was born with a genetic hip defect. He's had to have hip surgeries every 5 years from the time he was 6, and it has made 1 of his legs shorter than the other. It has also affected his knees. He is in constant pain. I've seen the same thing regarding handicapped spaces happen with him -- spaces being taken by people with no placards or handicapped license plates -- by people that aren't disabled.
As I said, this is especially prevalent in Los Angeles. I got in the habit of checking to see how many cars in handicapped spaces had placards/license plates everywhere I went. On average, there were at least 2 out of 6 spaces taken by people with no placards/plates at all. Unfortunately, Los Angeles (at least in my area), to my knowledge, has no volunteer handicapped enforcement unit, like some other parts of the country do. I would have been the first to join!! On a brighter note, since I moved to the Charlotte area 8 months ago, I have yet to see any cars parked in the handicapped spaces without a placard.
I just wish people would realize the impact their selfish actions have on the truly disabled who really need the handicapped spaces. They have no idea the pain & suffering they cause.
The criteria for issuing of handicapped permits should be strengthened, people providing them w/o following strict critera should receive harsh fines as well as the handicapped space(s) offenders. The fines should be very, very expensive with losing challenges required to pay court expenses as well as the fine. Although not practical for every handicapped space obviously, use of video cameras to record license tag plates/image of offender's vehicle/time & date of handicap parking space violations would catch many more violators. But..will it ever happen? Ha!
Twice I have seen people abuse the wheelchairs at Disneyland. If you are diabled you don't have to wait in line for 1-2 hours like eveyone else. You get to go right on the ride. Both times I saw the people later walking around no problem. One was a teenager and the other, the worst, was an 11 year old girl with some white trash parents that I even heard the mom say "stop jumping around your supose to be disabled"
"How would you like to be forced to remove a wheelchair from a crowded movie theater parking lot because all the disabled parking is taken. Seeing a Yukon and a HumVee with placards. And then go in the theater to find an obese family of five sitting in the handicapped row eating popcorn. Been there?"
Parents like this set a terrible example for their kids.
I worked with a fellow in a Palm Beach Hotel who had a handicap placard because he occasionally took his grandfather to doctor appointments, but he joked to me that it was great to use for himself - and yes, he was a real Florida cracker of a jerk besides.
Since getting my mobility scooter I try not to park in handicapt spaces. But would you believe the problems I have encountered loading. One nut even stopped behind my pick up while my son was loading & refused to move. I ended up having him towed so I could go home. His excuse was he was only looking for his kid & didn't want to properly park. Only be a few minutes. How Rude.....
Improper Use of Handicap Placards in South Florida
While I am completely uneducated as to the rules for acquiring a handicap placard/sticker in Florida, I, like most people in the US are catching on to the abuse that is going on out there by mostly undeserving wealthy individuals taking advantage of the system.
I know this because I witnessed first hand in south florida as two wealthy individuals abused the system. They are Victoria Ranger and Mike Nunez, both obviously in good physical shape. In particular I saw them somehow acquire a handicap sticker and put this sticker on their convertible Bentley and convertible Mercedes, and had the audacity to drive around parking right up in front of parking lots, when others obviously deserved the spot. I thought these thoughtless crooks, because obviously there should be laws against it, were the only people doing this.
Over the past year in south florida I have seen it over and over again. Recently I saw a Rolls Royce with a handicap placard parked out in front of Mizner Park, a place where they could easily pay for valet parking. What was funny about this, is they parked almost 500 feet from where they were going and jogged back to their car when they were finished with their activities.
Maybe south florida is beginning to become like a third world country, where the rich make the rules, or we in south florida are letting it happen. Either way, we should all push for laws against this abuse in each of our states. Obviously those who figure out or pay for this handicap placard are able to pay any serious fine they would receive, so the penalty should be having their driver's license and name published in local papers. Not sure what else will threaten these guys from doing this insensitive act. Maybe jail time.
My wife has been a quadriplegic for over 30 years and is able to drive. I have been through the whole history of disabled access. In recent years I have noticed a huge increase in disabled parking abuse and something needs to be done or the whole program will be useless to those for whom it was intended. You will find four types of people who use handicapped.
1. Those who are clearly handicapped, like my wife. No question, no problem.
2. Those who are handicapped but do not appear to be. These people have cardiac, respiratory, visual or some similar disability and cannot walk or should not walk further than necessary.
3. Those who have asked their doctor for a handicapped sticker to make their lives easier although they really do not need preferred parking. Many doctors do not really care who they give placards to and many people only care about their own convenience, at the expense of a truly disabled person who may have to forego something because there is no parking or suffer a truly severe inconvenience.
4. Those who use a forged placard or someone else's placard.
This is one of those things which, relatively speaking, doesn't effect that many people - only those actually handicapped. However, in my opinion, this program is revealing a despicable class of people among us.
I was diagnosed with a painful, progressive disease several years ago. My doctors will give me whatever I request to help myself. I would not ask for a parking placard or anything of the kind. I exercise, I walk, I push myself and, guess what, I feel a hell of a lot better.
How would you like to be forced to remove a wheelchair from a crowded movie theater parking lot because all the disabled parking is taken. Seeing a Yukon and a HumVee with placards. And then go in the theater to find an obese family of five sitting in the handicapped row eating popcorn. Been there?
I didn't realize how bad it was out there for handicapped parking until I received my placard. You can by no means tell that I am disabled, I have fibromyaliga, RA, and Respiratory problems, I do not use my handicapped parking on nice days, I would much rather walk.
I live in Minnesota, and it gets very cold here, when that happens, I have a very hard time moving at any pace, and with asthma and other upper respiratory problems, I then try to park as close as I can.
I have noticed many of times even at my daughters school, people have taken the handicapped parking spots, I have taken down the lic. plate numbers, turned them over to police, and they still park there, so it does no good to even call in or take down plate numbers. Believe me I understand!!!!
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