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you should hear the list of "ailments" the group I work with have. One lady even runs the treadmill in the am but uses her placard so she can get front row parking.
Now, why in the world does her doctor allow her to have a placard? I mean, it is completely out of control!
Where I live the handicapped spots are metered.
I have a handicapped placard due to my disabled 12 year old. The only time he is not with me is when he's in school & if he's not with me it's not legal for me to use it.
Feeding the meter just like everybody else has to does not bother me.
What does bother me is having to circle the block because an able bodied person without the placard/plate is "Just running in really quick, nobody will notice". Or those that bring Grandma along so they can use the placard but leave her waiting in the car while they run errands!
Quote:
Originally Posted by skins_fan82 I used to park on the same street they do, and for nearly a year I was running downstairs every 2 hours to feed the meter, pumping in 5-6 dollars a day, and got a few tickets.
I have never understood why a handicapped placard should get anyone out of paying for a meter. Yes, people have legitimate reasons for having the placard. They have mobility issues, but a lot of them are working and making good money. They should still pay for their parking like anyone else.
The worst part is that it doesn’t really help people who really need it. I used to help someone who had a handicapped placard. He had to pay to park in a private lot anyway and I had to wheel him to where he was going. Because all the meter spaces were already filled with other cars with handicapped placards. 95% of them used by able-bodied people who were just scamming the system to avoid paying for parking.
It's not that hard to understand. Most meters are inaccessible. Make them all accessible and then they can charge for it. DC spent a lot of money putting in special meters, but then suspended enforcing it. Someday, though, we'll have to start paying. Arlington, Va. also requires paying and they enforce it. However, they use a machine you have to pay and then put the receipt on the dash so the meter maids can see it. That means a lot of wasted time transferring out of my van into my wheelchair, and then transferring back in just to put the ticket on the dash. They effectively stopped the people who were using other people's placards from parking for free, but they also rendered their city(county) inaccessible for me. It always seems to work that way. You try to stop the bad guys, but the only people who get hurt are the good guys. There has to be a better way.
Guess what? It's not the cops' business, either. Do they have medical degrees & can tell who's handicapped & who's not? No, they don't. So it isn't any of their business.
As others noted, it is the cop's business to verify that the placard is being used by, and for, the person for which it was issued. I posted that, though, to challenge the OP to do the only thing he can do about it without hurting the real people who need the placards.
There was a time when a meter maid in a small 3 wheel thingy would come by and chalk mark your rear tire on a (clock) time basis. This made more sense then the coin meter to be fed. Then some NUT decided that a person could NOT use any time left on the Meter by a previous person. City Tax dollars paid for a person to think up those stupid ideas to fill a Cities coffers.
There was a time when a meter maid in a small 3 wheel thingy would come by and chalk mark your rear tire on a (clock) time basis. This made more sense then the coin meter to be fed. Then some NUT decided that a person could NOT use any time left on the Meter by a previous person. City Tax dollars paid for a person to think up those stupid ideas to fill a Cities coffers.
There was an article a while back about a person that would feed meters and they got arrested for doing it.
Handicapped spots are up front for a reason. The individual isn't very mobile. Handicap parking is abused way too much. If you don't have a physical handicap that hurts your mobility you shouldn't park in those spots.
Who is eligible for a disabled parking placard?
•Anyone with 20/200 vision or less in the better eye with correcting lenses or 20/200 vision but with a limited field.
•People with mobility problems that substantially impair their ability to move around. These problems can be caused by arthritis, paralysis, lung disease, heart problems, foot disorder or the need to use a wheelchair.
•People who need a brace, cane, crutch or other assistive device for medical reasons.
The problem is that in, say, a downtown area - where you have tens of thousands of people commuting to work every day - there are only a limited number of on-street handicapped spaces. If most of those spaces are used up all day by people who park there while they're at work, then people who are coming downtown for meetings, appointments, shopping, or other errands don't have any place to park. It's not a question of whether the people who are using the spaces are entitled to park there; it's a question of whether this is fair to other disabled people who can't park their cars when they come downtown.
Well the same can be said about restaurant parking whether designated or not or store parking. What about office complexs? So say you have a 9 AM meeting and the handicap spots are taken by a person working 7-4, you're screwed and have to walk sadly. The same goes with restaurants. Say my family has a reservation at 6PM, if the spots are taken by 5:30 PM, oh well. The only way you can force people out is if they don't have plates or stickers by the intended user (which is why my mother don't use one as she has one for her car but only uses for my father in most cases.) Otherwise, it's nothing can be done. It's first come, first serve like any other parking.
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