There’s always a lot to say about the abuse of disabled parking placards, and usually, it’s about the low-down, rotten people cheating the system. This article gives adequate attention to the cheaters, but makes a good point that the system is quite an enabler.
According to the article on SFgate.com, California, disabled parking placards are automatically renewed whether their intended uses are alive or not. People die and the placards keep showing up in the mail year after year. One woman says she tried to do the right thing and still kept receiving a placard for her dead mother.
“I cut up her disabled parking permit, wrote a letter reporting her death and mailed it to the DMV,” she wrote. “The spring of 2011 I received another permit for her. I was so annoyed. Then two years later I received another one. I will let you know if I receive one in 2015.”
Another person who tried the honest route found the red tape to cancel a disabled parking placard was too thick to negotiate and just throws the placards in the trash. But not everybody is so honest.
Sometimes people cheat the system, sometimes the system cheats the people. The system needs to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
2 Responses
Let’s hope they aren’t using the same software and system to renew or cancel Social Security checks!
On the flip side of non-disabled people pknairg in reserved spots, a few nights ago, a popular musician posted on Twitter Handicapped car parked in a regular space. and then about five minutes later: So what should happen when I catch a handicapped dude pknairg in a regular spot? Accompanying the second tweet was a blurry photo of a car with a placard hanging from the rearview mirror. The replies he got to that tweet ranged from key the car to call the cops and have him towed (??) to wait for him to come out and kick his [pejorative] ass. Yes, threats of violence and vandalism and arrest for doing something both legal and completely appropriate.So apparently TAB people not only feel entitled to park in our reserved spaces, they feel entitled to object, even violently, when a person with a placard parks in a non-reserved space, even though from context, the pknairg lot was full (the car was seen when the musician was circling the lot for a space himself) and it’s likely that the person parked in the non-reserved space because the reserved spaces were all full.There’s a strong air of but I want an oompa-loompa now, daddy! to the whole thing. There seems to be some notion that whoever arrives first deserves the best spot in the lot, and disabled people are spoiling that natural fairness, no matter what we do.