Can Those with an Invisible Illness Park in the Blue Spots without Others Seeing Red?

Christian News Wire ^ | August 20, 2007 | Lisa Copen

[listenhillary]

Home depot is pretty bad about the excessive number of spots. Walmart’s are always full to the brim.

[Coldwater Creek]

My husband was blind and we had handicap license. He sat in the car most of the time when I would go into the stores.

I always parked in the closest to the door, because he was afraid that someone might try to attack him if we were further out in the lot.

I never had a moment of guilt.

[cuz_it_aint_their_money]

I feel sorry for the author's ailments, but the original intent of Handicapped Parking Spaces were to provide additional space to maneuver for those confined to a wheelchair. Not so they could get a closer parking space to the store!
Nowadays, it seems as if anybody with any ailment, however slight can get a handicap hang tag.
If the author of this column really wants us to feel pity for those with "invisible" handicaps, then they need to make sure only those with true needs get the hang tags.

[Larry Lucido]

I went to Bangkok to see a soccer match but it was a Thai game.

[ANGGAPO]

The next time that you get CHF drop me a line about parking.

[netmilsmom]

>>Thailand?<<

First coffee spew of the morning!

[DumpsterDiver]

Damn those rednecks for giving Oxycontin a bad name.

Ditto that! Here's a thread for ya:

Pain Medicine Use Has Nearly Doubled

[vietvet67]

[Lazamataz]

I went to perform an abortion in the former Soviet Union, but then I discovered the Czech was already cancelled.

[camle]

when I was on my bike, I parked legally in a HC spot in the local strip mall. It was like seven am on a sunday, so there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot of activity.

some guy went up to me threatening to call the cops and have me arrested, called me all sorts of bad names, etc. I told him to go right ahead and that either I was going downtown foro illegally parking (which I wasn’t), or HE was going downtown for Breach of PEace. I kindly offered to wait with him, but he shuffled off.

BTW: I showed him the HC plate, and he pronounced it a fake. Everybody knows that motorcycles cannnot be handicapped!

[camle]

hopefully an appreciation that everything is not what it seems. perhaps that ‘normal’ person has pain that you cannot see. maybe you’ll think about that next time before jumping to conclusions.

if more people thought first, there would be less harrassment of the disabled.

[BearCub]

Very simple....we print the card tags with the disabilty on them.

What would that accomplish? The particular disability is nobody's business.

Print the handicapped tags with the car's license plate number on it. That would keep people from borrowing others' tags. Problem solved.

[PeteB570]

As I got out of my car and was sort of limping to get everything working a pickup pulled up in a handicap space and a young guy and chick “jumped out” pretty quick. I commented that he didn’t look all that handicapped.

He went into a rage, pulled up his shirt to show surgery scars, did that little “In your face” dance and started screaming about how he was disabled.

I replied with “Well, you sure proved me right.” I figure it he had that much energy he could have parked 5 or 6 spaces down and saved the spot for “SOMEBODY THAT REALLY NEEDED IT”.

[Equality 7-2521]

Handicapped spaces—another nanny-state item foisted upon us by liberals. I have no problem with a business owner voluntarily painting a few spaces blue, but to be forced to do it by the federal government is nanny-state socialism at its finest.

[netmilsmom]

My parish is required to have 24 handicapped spots. That is almost the entire front parking lot. We joke that unless you get to mass an hour before it starts, you’re parking in the back forty!

Honestly, it doesn’t bother me when they are used but it irks me when 15 of those spaces are open and I’m trudging through the snow with my girls in church shoes at 10 below. Now I just drop them off at the door and deal with the snow myself.

[HamiltonJay]

If you have the tag, no problem... if you don’t, expect to be mocked.

[Equality 7-2521]

If the usual candy bar didn't sstop the reaction, I would send somebody to the car to get another one. More fortunate people would have a diabetic friend with the foresight to carry a few candy bars in his satchel.

[sharkhawk]

Print the handicapped tags with the car's license plate number on it. That would keep people from borrowing others' tags. Problem solved.
Me, my sister, my uncle and my aunt all take my Mom who has MS out shopping, Does she need 4 cards? How about if she goes out on vacation?

[BearCub]

I’m sorry, but the majority of these problems ironically come from the lack of exercise and poor eating habits.

Off topic, but I've often noticed that the people who most need to WALK circle around the lot looking for a close-in place. They need to park their fat asses as far from the door as possible and get some exercise.

[Brujo]

What really irks me is when I need a spot and have the license plates for them and they are all full than I see two football players running to a car with the tag hanging on the mirror and getting in and running back to the store.

Careful here! According to camle (see post #30), you are “playing into stereotypes” by daring to assume that these poor football players do not deserve their handicapped sticker.

After all, those football players may have had pain shooting up their spines. Or maybe they are running because each step hurts and they want to get in as quickly as possible. Even better, maybe it's because “someone they care about was inside in need of help”.