[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.

[from occupied ga]

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!

And you produced this "fact" based on what?

[Between the Lines]

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!

From the American with Disabilities Act (the people that brought you handicapped parking):

Accessible parking spaces must be located on the shortest accessible route of travel to an accessible facility entrance. Where buildings have multiple accessible entrances with adjacent parking, the accessible parking spaces must be dispersed and located closest to the accessible entrances.

When accessible parking spaces are added in an existing parking lot, locate the spaces on the most level ground close to the accessible entrance. An accessible route must always be provided from the accessible parking to the accessible entrance. An accessible route never has curbs or stairs, must be at least 3- feet wide, and has a firm, stable, slip-resistant surface...

[VRWCer]

Needing the extra space to get my mom’s wheelchair in between the cars so she can get into it, is the reason why we use her handicap permit. However, that didn’t stop us from getting yelled at by a passerby several months ago.

An elderly “man” (and I use the term very loosely here) actually came up to me and grabbed my shoulder when he saw me get out of the driver’s side and start walking towards the back of the car, to tell me that those spots were only for handicapped people! I coldly replied that it was my mom who was incapacitated, and that I needed to get her wheelchair out of the car now, and he *yelled* indignantly at me that the **driver** needs to be the one who is handicapped in order to use the permit! (So I told him to mind his own business, and told him that he should go home and try to find a pair of !@!!s in his pants instead of picking on women and children(my kids were in the car too)). Meanwhile, it was my mom’s car that I was driving for her, and only because her back pain is so bad that she cannot manipulate her legs and feet around to work the pedals to drive, so I and my dad are her “chauffers”.

People are just unbelievable.

[Shion]

>>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!<<

That was my impression as well. I have used handicapped parking spots in the past, but only with my walker-shuffling elderly blind grandmother who takes a good bit of manuvering to get out of the car.

Here’s my question. If one has an invisible pain related illness such that one is so crippled that they must park in the spot abosolutely nearest to the store, how do they function IN the store?

Target, for example, is the size of a huge parking lot. Most grocery stores are gigantic as well. Are people really expecting me to believe that they can walk a mile INSIDE the store, but can’t get twenty feet to the door?