Posted on 05/01/2013 6:13:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I can agree with that. And most of this article, actually. Just felt like pointing out the author’s judgemental views in that one statement.
Disabled tags on low-slung sports cars always puzzle me.
What disability would require a special parking space, but allow the sufferer to ride in a BMW Z2?
In truth, a large number of real disabilities are invisible. A big one is arthritis, which can be agonizingly intermittent; one day very little discomfort, the next they are barely able to walk. Others include emphysema that may not yet require oxygen but leaves them debilitated, neuromuscular diseases, really damaged joints and feet, etc.
Why did it make you laugh? I had a stroke in February and have a poorly functioning side. A leg that won’t carry me and an arm that won’t reach. But I CAN stand up and reach with the other side.
I've noticed that too; I've never been in a parking lot where even a third of the handicapped spaces are occupied. Even allowing for the occasional fluke spike, they've gone overboard.
When I was 42, I lost the primary veins in my legs. One gave out about one year before the other. I had massive clotting. My lungs were 73% involved with blood clots. I could easily have died. It’s actually a wonder that I didn’t stroke out. My right leg was nearly lost.
Except for wonder drugs, I wouldn’t be here today.
Each time it took me about three weeks just to get back up on my feet enough to stay here for more than a few seconds at a time.
The first leg I was able to compensate pretty much by putting extra energy into the healthy leg. After losing the second leg’s circulation, I was a different person.
I returned back to work after a month, but I was having a hard time staying on my feet and walking. I joined the YMCA and used their pool to walk in neutral buoyancy. This helped me build up my strength.
The area I needed to use was supposed to be reserved for elderly people. My outward appearance was that of a healthy man in his early 40s. In truth, I was still having a very hard time walking more than ten feet or so without sitting down and resting.
The other swimmers using the pool area took one look at me and were sure they had caught a guy using the elderly section of the pool when I shouldn’t be. I was challenged on it every day for about a month.
These fools didn’t have a clue, that they were way off base. None the less, they got in my face and made sure they got their pound of flesh while I explained my medical condition to them in detail, so they could leave me alone in good conscience.
Lesson: Don’t worry about what other people are doing. STFU and be the best person you can be.
This is not directed at you SeekAndFind.
I’ve seen several people pull fake wheelchair stunts at stores.
After driving-up to handicapped pkg spots, push the chair to the door, hop in and zip around the store, often getting out and walking thru aisles - one climbing an employee ladder to reach boxes on an upper shelf - and pile them up, for a store employee to take to checkout and load the car. Then, they put the chair into the car, and walk down the strip mall to several other stores, load-up and push a shopping cart back to their car.
Sorry for your medical problems, but there are scamsters out there.
I’m surprised no one has yet mentioned one of the more common users of handicapped parking spaces I’ve seen (in the Chicago IL area, at least): marked police cars.
Are those police cars driven by brave victims of disability who manage to hold down a grueling police job despite being handicapped ... or are they driven by able-bodied government employees who know that they can park wherever they wish with no concerns about being ticketed? It’s a mystery.
Your story sounds a lot like mine. I hope you are doing better these days...I am. But these people do love to get in your face when they think you’re breaking the rules.
I always tell them, “There’s a reason the state issues the tags and plates. It’s so I don’t have to explain myself to jerks. My health issues are nunya bidness, so flake off.”
Or they could be like me, I can walk into the store just fine it is the coming out that is the problem. After I walk awhile my leg just almost quits working with lots of pain. The discs in my back are falling apart and my sciatic has been pinched for about 10 yrs.
I thought so too until my thyroid went crazy. It was important to keep doing whatever I could get done; but, I was in real fear of sliding to the ground and being helpless and surrounded by strangers.
Anyway, why is the government involved in any way? It's the same as redistribution of wealth - taking something of values from one to give to another. Let the store owners decide how to deal with their customers. The government should mind its own business.
How about this? Get rid of handicapped spaces. How did we cope prior to their advent? They are simply another government enforced spoils system that further erodes private property rights and degrades the spirit of individual acts of charity. Will those of you handicapped or with handicapped loved ones vote for politicians who give you the best spots?
I remember my parents lecturing me to never take the close in spots at stores or church so that old and crippled people could use them. Government enforced charity (an oxymoron if ever there was one) has again displaced private charity will causing hatred and resentment.
I don’t have to listen to the jerks, because I’m the guy parking my car at the far outside part of the parking lot, so those same jerks don’t destroy my property with their car doors.
My Mariner is seven years old now, and it doesn’t have a scratch on it. It looks brand new.
I’ve never been a big fan of the handicapped parking spaces. What difference does it make if you can park 20 feet from the entrance of a super-market with long isles you have to traverse to do your business. If you can traverse the interior of the store, you can get to the front door.
I don’t begrudge anyone using the spaces, so don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to put anyone down here. I just can’t use them myself, and I could probably get one.
I do fairly well these days. I get sores once in a while that won’t go away. I’ve got on now in the inside of my right foot that I’ve had since mid-January.
There are people with legitimate parking permits who *appear* to be OK. I have one because my foot is screwed up and my doctor wants me to minimize the amount of walking I do on it until I am able to have surgery later this summer. I barely limp, so I probably look like one of these fakers. But I’m not.
bkmk
Drove my girlfriend’s handicapped mother to walmart once, dropped her off at the garden center then parked farther down by the main entrance in a handicapped spot. Got chewed out by a woman as I bounded out of the car and started to run inside.
A side note, saw a guy park in the fire lane in front of the grocery right in front of a moveable pole sign that read “No Parking Fire Zone”. A man who also saw him do it took a similar sign and moved it right up against his rear bumper. When he came out to leave he backed over that one and got confused and put it in drive and ran over the sign in front of him. Best laugh of that day.
Maybe she could’ve tried carrying out the way she felt then - faint on the pavement right there.
Sad how people ASSume.
I don’t think it is wise to just yell at someone because they look healthy, yet use a disabled placard.
My spouse had one for several months during his chemo time. On some days if you saw him get out of the car and walk into the store, he’d just look like an average guy. You have no idea how much effort it took for him to get up, get dressed, and go.
Also, it is legal and proper that a perfectly healthy person use the space IF they are driving the handicapped person. So the apparently healthy person hopping out and striding into the store may have a far more obviously handicapped person in the car, and may be running errands for them. I did it frequently.
I am not a fan of LEGISLATED handicapped parking, but, I encourage you not to necessarily judge someone’s health by a cursory glance.
Oh, heck. They just go right ahead and park in the fire lanes in my neck of the woods. Why walk from a “handicapped” spot? Entitlement is everything.
This thread will be full of the same NIMBY, “I paid for it”, until-my-ox-is-gored replies.
Bottom line: What business is the gov’t mandating anything that belongs to another?
1) This is space that is owned by someone...NOT gov’t
2) Typical gov’t ‘solution’...no oversight, validation nor taxpayer thought, just $$ to ‘throw around’ and layers to get rich
How about a picture ID on the hanger w/ expiration...that and a HUGE fine and let the business decide if/how many they want to host.
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