Handicapped parking spaces are lame. The intent behind them is laudable—giving people impaired by age or a debilitating condition a shorter walk from car to entranceway. It’s a courtesy. It’s also a travesty.
Last week outside a public building, a big Ford 250 pickup—body jacked up to show off its polished chrome suspension system, custom wheels glistening—pulled into a parking space marked by the familiar blue-and-white wheelchair symbol.
The idling engine rumbled before being switched off. The driver’s side door popped open and a jeans-wearing woman in her 30s stepped down to the truck’s stainless-steel side-step. From there she hopped to the pavement, swung shut the door and half-trotted into the building.
The woman obviously was without conscience. She knew the space was for a special population and required display of a handicapped placard. I know she knew that because she had such a placard hanging from her mirror! The woman was willfully abusing public goodwill.
She’s not alone. There are a lot of handicappers out there. They take advantage of public sympathy for impaired people. If one were to follow them from lot to lot, they probably would be shown to be serial violators of blue-and-white wheelchair parking spaces.
There are a couple of remedies to the matter. One is to reduce the number of such parking spaces to one or two per building unless a facility particularly serves an elderly population. After all, most of us can make it to the front door from anywhere in a parking lot. The sheer volume of handicapped spaces is enabling willful violators.
The second remedy is to raise the penalty for violating the restricted spaces—and to regularly ticket violators. If you’re able-bodied and park in a handicapped space, you should expect to pay a stiff price. Wait, you say, shouldn’t our law enforcers be chasing murderers and rapists and, you know, Democrats? Hey, it’s probably the same people!
While we’re in a retributive mood, raining down penalties on brazen abusers, how about docking people for disregarding the rules of decency and sense? You know those rules: Be colorblind, treat others like you want to be treated, show respect to old people, don’t hotdog after you score in an athletic contest—there’s a hundred such commandments that mamas used to teach their children.
Of course, not every child learned and followed every rule—I’m looking at me—but between our mothers and our peers, we were taught the virtues till they became ingrained in us. For the most part, they have served us well—and society, too.
Alas, mothers seem to have fallen out of favor as rules-makers and too many fathers aren’t around anymore as enforcers. Consequently, recent generations have different rules. Rude is cool. Celebrate me. Identity is everything, and carry on a loud conversation on your cellphone in public places as if everyone wants to hear what you have to say to some unseen person! There ought to be a fine for that, too.