Visiting my local Costco in Vancouver the other day, I happened upon several drivers & passengers who were either walking to or walking away from cars with handicapped parking passes hanging from their rearview mirrors. Of this select group that I observed, every single one of them seemed spry, with no slowness or awkwardness to their gait. I realize that a key tenet of Leftism is to never judge but since I don’t belong to that cult, it doesn’t apply to me. It just seemed “curious” as to why seemingly able-bodied people were parking in spots designated for truly handicapped people. One wonders if a person in a wheelchair or on crutches drove up and had to park further away, would any of these other folks feel bad for taking the closer spaces.
Turns out that I’m not the only one thinking that some fraud might be occurring. Yet another government program infested with abuse. Shocking!
I do not doubt the placards are abused. But how to determine that?
“You really cannot tell just by someone’s “youthful or vigorous appearance”, they may be OK for the first 50 yards or are working like hell to keep up the appearance of relatively good health.”
This is basically my condition, which is related to blood-flow problems in the extremities. I can walk just fine – for about 150 feet. Then I have to rest. Until I have to stop, I probably seem fine. As to walking around in the store, yes I do – but I carry a cane which I do not use as such but it opens into a seat, which I do indeed use (and get strange looks…).
Robert, your comment about comfort animals hit me like a bolt out of the blue. This could be a cure for homicidal Islamic activity on aircraft. Throw a comfort chihuahua into their face, and they’d be unclean and unable to enter heaven. They’d have to immediately stop what they’re doing to cleanse themselves.
My brother quipped about a comfort Doberman being more effective, but I remain to be convinced that the extra space they would take up is worth the infinitesimal risk.
No, I am not at all fine with the abuse. I see it too. However, I do have a problem with simply assuming that a particular individual is an abuser on the basis of uninformed observation. There are many people who appear healthy to the casual observer, but are not. In any case, I am not saying that you are heartless. Not at all. In fact, I think that those of us on the conservative – libertarian side are the ones who really have compassion for the suffering. My experience is that leftists like to think of themselves as compassionate, but it is their policies that wind up doing the most damage to those they allegedly want to help. What they really are after is power for themselves. I don’t for a minute think that the leftist power elite gives a rat’s behind about the welfare of the poor and disabled. My point is, since they often use the bogus charge that conservatives are heartless as a propaganda tool to persuade the low information crowd to vote for them, let’s be careful not to unwittingly play into their hands by providing an example they can point to. I did not mean to imply that you are heartless. We are on the same side here.
Yes, we need to find ways to stop the abuse, but also be careful as to how we go about doing it.
My mom has lupus and my wife has fibro. Both are very real, though fibro is complex and often hard to diagnose. My wife is a nurse, with 30+ years of experience in various areas. For the past few years she has been working as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, so she knows from both sides of the table the ins and outs of the psychological and physical aspects of the disorder. She is especially aware of the problem of ignorant doctors telling women that “it’s all in your head” and therefore there’s nothing wrong with you. However, there is plenty of well documented published research on fibro to dispell that myth. Finding a specialist who knows the disease has been a challenge in the past, and getting insurance approval for proper treatment even more so. We can’t wait to see what Obamacare is going to do for us on that score (sarcasm alert).
The thing about handicap spaces is that there seems to be more of them at the Home Depot than most doctor’s offices or walk in clinics.
Those preggers or have babies spots totally annoy me. parked in one the other day as the skies opened up with a torrential downpour. Told the wife that if anyone asks where the baby is just do a face palm and say” Dang, I knew I forgot something.”
A peace officer can demand inspection of the parking pass to match it to the person who it’s supposed to be used for.
Take it from me, even to question whether every single person who uses a handicapped spot, every person who runs over your toe with their scooter, every person who brings their “support dog” on the plane, every person who uses a wheelchair to get through security faster before recovering at the gate, even to question them signifies you’re a heartless bastard.