Chronic Rants

There’s this small dead-end road by my office building and it only has two parking spaces on it, both handicapped, both clearly labeled handicapped.  More days than not, I see people parked there illegally.  It’s not in view of a main road, so I guess they figure they’re less likely to be ticketed.  Meantime, that doesn’t mean people need the spots any less!

So today I’m walking past, and there’s a van parked illegally in one of the spaces.  A truck is parked such that it’s not in either space, but it’s blocking both.  Right.  So the driver knew the spaces were there and knew they weren’t supposed to park there and made sure to obey the actual letter of the law, just not the spirit of it.  Real nice.  So I did the only logical thing: I called the town police.  I hope they ticketed both vehicles.  I went back to work, of course, so I have no idea what, if anything, happened.  I have to wonder what those drivers were thinking?  What went through their heads that they figured they needed those spaces more than someone with a disability?  If it was their mother, brother, friend, child who was disabled and needed that space, would they have acted the same way?  I’ll never know, but I just can’t imagine what possible way someone could justify this.

Chances are, one day they’ll understand.  Until then, I’ll just keep calling the police to have them ticketed.  And tonight I’m emailing my state rep to find out about increasing fines for parking illegally in handicapped spaces.  You might want to do the same.

This is something that bugs me a whole lot, even more than most other things, so you know it’s a lot.  I’m sure I’ll post about it again and again.  What am I talking about?  Illegally parking in handicapped parking spaces “just for a minute.”  I have encountered this more times than I can remember, and it happened again today.

What makes people think this is ok?  If they need the space for 10 minutes, that’s more important than letting a person who really needs it park there?  Today there was a passenger in the illegally-parked car, and he got a real earful.  To be honest, I explained the situation well (though a bit heatedly) and made good points.  He said his buddy was only parking for a few minutes.  I pointed out that in those few minutes, someone who needed the spot wouldn’t be able to park there.  I explained that this particular spot was for people who really needed it.  I don’t know if he got it or not, but I walked away feeling pissed off.  What makes people think that they can treat others this way? Are they so self absorbed that they don’t see what they’re doing?  Just how rude, inconsiderate, and selfish are these people?