janice hall, posted this comment on Mar 16th, 2011

so tired of driving around the parking lot trying to find a place to park, If you have a disability how can you get in an out of these large trucks. Some thing has to be done also the person who is disabled sits in the vehicle taking a parking space while the other person goes into the store is ths right? Looks like many doctor”s are signing the papers for older folks to get permits and thats not right. Many are over weight and the walking would do them so much good lazyness got them disabled in the first place or over eating. Been frustrated with this system for years maybe tags should be done away with and only licence plates be issued harder to steal and sell on the street. Very surprised about Denise Nappier thought she had more class than that

SHEILA, posted this comment on Mar 16th, 2011

Grown up you crying whinning piece of !@#$%^&
I am so tired of you rude “NORMAL” people. So I am heavy that is none of your damn business. I pay taxes,I worked for over 35 yrs in a hell hole job. I am tired of the remakes while I am shopping or going out with my grandchildren.

I am one of the nicest people you could ever meet,but you will never know that….. all you see is a person’s size.

Also,not as easy as you think gettiiing a doctor to sign for a parking permits,you must meet a strict requirement. Once again,just you can not read my medical record,how do you know what my problems are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cheryl Markey, posted this comment on Mar 16th, 2011

There is a mom here in our town that has a disabled daughter ( whom we never see out and about with her mom ). This mom and her boyfriend always park in the handicap spaces at our Wal-Mart, her daughter is never with them. I have called the police on her before and have told her she can’t park there unless her daughter is with her. It’s no big deal for her to park in the spaces when it is just her and her boyfriend shopping.

Frank B., posted this comment on Mar 17th, 2011

I have been disabled more than twenty years and have never witnessed a single ticket issued for illegal parking in a handicap space in Panama City or Panama City Beach, Florida. Last week I stopped a sheriff’s deputy in uniform and asked what he could do. He replied that as long as there was a blue tag hanging on the mirror there was nothing he could do. I then asked what about those tags with the bottom cut off, removing the date and other data? He again said, “As long as there is a blue tag hanging on the mirror, there is nothing we can do.” In other words, they are never going to do anything. I have now witnessed more and more people parking in handicap spaces without any tag nor handicap license tags at all, especially teenagers and young women. And many more people are using the blue striped handicap spaces for parking their shopping carts. I learned to open my side doors and lower the wheelchair ramp from the driver’s seat as soon as I park. Recently I parked and got into my wheelchair. When I went to open the doors, someone had just parked a shopping cart in the way. I got back into the driver’s seat, lowered my window, and asked a man walking by if he would please move the cart. He did, but by the time I raised the window, got back into my wheelchair from the driver’s seat and went to open the doors, another idiot had parked another cart in front of my side dooors! It is now imperative that I open the doors and lower the ramp to a horizomtal position as soon as I park. The handicap spaces should now have their designation changed to “Parking Closest to the Front Door” spaces without any reference to handicap. I now often park across three regular spaces so I can use my van as it was designed. And I have mounted two shortened bicycle flags on my chair in the hope that I will not be hit by a car in the parking lot. Much more needs to be done to reawaken the public to the purposes of the designated handicap spaces! But I feel it is hopeless in view of the lack of enforcement here. The spaces are almost nonexistent to those of us who need them the most because they are taken by those who just want to be closest to the front doors and I get to fuming every time I think about it. Just another sad state of affairs in this world we now live in.

Dee P., posted this comment on Mar 29th, 2011

I am so mad and frustrated at inconsiderate S.O.B.’s, it’s making me bitter. I live in Kansas. Anyone in Kansas can get a handicap placard or license plate. They no longer require a doctor to sign anything. You just have to sign a paper and check that you are handicapped. No proof at all. EVERYONE HAS THESE TAGS. Kansas is a Republican state and I can tell you, they don’t care ANYTHING about handicapped people.

There is only one person, that I have ever seen get a handicap ticket. ME!!!! My granddaughter was having surgery early in the morning in Wichita, Kansas. I went to the hospital and of course, every single handicapped place was taken up by pricey new cars and trucks. It was dark and it looked like there was one handicapped spot I could get, even though it was a LONG way off and extremely dark. (It scared me, but I still had to get into the hospital) I had a really hard time, but I made it in, without getting mugged or murdered. (It was a heavy crime laden area) After the surgery, when she came out of recovery and I saw her, I went back to my van. There was a ticket on it, saying I had BLOCKED a handicapped space. In the daylight, you could see that I was on some of those diagonal lines. They looked liked they’d been painted 40 years ago, because it was hard see them in the daylight, let alone at night when it was pitch dark. I had a hard time getting back into the van, because some teenagers had just pulled in right smack next to me and there was no room for my ramp. I was finally able to get someone to get them to move, so I could get out.

I went to the courthouse in Wichita to contest the ticket and the woman said, “Oh, it says you blocked access” I explained that the faded lines weren’t visible at all at night. She said it didn’t matter, because the officer was able to make out the lines well enough in the daylight. She said they’d have to charge me the $100 and court costs, if I wanted to contest it, but there was no way, they’d rule for me. She said she was the one to decide whether to dismiss tickets or not and she wouldn’t do it. She said, “Next time, park right IN FRONT of the hospital and then the ticket is only $10.00″ She said it was safer and would save me a lot of money and I could get a lot of those tickets, for what the handicap ticket costs. So, I paid the $100 fine. It was cheaper than getting stuck with all the court costs too.

Now, you’re going to say I just have Sour Grapes. YOU BET I DO!!!! Every time I can’t get into the Walmart parking lot and have to go home or can’t shop at the grocery store (both 20 miles away), because someone without a disability is parked in handicapped parking, it just burns me up. I really don’t like to go clear out into the parking lot and take a chance of my electric wheelchair getting hit by a car speeding though.

I see probaly at least 5 different doctors in a month. At medical clinics and hospitals, I have never, ever seen one person ticketed for using a handicapped space illegally. If I were to take pictures, I’d have a box full, because I’ve seen it happen Thousands of times. Remember, this is Kansas, where they give tags and placards to EVERYONE. Most people are just too lazy or cheap to get them. But, there are tens of thousands who have them, that aren’t a bit handicapped. So, THANK YOU KANSAS!!!! I’ve seen nowhere, where they treat the handicapped so poorly

anon, posted this comment on May 17th, 2011

I paid to park for 2 hours for a street side parking space in downtown Austin – not noticing that it was marked as a disabled “zone” (indicated on a sign 2 spaces ahead). The fine is $511 for a first offense.

People should be punished when they intentionally abuse disabled parking, but $511 for a first time mistake is just a City of Austin money grab.

And I’d be willing to bet that the number of disabled parking spots increased around the same time the fines did….