In 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. One of the requirements of the law is that businesses and other public institutions had to set aside a certain number of parking places for people with physical disabilities.
Well, I know people who keep a handicap placard in their glove compartment and pull it out whenever they can't find a parking place close to the venue they want to attend. If these folks have handicaps, they are mental, not physical.
Evidently, the strategy is to get a doctor to issue a temporary permit because they are doing some form of rehab, and then use the permit permanently.
Whenever you see a fully mobile person parking in a handicap parking space, you have my permission to give them a shame on you look.
I used to think this too, but when my husband got congestive heart failure and needed a transplant, believe me every step was a challenge. After all those 'shame on you' looks, we found a bumper sticker that says "My ticker got me this sticker". Yes some people do abuse the system, but please remember that not all handicapped people use a cane, walker or wheelchair.
ReplyDeleteI recently interviewed a heart transplant patient who cried when she related the comments made by people who saw "an able-bodied" person use the handicap spots. Sometimes things aren't as they seem.
ReplyDeleteHow judgmental! If you know the person and know for a fact they do not have a physical disability, go for it. But do NOT assume you can tell a person is able bodied just looking at them. My disability used to be invisible and people made all kinds of nasty comments, especially because I'm fat. Now that I'm in a wheelchair and my neurologicL condttion has progressed, more people are understanding. But I stl get "the looks" because of my weight. Nevermind that the meds I must take to keep me alive have caused massive weight gain or that my disability is an autoimmune problem, not weight related. Do NOT judge !!
ReplyDeleteI'm disappointed in this one too. I won't judge whether a person is disabled based on how they get around in a parking lot. Many tags are used fraudulently, but I prefer to think of the cheaters as cheating themselves out of good exercise!
ReplyDeleteJudge not Jim!
Dear “Jim’s Daily Awakeinings” Subscribers,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Toby Dagenhart and I am the producer of Jim’s Daily Awakenings.
The message sent this morning entitled “Handicap” has run before on Jim’s Daily Awakenings. The first time it ran we received feedback similar to the feedback we are getting today.
Jim asked that the message be pulled and not run again.
I followed Jim’s instructions and marked the script accordingly. But somehow our editorial system failed and the script ran again today.
For that I am deeply sorry. We have revised our editorial process and put additional measures in place to prevent similar mistakes in the future.
With deep regret,
Toby Dagenhart