You’re in my spot

I wish I didn’t have to say this, but here goes:

Those parking spots, the ones designated as reserved parking, you know the ones, with the little stick-figure in a wheelchair?

They aren’t there for just anyone’s convenient parking while they just “pop in” somewhere.

And the spots alongside those spots, the ones with all the blue lines through them?

Those aren’t spots at all…those are to allow folks with ramps and other extra accessibility needs to get in and out of their vehicles.

This is true no matter where you are.

I suppose it is something to do with the cold weather and the holiday/post-holiday shopping…but lately I have noticed people idling in these reserved spots and non-spots almost every time I go out. No placard, eyes slightly averted from anyone who looks their way as they wait.

I saw one person, waiting in the passenger seat of an idling car with no visible placard on the street ignore an elderly person who pulled up along side them and held up his placard, as if to say, “Do you have one of these? If not, please move, because I do.” The woman did a shockingly good job of completely ignoring him, despite his gesturing and the line of cars behind them both, honking. She sat there for at least the 20 minutes I was parked across the street from her.

One of my friends who cannot physically get her daughter in and out of their van without the extra space was completely blocked in by a large pickup truck that parked in the blue area beside her van…making it impossible to get her very fragile daughter into the van.

A few weeks ago I watched at Esmé’s doctor’s office as a delivery car with a hospital logo on the side parked in the only remaining handicapped spot in the parking lot to run in (likely to pick up samples for the hospital lab).

A couple days before Christmas I saw I man scream a list of curse words at someone because he had the nerve to call him out about parking “temporarily” in another non-spot next to a handicapped spot.

The list goes on.

Now I try to be understanding…to recognize that someone might have forgotten to hang their placard up (I’ve forgotten before certainly). I recognize that there are lots of people with invisible disabilities–who may look well at a glance (I’ve seen people look at me strangely when we use ours, probably thinking Ezzy is a baby, not a disabled preschooler). I can also imagine that folks might have trouble seeing or interpreting fading blue lines designating a non-spot. But the number of times I have seen this happening recently leads me to believe there are people who are regularly taking advantage of a “convenience” that is not intended for them.

I suppose that I also understand that some people may not understand or think of why it can be a big deal to use these spots “just for a minute”–they might not know someone who needs to utilize these spots, they might not understand how difficult it can be to navigate going out for some people–they might not see how their taking a spot for a minute can make that process astronomically more difficult for someone.

But they should.

I keep thinking about a series of protests I have seen where wheelchairs with notes like “I’ll be quick” are used to occupy large numbers of parking spots. Like this one in Lisbon:

Pretty great, right?

I’ve also heard tell of people placing stickers on the cars of illegal parkers that say things like “Today, I parked illegally and blocked the path of a wheelchair” or “You took my parking spot, would you also like to take my disability?”

Which I find to be ridiculously amusing…but I’m not about to start putting stickers on cars. (Or am I? It could be a really good fine motor skills exercise for Ezzy…) And while I may speak up about something like that here and there, I am not about to get into a confrontation in front of my kid with some stranger who thinks rules don’t apply to them.