This is not a handicapped parking spot

ddubois · #1 10-07-2005, 05:47 PM

Sorry, my stories come with long, detailed intros. The "How much would you pay" thread reminded me of this incident:

When I was 16 I had a job as an ice cream truck driver during the summers. I did this two years in a row, so by the second summer I knew enough to know that a certain park on July 4th would have a ridiculously massive throng of potential customers arriving to watch the display. Planning ahead for this event, I arrived at the park many hours in advance. I found the ideal parking spot, right next to the primary sidewalk entrance into the park, such that most of the crowd would pass me and see my wares. Well, it wasn't ideal, as it was an illegal spot, so I lived in fear that some cop might make me move. It was bordering the handicapped spots, over diagonal yellow stripes indicating the area was not to be parked in. My plan was to be there the next 7 hours or so. I had even called my parents in advance, and asked them to come by later, so I would be able to take a bathroom break. IIRC, on a normal night I might make $30-50... good for a 16 year old kid in the late 80s. On this night, I would make almost $400.

At the apex of the crowdedness of the park, right before the fireworks began, a man approached me. He indicated he was driving with a handicapped person and asked me to move my vehicle. I hesitated for a second and then pointed out: "This is not a handicapped parking stall". He pushed the issue no further, instead immediately storming off while saying something like "I hope you never have to know what it's like <something something>...."

How much of a louse am I / how guilty should I have felt?

STLantny · #2 10-07-2005, 05:49 PM

If its not an handicap spot, you should feel good, because you prevented a crippled man from getting a ticket.

Lazymeatball · #3 10-07-2005, 05:52 PM

Does being handicapped entitle him to more of a right to park illegally than you?

Los Feliz Slim · #4 10-07-2005, 05:53 PM

He thought it was a handicapped spot, but it wasn't? You're in the clear. Even if you had moved he couldn't have parked there.

#5 10-07-2005, 05:58 PM

The diagonal stripes are for a the wheelchair user to get in and out of their car, you wipe.

The access aisle is part of the space. Bad play.

ddubois · #6 10-07-2005, 06:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The diagonal stripes are for a the wheelchair user to get in and out of their car, you wipe.

The access aisle is part of the space. Bad play.

[/ QUOTE ]
The stall next to me was occupied.

#7 10-07-2005, 06:14 PM

Then, I guess technically you are OK, as long as you move when those people need to leave.

Either way you are parking illegally though. It's just funny that you would tell some guy that it's not a real space, while simultaneously occupying the "non-space".

MelK · #8 10-07-2005, 06:17 PM

This was a special event. If you were not parked there, someone wlse would have parked there long before these people arrived.

Why should they get special treatment for arriving late?

You had good reason to be there, you should have no regrets.

ddubois · #9 10-07-2005, 06:17 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Then, I guess technically you are OK, as long as you move when those people need to leave.

[/ QUOTE ]
They didn't ask me to move when they got in. They were either non-handicapped and should not have been there, or they were legitimately in the spot, but like the vast majority of vehicles with handicap symbols on the plates, were not a van with a wheel chair lift.

stabn · #10 10-07-2005, 06:18 PM

[ QUOTE ]

Either way you are parking illegally though. It's just funny that you would tell some guy that it's not a real space, while simultaneously occupying the "non-space".

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not what he told the guy at all. He simply told him it wasn't a space he was entitled to.