Poo News: The Handicap Spot Is Not Your Personal VIP Parking Lane
A Tesla, two handicap spaces and a kid in a wheelchair. Just another reminder that accessible parking exists for a reason, and sometimes the biggest pile of shit is behind the wheel.
DR
As most people who know me already know, I’m an advocate first. Disability rights have been part of my life and my work for years, so there are certain kinds of bullshit I have a very low tolerance for. Near the top of that list is someone treating handicap parking like their personal VIP drop-off zone because waiting in the same traffic line as every other parent is somehow beneath them.
There is a guy at my son’s school who has made this a habit. A couple of weeks ago, he pulled across the striped access area between two handicap spaces. Not one space. He managed to screw up access to both of them at the same time. For anyone who does not understand why those striped areas exist, they are not decorative pavement. They are there so someone using a wheelchair, ramp, lift, walker or other mobility equipment can actually get in and out of a vehicle.
I approached his car politely and told him he couldn’t park there. He refused to roll down his window. I knocked, explained again that it was handicap access, and he finally cracked the window just enough to tell me to fuck off, give me the finger and drive away. Then he came back around and tried to pull into the same damn area again. He later complained to the school because he thought I worked there and claimed there had been some giant confrontation. There wasn’t. I told him not to block handicap parking. He supplied the confrontation all by himself.
Fast-forward to this morning and, sure enough, he was back. Instead of waiting in line with everybody else, he pulled into the handicap area again and took up the space needed for accessible parking. This time there was literally a child using a wheelchair who needed that area, and his vehicle was in the way. That is where this stops being about somebody being impatient and becomes something much uglier. You are now making a child with a disability wait because you decided your convenience is more important than their access.
Several staff members came down and told him he could not park there. Instead of simply saying sorry, moving the car and joining civilization, things became confrontational again. At one point I had the wonderfully immature thought that somebody like this needed a ridiculous bumper magnet stuck on his Tesla just to mess with the macho image he seems so determined to project.
Then I realized something. Being gay isn’t the insult. Being an asshole is.
So forget “Proud Gay Driver.” Plenty of proud gay drivers know how to park a fucking car. What we really need is a magnet that says, PROUD HANDICAP-PARKING ASSHOLE, with a smaller line underneath saying, I SAVED 90 SECONDS AND BLOCKED A KID IN A WHEELCHAIR. Now that tells the whole story.
Accessible parking is not a courtesy somebody invented to make life luxurious for disabled people. It exists because without that extra space, some people physically cannot get out of their vehicles. Saying, “I’m only going to be here for a minute,” does not magically make the wheelchair disappear. Neither does having a nice car, being late, dropping off your kid or believing the rules should somehow apply to everybody except you.
The funny thing is that years ago something like this probably would have ruined my entire morning. Now I look at it differently. If you are determined to publicly demonstrate that you are an asshole, I suppose the least the rest of us can do is appreciate the free demonstration and maybe turn it into a Poo News story.
Underneath the humor, though, there is a serious point. Someday you may need that space. Your spouse might need it, your parent might need it or your child might need it. Disability has a funny way of introducing itself without checking your calendar first. The next time you see those blue lines and striped access zones, don’t think, “Nobody is using it right now.” Think about the person who might pull in thirty seconds after you and actually need the space for what it was designed for.
Nobody should have to ask you to move your Tesla so a kid in a wheelchair can get out of a van. That isn’t political correctness, and it isn’t being overly sensitive. It is basic fucking human decency.
And that concludes today’s Poo News, where once again the biggest pile of shit was not something we had to step around. It was sitting behind the steering wheel.
There is a guy at my son’s school who has made this a habit. A couple of weeks ago, he pulled across the striped access area between two handicap spaces. Not one space. He managed to screw up access to both of them at the same time. For anyone who does not understand why those striped areas exist, they are not decorative pavement. They are there so someone using a wheelchair, ramp, lift, walker or other mobility equipment can actually get in and out of a vehicle.
I approached his car politely and told him he couldn’t park there. He refused to roll down his window. I knocked, explained again that it was handicap access, and he finally cracked the window just enough to tell me to fuck off, give me the finger and drive away. Then he came back around and tried to pull into the same damn area again. He later complained to the school because he thought I worked there and claimed there had been some giant confrontation. There wasn’t. I told him not to block handicap parking. He supplied the confrontation all by himself.
Fast-forward to this morning and, sure enough, he was back. Instead of waiting in line with everybody else, he pulled into the handicap area again and took up the space needed for accessible parking. This time there was literally a child using a wheelchair who needed that area, and his vehicle was in the way. That is where this stops being about somebody being impatient and becomes something much uglier. You are now making a child with a disability wait because you decided your convenience is more important than their access.
Several staff members came down and told him he could not park there. Instead of simply saying sorry, moving the car and joining civilization, things became confrontational again. At one point I had the wonderfully immature thought that somebody like this needed a ridiculous bumper magnet stuck on his Tesla just to mess with the macho image he seems so determined to project.
Then I realized something. Being gay isn’t the insult. Being an asshole is.
So forget “Proud Gay Driver.” Plenty of proud gay drivers know how to park a fucking car. What we really need is a magnet that says, PROUD HANDICAP-PARKING ASSHOLE, with a smaller line underneath saying, I SAVED 90 SECONDS AND BLOCKED A KID IN A WHEELCHAIR. Now that tells the whole story.
Accessible parking is not a courtesy somebody invented to make life luxurious for disabled people. It exists because without that extra space, some people physically cannot get out of their vehicles. Saying, “I’m only going to be here for a minute,” does not magically make the wheelchair disappear. Neither does having a nice car, being late, dropping off your kid or believing the rules should somehow apply to everybody except you.
The funny thing is that years ago something like this probably would have ruined my entire morning. Now I look at it differently. If you are determined to publicly demonstrate that you are an asshole, I suppose the least the rest of us can do is appreciate the free demonstration and maybe turn it into a Poo News story.
Underneath the humor, though, there is a serious point. Someday you may need that space. Your spouse might need it, your parent might need it or your child might need it. Disability has a funny way of introducing itself without checking your calendar first. The next time you see those blue lines and striped access zones, don’t think, “Nobody is using it right now.” Think about the person who might pull in thirty seconds after you and actually need the space for what it was designed for.
Nobody should have to ask you to move your Tesla so a kid in a wheelchair can get out of a van. That isn’t political correctness, and it isn’t being overly sensitive. It is basic fucking human decency.
And that concludes today’s Poo News, where once again the biggest pile of shit was not something we had to step around. It was sitting behind the steering wheel.
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