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Someone emailed me that they switched grocery store recently, since the place they usualy went to just did not care to monitor the accessible parking spaces, and as a result, they didn't feel safe having to cross the parking lot in their wheelchair, particularly in the evening with fading light (though that might be the topic of another entry). At that new place, there are apparently convenience parking spaces for women who are pregnant, or who have young kids in tow.

What my correspondent noticed is that people respected the pregnancy spaces more than the disability spaces. She sat there for a while, observing what was happening. 3 disability spaces, 2 pregnancy spaces. People without disability parking permit, and without kids (and obviously not pregnant) would opt to park in the disability space instead of parking in the pregnancy spaces, which were right at the side of the disability spaces.

This is interesting, isn't it? People don't mind abusing a parking space where it is actually illegal for them to park, but they won't take up a space that is there merely for convenience's sake.

Now, don't get me wrong. I happen to think that these pregnancy spaces are good.

I am, however, puzzled. An expecting woman, or a woman with kids may have trouble moving around, but at least, they would be seen if they were walking across a parking lot. A wheelchair user, being that much lower, is unlikely to be seen by a driver backing up. It's plain unsafe.

Another correspondent was telling me how she saw two vehicles parked illegally in a disability parking space. These spaces were right next to a loading zone. Both the loading zone and the disability parking spaces where properly and clearly marked. Neither the cars parked in disability spaces had tickets, but the vehicle in the loading zone did. Obviously the security staff had been around, and given tickets to one offender. Why did they not ticket the abusers of the disability spaces as well?

My correspondent wrote:

It seems the loading zone is more important than the disability spaces...? I couldn't believe it.

I can't believe it either... But then, I'm not particularly surprised. It seems to be par for the course that people with disabilities would be at the bottom of the totem pole.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 and is filed under Drive-by. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.