Could have a placard, could possibly belong to someone else…maybe doesn’t have one at all?

28 comments

  2. I know some people with chronic pain and/or fatigue issues and similarly invisible things. Just because they can walk doesn’t mean they can walk far, reliably or without a lot of pain.

    As long as they’ve got a tag or hanger or whatever I don’t assume they’re actually able bodies based on seeing a short walk across the parking lot.

  8. Not all handicaps are visible, so I do the proper thing and mind my own business.

  9. If they don’t have a placard I assume they’re a dick, unless they’re driving for someone who’s wheelchair-bound and they get out to help them unload.

    If they have a placard, I assume they’re disabled. Personally I have a hypermobility disorder that requires the use of a cane on occasion. My grandfather broke his spine three times (twice from dirtbiking in the 70’s, once in the american-Vietnamese war.) The man can still walk after all that, just barely, and *he’s* gotten shit for being in a handicapped parking spot.

    I’ve had to explain this same thing to so many people, it’s much less likely they’re going through the trouble of faking it with the government. Getting a placard means you are seriously incapacitated or you can become that way *very* easily. Usually people who park there keep a cane accessible to their front seat, or a folded wheelchair in their trunk.

    It’s more likely they have an issue that doesn’t make them ‘visibly different.’ Just stop making assumptions about people that don’t concern you.

  10. If they don’t have a placard, I assume they’re a dick.

    If they do, I’ll assume that they probably have an impairment that’s not obvious or otherwise none of my business.

  11. In Ontario if you look at the permit you can see the decade the person was born. The code on the permits say like eg: 1194 = male born in 1940s. Or 2196 = female born in 1960s.

    I see alot of people in there 30s or 40s using accessible permits of people born in the 1930s or 1940s. I always make a comment and embarrass them.

  12. None of my business and none of yours, do you have this person’s medical history?

  13. Depends on the quantity of spots left. At your typical grocery or big box store, there are like 12 or more handicap spots, and only one is ever in use. You could park in one of those without a placard at all and I wouldn’t care.

    If there are only a couple spots, I’ll probably think you’re an asshole.

  14. If they have a place card I don’t think about it, it’s not for me to judge on how able anyone is.

    If they don’t have a card I usually say very loudly that they have forgotten to show their disabled badge, once people are looking they generally move tbh.

  18. being someone with an invisible disability, I just go on with my day. being on a bike usually means I can park by front doors anyway!

  19. If they have a placard, I’ll generally assume they need it.

    I’m a slightly overweight, but otherwise perfectly healthy 40-something. But this last winter, I unknowingly had developed a large accumulation of fluid around my heart, and would get absolutely winded walking up a flight of stairs. Two surgeries later, I’m fine – but at that time, I absolutely could have used a permit.

    ​

    Now, in college I worked at an event center on the parking crew. We had a guy in his late 50’s early 60’s with a bum leg, that always worked the handicap lot for us. Concerts were notorious for young (college age or younger) kids borrowing grandpa’s car with the handicap plates so they could park in the handicap lot right by the building instead of the lot and get stuck 1/4 mile away. Our salty old coworker LOVED chewing those guys out. (When you get out of the car, and everyone with you RUNS across the lot….nobody there needs that permit)

  20. I remember when I broke my ankle and had my temporary handicap placard for three months and it was for sure interesting to see how people reacted towards seeing me walk out of my car. For reference, I couldn’t move for one month, did PT for two months and once I was done with PT returned my placard despite them saying I could’ve kept it for another three.

    I had a knee cart for a bit but for the vast majority of the time my PT required me to walk as much as I can so I’d argue that almost all the time I got out of my car I was “able bodied”

    I was in a unique situation where I live between various white collar and blue collar areas and seeing the different reactions.

    In almost all white collar areas, no one batted an eye at me. In fact, a couple of times I had people actually come up and ask to help me with say groceries or would try to take the cart away to the holding area when they saw me slowly walking across

    But oddly enough I got most of the judgement from my local blue collar areas. So many random side glances. People (mostly older) for some reason… judging me? Like I can’t pin point it where I think the irrational thinking it. Because on one end, I find it silly to think I’d try to fake something like this (these blue collar areas are places I visit for years). On other end, I think they also incorrectly think that only old people or those in mobility vehicles should have those spaces. And as someone that at that time, took 30 minutes to walk one city block having the handicapped spot just allowed me to spend a normal amount of time doing my essential tasks.

    It was kind of enlightening to me, because it was only later years onwards that my friend brought up this concept to me. That in white collar areas, everyone is viewed as either following the rules, or being able to afford to break them. In both scenarios, you kind of learn to just mind your own business and go about your life. But in more blue collar areas, there’s a lot of inequality packed in which causes people to have a lot of animosity and judgement towards your peers. So maybe not you, but we knew of a friend of a friend that faked an injury to get a placard. Or maybe someone’s grandma has JUST enough of an eye issue which makes it so that since we drive her around the family card has the placard. Or in my previously mentioned example, I knew that I was “fine” after my PT. Sure it hurt a tiny bit but I knew I was on the road to recovery, but my doctor was so nice and offered to extend it another three months.

    I declined because I know I didn’t need it. But sure, I can totally see someone taking advantage of it.

    Ultimately though? Why does anyone care?

    Because I’ll give you a protip: most of the people who were generally looking out for well being in public? Didn’t ask, or care what lead me to have the placard. They just helped no question. But the ones who were the most judgemental, and thought I was faking it or gaming the system? Never tried to be kind of even empathetic.

    I just find it so odd that in those three months, I was living in people’s head rent free just because I didn’t fit the narrative they wanted for who was supposed go there. It’s okay give me another thirty years and I’ll break the other ankle and will be in a wheelchair so now I won’t have any one writing a reddit post saying that it’s now okay for me to park in that spot

  21. It’s none of my business. I have no idea what’s going on with them nor do I care.

  22. almost as bad as handicaps parking in an able body space right NEXT to an empty handicap space.

  23. I have Crohn’s Disease, you can’t see my handicap. If I have to park all the way at the back of the car park when I need to park somewhere to take a shit in an emergency I would mess myself. So when someone sees me park in a handicap space and then literally run into the store I often get shouted at. I don’t have time to argue or I’d shit myself. Often thought about shitting on their car hoods or in front of them to show them what I have to deal with but I don’t need to deal with the court case it would end in.

  24. Don’t care. Not my problem.

    If it’s in a supermarket car park or whatever then the disabled spaces are merely a suggestion and in no way legally enforceable, anyway.

  28. Nothing. It’s not worth getting into a possible fight, and they’re already an asshole, nothing you can say or do is going to change that

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