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In New Zealand, a System To Watch for Disabled Parking Violators
cylonlover writes "What does it mean when a parking spot is marked with a wheelchair symbol? If you answered, 'It means I can park there as long as I'm going to be quick,' you're wrong — yet you're also far from alone. Every day in parking lots all over the world, non-disabled drivers regularly use spaces clearly reserved for the handicapped. They often get away with it, too, unless an attendant happens to check while their vehicle is parked there. Thanks to technology recently developed by New Zealand's Car Parking Technologies (CPT), however, those attendants could soon be notified the instant that a handicapped spot is improperly occupied."
Penn & Teller did a Bullshit! episode on handicapped parking that's pretty interesting. As with all Bullshit! episodes, it's full of profanity, if that offends you.
One of the interesting points of the episode, and something I've noticed as will others, is that handicapped parking spots are almost always empty. Empty parking spots all over the world that most people aren't allowed to use, which of course clutters up the rest of the parking lot. Just something to think about.
Thinking about it...
Thinking about it...
Continuing to think about it...
Almost done thinking about it...
There. Done thinking about it. You're still a cunt for parking there if you aren't disabled. Walk the extra dozen or so feet, it might do you some good.
Yup. I said it. Mod me down because it violates your PC ethics.
But seriously, survival of the fittest. Those who cannot walk 50 feet should not be coddled. Half the time it is some overweight heifer who won't take care of herself. The other half it is just someone who survived to 70. But the bottom line is that I am a Darwinist and don't see why we make life easier for those who can't take care of themselves.
Either be in shape or be part of a family network that will take care of you. If you can't do either, then don't go shopping. Simple as that. Survival of the fittest got us where we are today. Quit fucking with evolution.
On the one hand I admire your willingness to admit an opinion (or I would if you put your name to it) that I suspect a lot of able bodied people keep to themselves, but I bet you'd feel different if you or someone you cared about suddenly developed some disease that greatly reduced your mobility.
And even if Darwin was wanting to help evolution along, even he would be smart enough to know that letting a few arthritic 70 year olds die isn't going to make even the tiniest bit of difference to the process. If you want to help evolution along, maybe you should campaign for preventing people with inheritable diseases from passing those diseases on to their kids (either by genetic pre-testing or just stopping them having kids). The truth is that most disabled people aren't disabled because of some genetic trait, but because of some other unfortunate incident along the way.
So maybe keep your unfortunate prejudices to yourself or at least stop pretending that you have evolution on your side.
One of the interesting points of the episode, and something I've noticed as will others, is that handicapped parking spots are almost always empty. Empty parking spots all over the world that most people aren't allowed to use, which of course clutters up the rest of the parking lot. Just something to think about.
That's not interesting. Not even the slightest bit. So we over-assign handicapped spots to try and make sure that when several truly handicapped people are at the store, they don't have to park at the back of the lot because we tried to cut the number of spots close so that some non-handicapped lard-asses didn't have to walk an extra 25 feet. Big deal.
I don't know, the last couple years of his life, I think I could live with Steve getting a handicapped space. I've had a handicapped placard for over 10 years (after a major car accident.) I see people parking illegally all the time. Even when there is legal parking just a few spaces away. I'm lucky, I can walk a little ways (in spite of the severe pain.) There are many who are wheelchair bound who need the special large parking spaces to exit their vehicles. People who take those places because they are lazy or resent not those places not being used as often as regular space are arguing against showing the injured and handicapped special consideration in what amounts to one of the smallest possible ways. Its almost nothing to an able bodied person to walk a few yards more to a store entrance. For a number of handicapped people its the difference in being able to go to the store and not.
It wouldn't hurt the world to develop a miniscule amount of compassion and human dignity. Sadly our society as a whole has been remiss in instilling these qualities in our children today.
the code by which animals live in the serengeti has nothing really to do with how or why human beings choose to order their societies
but i'll be sure to kneecap you next time i see you walking down the street and just steal your stuff. i'm not interested in doing that, but since you are broadcasting to everyone that you believe this is the way society should be ordered: pure darwinism, then i'm just conforming to your wishes about how you think you should be treated
and i look froward to your reply, in which you engage in hollywood fantasies about how well armed and prepared you are 24/7 to survive in such a world and how perfect you will be in deflecting my attack. because you are omniscient and omnipotent, apparently. seems to me that's an intellectual failure to understand your essential weaknesses as an individual human being
so, maybe your professed darwinistic ideology really is evolution playing out: the less intelligent among us choosing a mode of "morality" that ensures your life (not my life, i'm not abiding by your beliefs) is brutish, mean, and short: darwinistic. thus ensuring you won't pass on your genes. and i, choosing the way of human morality, and respecting the physically weaker amongst us, who still contribute to society, and playing by the simple rules of decency and respect, amongst others playing by the same code of decency and respect, together, we will survive and define society, and reproduce this code
because in the contest of survival in this world, a well coordinated group of physically weak and average intelligence homo sapiens, but respectful of each other and coordinating with each other, outcompetes the lone superstrong supersmart who do not work well in groups. enjoy your extinction, inferior homo sapiens. genetics is over. memetics is the new game. play catch up or die off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Reading comments so far on this thread with people arguing about actual need for “walking disabled” parking spaces, I realize that this is just one of those topics you cannot possibly truly comprehend without being a disabled person. Sure, I understand that many parking spots may go unused and the there are of course those that abuse the system. However, there are also a large number of people, like me, that really need this kind of parking system. Nothing sucks more than trying to unload a 300 pound electric wheelchair when boxed in by two SUVs so close the doors cannot open. In addition, nothing sucks more than having to traipse across a large parking lot looking for a lost car when ever step you take puts you in excruciating pain. In fact, without this reserved parking system, I simply would not be able to go many places or partake in many activities. Even on a good day, it really is a confidence booster to know that if something goes wrong and I need to exit in a hurry that my car is right out front.
This walking disabled parking system, while maybe not perfect, is in place to serve those that actually need it. Thus, the bottom line is that while you may not understand or agree with enforcement actions such as those now being enacted in New Zealand, there are many people with a legitimate need that will indeed benefit from it.
You and your healthy wheelchair user friend are in error, on several accounts.
It's much harder to use a wheelchair outdoors than indoors. On plain floors, good chairs pretty much roll themselves. Outdoors, not so much.
My latest wheelchair had front wheels the size of (actually, they were) rollerblade wheels. Any outdoor rolling had to be done on the rear wheels only. Once indoor, though, I was as nimble as anyone else.
Then there are people who tire easily. You can take a break inside in the store. Not so much in the parking lot, between well-meaners and drivers who back up without seeing someone lower than their car. And if on crutches or just hard of walking, are you OK with them resting against em your car, setting off the alarm?
Risk of being run over is also a problem if you're just very slow due to your handicap. If it takes you ten minutes to walk to the front door, and you can't jump out of the way of cars that don't see you, it's by far safer to park up front.
Then you are also wrong in assuming that all the handicapped traverse the entire store. Many of them go to the service desk and get assistance, some because the store is too big for them to handle with their handicap, and some because they can't reach what's on the top three levels of the shelves anyhow.
In some cases, I went to the service counter because the stores had aisles and check-out spaces made for narrow shopping carts, and not modern wheelchairs with cambered wheels.
When I was on crutches, it was also pretty difficult. I could push a cart around in the store, but across a parking lot where the cart may take off due to gravity? No chance in hell. Would you rather I asked a clerk to help me get my groceries to the handicap parking right by the entrance, or spend 10 minutes walking with me across the parking lot?
Strange as it may sound, handicapped people are often just as insensitive as able bodied people, and sometimes even more so. Just because they have no problems traversing a big parking lot, they may think others who don't do so are lazy, without considering that they might not be as abled as them.
This isn't free market. This is assisting the disabled who could be injured trying to access or, worse, permanently barred from accessing stores and services. In a perfect free market people are nothing but resources to be exploited and the disabled would be discarded like broken machinery. I resist that.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...