HandicappedFraud.org Forum

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abuse needs to be APPROPRIATELY REPORTED

I have a placard, but don't need it most of the time and only use it when I really do. I have worked with people with disabilities since I was 14..about 13 years before I knew I had a chronic health problem and 15 years before I started having enough trouble walking to get a placard. I usually do not use a mobility aid-except a shopping cart in the store, but do have a motorized wheelchair for long distance and sometimes use a cane with seat so that I can stop and rest. Once I went to the mall food court for lunch. I really wasn't feeling good-plus the parking lot had a lot of pot holes and cracks which I have an especially hard time on--even small cracks can cause me to twist an ankle.....so i used my placard. I ate and immediately returned to my car....I couldn't walk through the mall. My leg gave out 2x on the way to my car and I had to rest my head on the steering wheel when I got in..yet an idiot on a Harley shook his head at me.\r\n\r\nI am a big proponent of enforcing handicap parking and other frauds related to disability issue. But you need to use common sense. Some of the assumptionsof fraud on this site are purely ridiculous.\r\n\r\nPeople who 'appear' to be walking fine might in fact be appropriately using the spot, unless you have xray vision or are psychic-you can suspect, but have to right to attack based on a general assumption.\r\n\r\n\r\nIf a person is picking up a person with a disability, they can use the handicap spot. So just because a person jumps out of the car and runs is not proof. They could be running in to escort the person with the disability to the car.\r\n\r\nSome people with mental disabilities due in fact need the aid of another person to safely walk through a parking lot. They are at risk of running off should the caretaker lose their grip and may not know to move out of the way of a car that is backing up. The wording of the regs in my state can be interpreted to allow this.\r\n\r\nYou can get yourself killed confronting someone you assume is misuing the parking--whether they are or not. Why take that chance-especially when there is a possibility they are legitimately using the spot.\r\n\r\n\r\nYou need to have REASONABLE suspicion before assuming someone is misuing the parking. Some of the reports do show reasonable suspicion, but others show pure ignorance.

 

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If you get a note and you need the placard, you can rest assured that you are justified. But from what I see and I know of people, there are many more Dr's that are arbitrarily giving out handicap placards to some that are needing to walk and others that don't usually drive at all. These placards are then willed and given to some very greedy and lazy people who take from my son in his wheelchair. Our Van has a placard for him, when we are in the van and he is not with us, i park pretty far away from our destination to give plenty of room for others to park. When I see obvious abusers take much needed spots it gets me goin. I do not have any leniency for commercial trucks and businesses using these spots, each one gets a call and I submit both to this site and also to Angie's list.\r\nI see and understand what you are saying.\r\nrick

Don't need it most of the time.....Hugh

Rick like you I have both the placard (for when someone else is driving) and 'permanently crippled' license plates for my vehicle but only use the handicapped spots on those days when the pain is particularly bad, ie agony.\r\n\r\nI look with suspicion anyone who has and uses a placard with no obvious disability. Some days my gait while walking appears almost 'normal' and if someone were to ask me why I utilized a handicapped spot I would have NO problem telling them about the hurricane and the tree that crushed my upper body, the resultant arthritis, joint and spinal damage, or the traumatic brain injury that qualified my application. I don't use the spots ALL the time because I know that I require some exercise to prevent complete crippling, and I also know that there are other folks who are far worse off than me and I know how I feel when I cannot find a close-by space on those particularly bad days.\r\n\r\nThe tone of a number of the comments would lead ANYONE to suspect these individual's use of placards is fraudulent either from the condition no longer existing (healed broken bones, etc.) or downright fraud (someone else's placard or stolen/forged application).\r\n\r\n-Jon Paul