{"id":9767,"date":"2015-07-28T10:46:18","date_gmt":"2015-07-28T15:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/?p=9767"},"modified":"2015-07-28T10:49:37","modified_gmt":"2015-07-28T15:49:37","slug":"the-truth-about-handicapped-parking-spots-its-not-always-about-how-close-they-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/2015\/the-truth-about-handicapped-parking-spots-its-not-always-about-how-close-they-are\/","title":{"rendered":"The truth about handicapped parking spots. It’s not always about how close they are."},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m going to do my best to make this as short and sweet as possible but it needs to be out there. There seems to be a lot of heavy opinions about handicapped parking spots and who should & who shouldn’t park in them, despite what is visible to the eye.<\/p>\n

The first problem is that there is only one kind of handicapped parking spot: wide and close to the door.<\/p>\n

There are three types of people that need the handicapped parking.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Those that need to be close because of something not visible or with a standing disability like a broken foot, hip replacement, etc..<\/li>\n
  2. Thos in a wheelchair like me who either have a ramp on their van or need the extra width between cars for their chair to fit.<\/li>\n
  3. Those that need both.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \"the<\/p>\n

    I fall heavily into the second category but with young kids the 3rd category is more accurate.<\/p>\n

    Most parking lots are set up so you have to walk (or roll) behind cars to get from  your car to the building.<\/p>\n

    My chair puts me low to the ground so most cars cannot see me if I’m going behind them. That presents a safety issue, especially when I have my three kids with me. Most handicapped spots are close a building and they have a walkway in front of them so going across the lot is now safe.<\/p>\n

    Now let’s wrap around to the peeve most people (ME!!!) have with people “abusing” these parking spot.<\/p>\n

    There are many times I see someone who maybe needs to be close, but doesn’t need the width  park in the only spot left that I can use. Now why does this upset me if I KNOW they have a limp or heart condition? Because there’s a very usable spot for them either immediately across the row or one or two spots down that would only take an extra two or three steps. If you can stand, you can park in a narrow spot.<\/p>\n

    I CAN NOT! I may be thin, and my chair may be narrow but I need to open my doors all the way.<\/p>\n

    Just because you have the placard or plates doesn’t mean you should use it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. If there is no where else to park in a reasonable distance, then by all means go ahead. <\/strong><\/p>\n

    Now why does upset me? Because that means I have to double park at the end of the parking lot and unsafely role through the lot. If I’m by myself this isn’t really a big deal but when I have the kids with me, like I said earlier, it is.<\/p>\n

    Now you may have noticed that I mentioned double parking. Why would I need to double park if there’s no one in the end of the parking lot? Inevitably if I don’t, someone will park right next to me and I will not be able to open my driver’s side door.<\/p>\n

     I think there should be two different types of handicap parking spots. Those that are still the same width as all the others but close to the store and those that are further out but wide and have a safe path to the front door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m going to do my best to make this as short and sweet as possible but it needs to be out there. There seems to be a lot of heavy opinions about handicapped parking spots and who should & who shouldn’t park in them, despite what is visible to the eye. The first problem is that there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-wheelchair-stuff","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5zEve-2xx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9767\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.wheelchairmommy.com\/closed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}