Andy gets his ‘nip on the table. Yes, I know! Andy didn’t get on the table when it was cluttered but started getting up there when I cleared it off. Cats!
I have a crappy enough parking situation so imagine how disturbing it was to come home from dialysis to find someone parked in my spot.
I parked on the grass since the alternative was to stop in the lane, blocking traffic.
After waiting a few minutes for the car owner to show up, I parked very close to the car, blocking the owner’s access. I intended to make a statement about taking a resident’s spot, let alone a handicapped space!
No handicapped plate, but there was a handicap tag hanging on the mirror.
Shortly after I blocked the owner’s access, a fellow came running over. He apparently is not the person to whom the handicap tag was issued, making use of the tag illegal.
I moved back, letting him get in and drive away.
I will challenge his use of the tag if he parks there again. The fine in my state for first time ticketed is only $150, with subsequent tickets progressively higher, with additional consequences. The person issued the tag can lose the privilege if it’s misused, too.
That is so awful when people take spaces that are truly needed by others.
It’s all a matter of self-importance.
That stinks!
Very upsetting to me because after dialysis, all I want is to park the car and get inside to relax.
So sorry, Doug. Did you do something about that selfish people at the police ? Amitiés 🙂
No, but I would next time! I’ve been tempted to put a note on offender’s windshields saying I’d notified police that the person concerned parked i a handicap parking spot without the tag, giving the police the vehicle license plate number and a description of the vehicle, but not signing it. The offender, then, would be worried about a police visit, possibly for days. I think that might train them not to do it agaain!
No, because it is on private property
Man that stuff really makes me angry, Doug! I see people doing this here occasionally and it’s always dead wrong. I have a handicap tag for the rare time my back goes out because of herniated lumbar. I hope this jerk never uses your parking space again, Doug.
Me, too, John. A lot of times people think it’s ok to do it briefly, you know, “I was only going in to buy milk then come back out” or something like that. still a $150 first time fine in my state.
One minute or one hour, no difference. 😡
Exactly.
I am sorry you had to deal with that driver, Doug. Sometimes people just don’t think about what they are doing, or don’t care.
Andy looks like a little angel with his pile of catnip. 🙂
Andy always looks cute! Poor cat: he has kittenish facial features!
As for the fellow concerned, I got the impression he was opportunistic, that he probably realized there is limited parking for residents, that the visitor parking is at the north and south ends of the block. oh my! He would have had to walk a few hundred feet to and from wherever he was visiting!
That’s why I will make those people inconvenienced any wat I can or leave the note suggesting they’ve been reported to the police even though they haven’t.
That’s good of Andy to not get on the table for his ‘nip until it was cleared. People who take a handicap parking spot should have to wear an identifying tag: “A**hole”!
Andy is a good kitty! And that sounds like good punishment for these people, only it could be a permanent license plate identifying them as a person who parked in handicap parking without the tag.
People don’t use handicapped spots if there is effective enforcement. And it’s unfair that you should have to do the enforcement.
But I think it was Mark Twain that noted, “conscience is that little voice saying somebody is watching you.” So It’s great that you nmake them sweat a bit about a fine.
There is no police presence in my retirement “village” unless it’s when they come around with the ambulance. It becomes the resident’s responsibility to banish this behavior. I documented it this way because I have this capability. I post my blog posts on Facebook, too, so many more local people see it there than here on WordPress. My hope is the guy is known to some of my local readers and they let me know who he is and whether or not he is disabled in some way, legitimizing his use of the tag.
Absolutely true! Police don’t patrol what amounts to a private “village” unless a resident calls them.
Now I see your point. If you don’t police the situation it doesn’t get done.
Unfortunately….
I agree. There is a quirk of Americans that tells some people the laws can be ignore a little – 65 in a 60 mile per hour zone sorts of abuses – and it’s OK. In the industrial and hydraulic hose factory where I spent my work life in various aspects of quality, there was a mentality that had to be addressed: a tendency to exceed or go below the tolerances by “just a few thousandtyhs…”. Tolerance stack up ;’;l is these hoses can beco e a fatal flaw in applications. Too low, and the fittings can blow off; too high, and assemblies can’t be made. Other issues can come from this, too, but the point is2 that tolerances are there for a reason. Same with laws and abusing them a little bit is still breaking the law.
You make a great series of points, But I think that most social sytems are maintained with a certain amount of consensual slippage. Like the cat letting you get away with 10 greenies not 12.
On the point of QC and tolerances though there is this:
I had a friend who did quality control engineering as a consultant. His opinion of lousy quality control was that management allowed it to happen – you get what you accept. He also said that he got paid big dollars to investigate manufacturing processes and come up with improvements – he maintained that often the things he suggested came from the factory floor. Management didn’t listen to a bunch of sweaty apes without college degrees. But being thay were paying him such a large fee they felt obliged to pay attention to what he said.
I had this understanding of the management where I worked: You can tell them, but not much! Yes, W. Edwards Deming noted managers were the source of quality issues.
I found production employees knew how to improve their processes, often brought suggestions to management’s attention, only to get shot down because it cost too much (never mind the cost of poor quality for excess scrap, customer dissatisfaction with crap, etc., and employee attitude issues) or the idea came from one of those “floor people”!
Henry Ford noted that if you needed a machine to do a job and didn’t buy it, you ended up paying for it anyway in poor quality, customer returns, scrap, reworks. Not a man known for his enlightened politics, he knew manufacturing, eh?
You are right, amd I can see that you’ve spent time thinking this through.
Almost 36 years with the factory management mentality does that to the nice person that I used to be! LOL! I spent more time trying to explain to managers how to use data I analyzed for them to benefit the process and bottom line, only to have them ignore me and make stupid, costly, avoidable mistakes following their intuition instead.
Toward the end, I went through my work, presented it to them, and just let them fall down instead of trying to get through to them.
I got several trips over the years to other plants and training sessions to learn how to use data-generated statistics to improve processes, which I appreciated, though I never felt the factory benefited from me spending days, months, years, fine-tuning my knowledge of various change programs, like the Toyota JIT method, Design Experiments, and many others. Again, you can tell manager, but not much!
Dammit
Many people don’t care how this behavior is more than an inconvenience for the legitimate users of these reserved spots.
For a kitty, any clear space is fair game! Plus, Andy looks cute there. But people who use handicapped parking spaces, nothing fair or cute there. It’s very inconsiderate to take someone else’s space and/or a handicapped space you don’t need.
I hope someone reading this post recognize the vehicle and license plate number and bring this to that man’s attntion!
Ugh, I hope there’s a special place in hell for abled bodied people who park in handicap reserved spaces. When my husband was in a wheelchair, it was infuriating to see a car with three very healthy women parked in the one handicap spot next to the drugstore entrance. They were waiting for their able-bodied friend to return from her errand–I know this because I was watching them as I helped my husband into his chair while we were parked in the fire lane. (Parking enforcement was very sparse in the suburb where we lived, plus I felt the scofflaws should get a ticket before we did.) Someone said to me later, ‘Not all disabilities are visible.’ I replied, irately, that the car parked in the handicap spot didn’t have a permit or special needs plate, and the woman who came out of the store started dancing as she walked to the car with her grinning friends inside. Anyway! I’m sorry you went through that, Doug. If I were you, I’d definitely report the abuse of a handicap permit if you see this driver again.
I agree! I’m tempted to leave an unsigned note on the offending vehicles, saying I notified the police of the license plate number and the offense, then not doing it. The offender, then, would suffer not knowing when there would be a knock on his or her door!
I hate people who do that! When we go to the supermarkets we often see big 4x4s with no badge parked in disabled spots, with perfectly well-looking people getting out. (I know, I know, not all disabilities are visible, but trust me, these particular ones are NOT DISABLED.) Same with the parent and child parking. I have mixed views about those (I don’t think quite literally any parent and any child of whatever age should use them), but even so, when it’s a single dude in a massive 4×4 I often shout, “Oh no, you’ve lost your kid! Want some help looking for them?”
Outrageous! “I was only gone a minute,” they often say, thinking that somehow clears them of the crime.
And that’s a lie, as it’s never a minute! Cat Daddy and I once followed a lady around the supermarket, after she’d parked in the parent and child area, saying, “Poor lady, she’s lost her child! Should we help her look?”