Earlier I pointed to a Chron article about widespread abuse of disability parking hangtags, which showed that some 40% of cars that have them shouldn’t. Now it turns out that there’s almost zero enforcement of hangtag abuse laws here in Houston. Other cities don’t seem to have this problem:
Mesquite, less than 10 percent Houston’s size, has seized 69 tags in the past year.
San Antonio, with a new program for its downtown, plastered warning fliers on every hangtagged car it could find two weeks ago. Last week, it began enforcement and seized at least 15 tags.
[…]
With cheating rampant in Houston’s airports, malls and downtown, in the last 12 months, the city has seized a total of … one.
I know we have officers who enforce parking laws downtown. I have no idea why none of them are being told to enforce the hangtag laws.
Given the way people have reacted to this story, I can’t help but think that some politician is going to jump in front of this issue.
One person e-mailed the Chronicle: “I have in-laws that have a hangtag that they had gotten because they were caring for a now-deceased relative in their home. They laugh about it and always park in the handicapped parking spaces.”
“I would love to see their tag yanked from them, as well as someone teaching them a lesson.”
The writer then provided their names and address.
There’s glory and credit to be had if only someone wants it.
They’re much too busy directing traffic around construction hazards and busting up crime in Kmart’s parking lot to do more useful police work. 🙂
Dammit! That joke was just sitting there waiting for me to grab it. I can’t believe I bobbled it. Excuse me while I go off into a corner and pout.
I figured it was to encourage reader participation. 🙂
How does a person go about reporting this abuse of handicapped parking tags? I would love to report an incident and have the person’s license plate as well. This occurred in Gaveston Count, Texas.
The abuse of handicapped parking is a big joke. Police don’t enforce violations and the public, seeing violations so often they are no longer offended, simply blow it off. God help the person who confronts an abusive jerk when caught in the act. Those caught with their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, become instantly confrontive and threaten physical confrontation. I know from personal experience! I have had people threaten to kick my ass out of my wheelchair (a quote) if I don’t mind my own business. An especially stupid retort is “what business is it of yours?” People don’t like being caught doing something wrong and will channel embarrassment quickly to anger. Call the police…they won’t come. They’re too busy making money for the city writing moving violation tickets or whatever. Enforcing handicapped parking regs is way low on the priority list. People don’t understand that people who use wheelchair to get around need extra wide spaces to get their chairs into and out of their cars. One issue which is never touched upon is that of safety. If a wheelchair user has to park well away from store front they must roll their chairs past vehicles backing out. We sit so low in our chairs that we can’t be seen by drivers doing out of the ordinary tasks. I have been nearly killed several times because all the handicapped spaces were taken at a given business and I had to dodge backing out drivers while rolling to the store front. In a regular size space I can easily return to my car to find someone has innocently parked waaay too close to my door to get back ito my car. I have had to wait hours for people to return and back their car out so I can get into mine. THESE PROBLEMS CAN BEE SOLVED BY STAYING OUT OF HANDICAPPED SPACES. If you can park your car and walk into a store, mall, or whatever and walk around for an hour or two of shopping fun without the need for a wheelchair, walker, or some other aid you don’t need a handiapped permit..PERIOD!
The abuse of handicapped parking is a big joke. Police don’t enforce violations and the public, seeing violations so often they are no longer offended, simply blow it off. God help the person who confronts an abusive jerk when caught in the act. Those caught with their hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, become instantly confrontive and threaten physical confrontation. I know from personal experience! I have had people threaten to kick my ass out of my wheelchair (a quote) if I don’t mind my own business. An especially stupid retort is “what business is it of yours?” People don’t like being caught doing something wrong and will channel embarrassment quickly to anger. Call the police…they won’t come. They’re too busy making money for the city writing moving violation tickets or whatever. Enforcing handicapped parking regs is way low on the priority list. People don’t understand that people who use wheelchair to get around need extra wide spaces to get their chairs into and out of their cars. One issue which is never touched upon is that of safety. If a wheelchair user has to park well away from store front they must roll their chairs past vehicles backing out. We sit so low in our chairs that we can’t be seen by drivers doing out of the ordinary tasks. I have been nearly killed several times because all the handicapped spaces were taken at a given business and I had to dodge backing out drivers while rolling to the store front. In a regular size space I can easily return to my car to find someone has innocently parke waaay too close to my door to get back into my car. I have had to wait hours for people to return and back their car out so I can get into mine. THESE PROBLEMS CAN BEE SOLVED BY STAYING OUT OF HANDICAPPED SPACES. If you can park your car and walk into a store, mall, or whatever and walk around for an hour or two of shopping fun without the need for a wheelchair, walker, or some other aid you don’t need a handiapped permit..period!