I once saw a Ferrari parked in a handicapped spot in L.A., with the blue sticker, and thought: A disabled Ferrari owner is a contradiction in terms.

My advice, slash tires - theres a $400 dollar ticket they wont be forgetting anytime soon

I used to know a family with a genuinely disabled member (he was missing a leg) who would park in handicapped spaces even when the disabled father wasn't in the car with them. It drove me crazy! They of all people should have known better. They, however, saw nothing morally wrong with it. It was their "right."

My best friend is handicapped. She can't walk without the use of crutches and it makes me so angry when we can't find a parking space, it is a difficulty for her to walk for long periods of time, especially as she is getting older. My biggest pet peeve is when we go to a store and they have the electric carts for the handicapped and all are taken by people that are “handicapped” because their butts alone weigh 300 pounds. That makes me so angry. I think that if some one is obese they should not be given handicapped parking spaces, maybe if they had to walk a little bit they might loose some weight. Self imposed health problems are not the same as a handicap. My friend and I have had to wait for the electric carts because they are all taken up by obese people on numerous occasions. In my opinion, if a person that is actually handicapped is waiting for obese people to return a cart then a store employee should tell one of the fat asses to get off the cart, which I know they can’t, but I’m just ranting here because it really does piss me off. If you are born with a disability that makes it a hardship on you to walk (or acquire a disability later in life) then you should be given a handicapped parking pass and you should be able to use the electric carts that stores provide. If you are just fat then you shouldn’t be allowed these things, in fact you should be forced by law to park as far away as possible from everything and walk to it. I can’t imagine a doctor telling someone that is obese to make sure they don’t walk; I would imagine a doctor’s advice would be to start walking more to help loose weight. Ok that’s it for my rant.

Nina, I feel you on the "self imposed health problems."

I'm surprised California doesn't have reserved parking for the emotionally handicapped.

(Full disclosure: I use a blue hang tag because genetic hip dysplasia - something I don't really consider my fault - combines with a lifetime of severe overweight - something that really is my fault - to leave me walking with a forearm crutch. But I use the tag only when necessary.)

Obviously, in some areas the tags can indicate a moral handicap, not a physical one.

In regard to the parking spaces. I sometimes used to take an older relative to a hospital for treatment and would use his tag to park in a handicapped space, if there was not a regular space reasonably close. I often saw another patient using crutches whose car had handicapped veteran tags and who rarely used the provided spots. When I asked him about this, he said that he preferred to not use them, since someone else might really need to.

Whenever I see someone with a decided plethora of pounds using one of the store's powered chairs, I wonder which came first, the weight or the disability?

I know I related here before the story of when my brother and one of his friends and I went to the mall, and a woman in a brand new Caddy pulled into a handicap space, right? As she was fixing her hair and makeup before she got out of the car, my bro and his buddy were walking around the car, checking it out, and she was all smiling when she got out, and my bro said to his friend, "oh I get it, she's got a MENTAL handicap!" And she turned several shades of red, but she kept walking and didn't move her car. She didn't have a blue tag, either. Bitch. o_O

I don't know, usually when I go to a store around here, all the handicapped spaces are empty.

However, in a new addition to the bullshit files, stores are now putting in signs on the spaces just past the handicapped ones "for expecting mothers and mothers with infants".

I park in those spaces, because the last thing I want to do is encourage more screaming babies in public.

In college there was thid jack ass that would always park in handicapped spaces. Local cops would do anything because it was on ampus and campus cops wouldnt do anything because his parents donated "alot of money"

One night a couple of my friends and I got together, outlined huge handicapped symbols in wet toilet paper and filled them in with raw eggs

I park in those "expectant mother" spots, too. I dare them to prove I'm not knocked up.

Exactly brian, this is mostly an urban problem. In suburbia/exurbia we don't complain about parking because we park in our own driveways.

Sunday morning at the bowling alley a perfectly healthy looking guy pulled up next to me with a placard. I was going to make some joke about how he bowled pretty well for a disabled guy, but he didn't bowl very well so I let it go.

I've only seen the expectant mother signs at Babies R Us, sort of expect them there.

At the New York State Fair, the State police regularly confiscate dozens of handicapped tags which are being abused or are fake, expired, etc.

I don't mind the walk from the regular parking, but then the reason I go to the gym is so I can keep walking...

People who poach the expectant mom spots will, one sincerely hopes, receive their just due. Like becoming pregnant and not finding a spot. Being a jerk is not something to boast about. Yes, Brian, this includes you. Making some lady who may just have had a C-section have to walk farther isn't something I'd boast about. It's there for those who need it.

If women who just had kids need it - why not spaces for people who just had surgery?

If your doctor really feels that being pregnat or just having had a kid requireds handicapped parking why didnt he fill out the paper work for a temporary tag?

Mothers only parking is sexist

Apropos of the pregnancy discussion--a few months ago in California, someone proposed that all pregnant women be eligible for a handicapped tag in the third trimester and the 2 months following childbirth. However, obstetricians were against it, since they want their patients to walk. NOW was also against it because they don't want to encourage the idea that pregnant women are handicapped. For those pregnant women who genuinely need handicapped status, due to high risk, C-section, or whatever, they are already covered under existing laws. So the new law would only apply to those who would otherwise NOT fall under the existing statute--in other words, those who aren't handicapped. Here's the info:

bayareanewsgroup.com/multimedia/mn/news/assemblybill_1940.pdf

patriciaebauer.com/2008/03/21/california-bill-would-give-disabled-parking-to-pregnant-women/

I have a very entitled cousin in LA who has a handicapped license plate. I don't know how she got it, but she's entirely healthy, and always has been. She's happy to park in the handicapped spaces, as is her also entirely healthy mother. I just refuse to go out with them. I won't put up with that. I've had to drive my 94-year-old wheelchair-bound grandfather around, and I really NEED his sticker at those times. In fact, after those experiences, I try to park far away, so there will be open spots closer to the building for those who might need them more.

I have two invisible illnesses called nail patella syndrome and fibromyalgia. Just because I am not in a wheel chair or missing any limbs does not mean I am faking my disability. By the way I prefer calling it alter-abled.

What an asswipe. My feeling: if he drives a Porsche he's probably handicapped in ways not immediately obvious when he's wearing pants.

annie not to sound like an asshole but I dont care what you prefer to call it. Your abilities are diminished, not enhanced, not different, but reduced.

And let be honest shall we - it doesnt matter what the fuck we call it, because within 10yrs the term will become rude and politically incorrect and will have to find a new label.

By 2020 you'll be mad at someone for using the phrase alter-abled and prefer to call it something else

Remember in 1999, 10 UCLA football players routinely parked in handicapped spaces?

There was a biggish scandal at the time. They received fines, were assigned community service and placed under probation. Some were suspended for the first two games of the season.

NYT account.

As the players emerged from the courthouse, a handful of protestors in wheelchairs outside chanted, ''Hey hey, ho ho, parking cheats must go.''

Meanwhile, I woke up two weeks ago and couldn't walk! (In case any of you wondered where I'd went.) My 50's more like the new 70! Bone disease is a bitch.

Guess where I am now, back at work, which I got to on the bus (disclaimer: I'm soon to be evaluated to see if I qualify for our bus company's disabled bus which will bring you door to door and hoping to hell I get it before there's ice on the ground here in NY) along with my new companion, a cane.

They do seem to enforce the parking and not give out those blue tags too easily but God public transit is another matter. Need to get on people who take the handicapped seating.

One reason I'm applying besides living in NY and dreading trying to wobble my way over ice is because of the crowding on the regular bus. I regularly have people jamming into my bad leg, kneelers that don't work (especially in cold weather) and a lot of our bus stops don't have benches and ones that do -- you guessed it -- are often taken by assholes whose asses alone weigh 300 pounds (I'm overweight but never hit that high at my worse and am down from that) who are no way in hell gonna move for someone with a cane. Trust me, I know. Getting off the bus through a knot of people who won't move back no matter how often or loud the driver screams at them to even before this happened was difficult, now I have a hard as hell time getting through without falling.

It's kind of a catch 22. One reason we may have such an overcrowding problem on the regular bus is because we do fund the handicapped service. But that's the one expenditure I've never bitched about (and am now glad I haven't) because I've always felt, Christ, with arthritis it's bad enough, I don't know how anyone truly handicapped would manage.

But also, along with the parking spaces, the asshats who sit in the handicapped seats -- I'm talking healthy 20 something's chatting away on their cells -- and don't get up for someone handicapped that gets on. I get on at the 2nd stop so get a seat and I'm caught between another delimma -- sitting in the first forward facing seat in case someone worse off than me -- blind, wheelchair or just plain even less mobile or sitting there so I have less people to fight my way through when getting off.

I'm grateful (after two days of not being so) to be back up on my feet even though I have to use the cane. These assholes who don't honor handicapped parking/seating need to spend a weekend where they had all kinds of things planned and taught some empathy along with being grateful for what they do have.

So much nastiness about things you just may not see or understand. I have a "hidden" illness called Crohn's disease. Usually I look just fine to strangers but those precious parking spaces let me occasionally get out because I shop where there are close by ladies rooms and the parking makes the often required run a whole lot shorter.

I also have an aortic valve replacement with a mitral valve leak - but you can't see that either. And recently I became deaf and find tremendous comfort in being able to park near the front door that is well lit so that I can make those races to the ladies room without further fear of being mugged by someone I can't hear.

And there are many other things wrong but frankly I have tried for years not to dwell on any of it but when I read what I see here, I feel diminished in ways I never felt before. You may have that space if it has turned your hearts to rock. That I don't want to be responsible for.

Just let them know those special parking spaces are not for the mentally disabled.