Handicapped Parking

About 8-9 years ago in South Philly, everyone (and I really mean everyone) had a handicapped license plate on their car. In addition, the city was kind enough to put up some signs in front of the peoples houses that limited parking to those residents only. It was amazing. You would look down any street and see 6-7 of these parking spots. The state eventually cracked down on the handicapped plates. From what I can remember, the only thing you needed to get a plate and the signs was a doctors note stating you could not walk more than 100 yards without needing to take a break. Honest!

Ok.. so now today there are no longer license plates but you need these little placards that hang on your rear view mirror. It was my belief that to get these placards you actually needed to be handicapped.

I'm not sure that's true. I'm out in the suburbs today and in front of every store in every strip mall out here there are at least 4 and usually 6-8 spaces right out front for handicapped only. You can tell the spaces by those little blue signs with the white stencil of the wheelchair.

First of all, I have never seen a handicapped person drive a car and I've barely seen one of them as a passenger. There may be lots of handicapped people in the area, but I don't think they get out in their cars as much as we do. I'm not sure they need all the spaces that are allotted to them.

But anyway, I'm not mad about that. What I'm angry about is the massive abuse of these spots. See, I sit in the car while my girlfriend runs into stores. I've done it most of the day today and a bunch last night. I usually park near the front of the stores so I have a perfect view of the handicapped spaces.

In the 1-2 hours that I was watching the spaces I saw (yes I counted) 5 cars pull into and out of these spots. Do you know how many of the cars were driven by or occupied handicapped or disabled people? Zero. You knew that didn't you? I was amazed. One car had these two young girls in it. They could barely drive.. I thought as they pulled up "Ok, they are just ignorant idiots and they are either making a mistake or don't care or know about the $300 fine". They pulled into the space on an angle (taking up 1.5 spots) reached down to the floor and up came a placard. They hopped out of the car and jogged into the store.

I saw this 4 more times. These people weren't even fat, or old, or anything.. Can I ask you something? What the fuck man? And more importantly, where can I get one?