If you recall reading Animal Farm, by George Orwell, an oft-quoted line from that book is:
All of the animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.
While that book was designed to expose the contradictory policies of communist governments, any fair assessment would have to conclude that certain people from every part of the political spectrum prize their own advantages, and fail to see the inequalities therein.
Hey mountainbike,
What would happen if you parked your scion . . . complete with handicapped placard, I presume . . . in one of those spots in the front, the ones reserved for hybrids
Would anybody be evil enough to lecture you or write you a ticket . . . ?
If so, shame on them 
Iâm thinking a parking enforcement officer would have to have a heart of stone, to give you a ticket.
Is that even possible for you to do that, or are hybrids now so commonplace, that even those spots would all be taken?
Hybrids get preferred parking over handicapped? wrong on so many levels, can you get a ticket for parking in a hybrid spot if you do not qualify as you would for parking in a handicapped spot, doubtful but not sure.
I seem to remember a few years ago, one of our regulars said they park their TRUCK in reserved hybrid spots, because in his area, hybrid parking restrictions are not enforceable . . .
Probably. Some of these people are a*******.
The hybrid spaces are generally empty.
@the_same_mountainbik ⊠good point. A few years ago I had a blind co-worker friend, and those handicap spots were really important for safety when giving my friend a hand going grocery shopping, to the train station, etc. Keeping my friend and their guide dog safe when entering and exiting the car in traffic is tough enough with access to a handicap spot. Without them it would be nearly impossible.
I think one reason why those spots have a bad reputation is that seemingly non-handicap people use them. I saw one fellow with a very expensive sports car with no visible handicap I could see pull into one the other day, jumped out of his car and into the store, parking in a handicap spot presumably just to avoid getting dings.
At the university where I was employed for 44 years, there were spaces reserved for cars, with.the spaces equipped chargers, for cars such as the Chevrolet Volt Tesla, and the Nissan Leaf that had connections to recharge the batteries, but the owner had to buy a permit, which also paid.the cost of the electricity for the battery charger. The car had to have a hookup for the external charger and be connected to the charger while parked in the space. I have also seen recharging station equipped parking spaces at Hotels and reserved for the type of car mentioned above. However, I have never seen reserved spaces for Toyota Prius and Honda Civic hybrids that canât have the main battery externally recharged. I object to special places for these cars. If a person wants to drive a Prius, I have no problem, but it shouldnât give the owner special privileges. If this is the case, I should get special parking privileges as I get better mileage with my Sienna than a Prius when I am carrying 8 people. The gasoline used per passenger is better than if we used 2 Prius for the same distance.
I noticed a charging station at a CVS in Ohio but it was way down on the side of the building, far away from the entrance. I did a 400 mile round trip yesterday with my G6 V6, 70 miles an hour most of the way with cross winds and I averaged 30.9 for the trip. Thatâs the best I ever got but I usually drive slower with less stuff in the car. I only passed one patrol car but he didnât say anything but I would have showed him my display and the mpg arguing that it hurts my mileage to go slower.
Yes it is so.
Man, ainât that the truth!
As regards reserved spaces for cars that need recharging stations, I have no objection to that⊠but the handicapped spaces should not be pushed aside to make room for them! The priorities should NOT be to the EVs and/or hybrids.
Actually, the spaces Iâve referred to donât even have sockets for EVs. Theyâve pushed the handicapped spaces aside, making life more difficult for the handicapped, solely for political correctness⊠and I fail to see whatâs âcorrectâ about doing this.
It also bothers me that environmentalism has become so institutionalized that it can push human needs aside. Itâs become more important than compassion and decency.
I donât understand hybrid preferred parking. Are all hybrid drivers incapable of walking? If some of them are they would qualify for handicap parking. I have seen hybrid parking spaces at the curb in front of a main entrance with handicap parking across the driveway. Why are they special? They still use a fossil fuel internal combustion engine. I have not seen EV only designated parking spaces with the exception of 2 charging stations in a local Dairy Queen parking lot which are located as far as possible from the restaurant⊠If you park an EV in a hybrid space will you be cited or towed? The entire concept makes no sense at all. A large popular mall in the big city has no curb parking. The spaces across the driveway from the main entrance are regular parking spaces. There are 12 handicap spaces in 2 rows across the driveway offset about 150 feet from the entrance. There is a marked crosswalk from the handicap spaces to the sidewalk that ends at a 6 inch curb! The Army Aviation Support Facility where I used to work was manned by full time Department of Defense civilians and a few full time military personnel plus one state building maintenance person as the buildings were owned by the state and located on city (airport) property. In the early 2000s it was discovered that the buildings had no handicap access. A proper parking spot was marked and the rear door of hanger #1 was automated with the big handicap button. Unfortunately the door opened outward and if a person in a wheelchair didnât scoot back quick enough it could smack them. If they managed to get inside they were greeted by a stairwell on their right or heavy fire proof outward opening doors (required for fire egress) which entered an aircraft maintenance hanger which for safety reasons required an escort for all visitors. All civilian and military offices were located on the second floor. There was no elevator. During my few years until retirement I canât recall one handicapped visitor for obvious reasons. These useless requirements for hybrids and less than useless engineering for the handicapped were created by idiots.
Sarge, the things you describe are typical of what I see everywhere.
At my own college, the front entrance was redesigned during a reconstruction and built with a ramp⊠but no button to open the very heavy door that opened out into the person! And we had wheelchair-bound students!
I could go on with a long list of examples, but you get the idea.
Iâm in agreement with the same mountainbike that far too many people make assumptions about someoneâs health while actually knowing less than zero about it.
They see someone walking from a vehicle parked in a HC space and assume, Bum, there ainât nothing wrong with them.
As for parking, I donât spend 17 minutes a year looking for a spot. I just automatically park in the sticks and walk even if it does cause my bum back and wasted right knee to give me fits.
Have you talked to the stores about the policy? If it I said a place you really want to shop, ask to speak to the manager and tell her about your handicap. Maybe they will ignore that your car is not a hybrid given your back problems.
Yup. As a matter of fact the âstore managerâ at KFC, a very nice young kid, told me that theyâve had numerous complaints about their handicap parking. Heâs passed them on to his boss, the regional manager who works for the owner, who lives in Massachusetts and owns a number of KFC franchises. Itâs hopeless for an individual to matter.
The others, the large and small big-box stores, theyâre all owned by âholding companiesâ, and the store managers work for regional managers. The site managers really have zero say over any of these issues.
The âownerâ of the liquor store, the state of NH, did respond after being hammered in the local media. In short, it would have been bad politics to ignore it.
Itâs a cultural issue. Nobody cares.
Me? I just go about my day and donât patronize those stores where itâs too bad. And if I see someone thatâs clearly worse off than I am, I try to help them out. If Iâm about to pull into the last handicap spot and a car pulls up with a wheelchair on the back, I give it to them and keep looking. It doesnât happen often, but it has happened.
Iâm sorry you are treated so poorly. IMO, you deserve a whole lot better treatment. I know itâs not much, but itâs all I can offer from this distance.
I have to confess that I have pulled into a handicap parking place at the church I attend. Itâs always during the week when nobody is around except for the staff. I park there when I have to carry tools Ind to do some repair job. One day as I just got into the building, the minister was coming out of her office. I immediately began hobbling. âWhat happened to youâ, she asked. âNothingâ, I replied. âI pulled my van into a handicap space and I donât want the church hierarchy to tow it awayâ.
This minister is in her late 60s, drives in every day from her home 50 miles away and will only own a car with a manual transmission. We had a.place with a sign that read âReserved for Pastorâ. She wanted the sign removed. âI am capable of walkingâ, she said. At the same.time, we have a couple of staff that wanted reserve parking places. We finally compromised. We moved the âReserved for Pastorâ sign to a less desirable place, made the previous ministerâs parking place and the one next to it handicapped only parking and put up a.couple more signs next to the space reserved for the minister.that read âReserved For Staffâ. The minister still thinks the signs are not necessary. I remind her of the passage in the Bible that says âLet this be a sign unto youâ.
Were I in your shoes, I would just park the car in that âhybrid reservedâ spot, enter the store and go about your business
And if somebody DARED to give you a ticket or lecture you, then Iâd consider contacting my local newspaper and/or radio station and publicly announcing how heartless this business and/or parking enforcement bureau is, in regards to people with disabilities
I suspect nobody would not want that kind of publicity
Ah, yes, that would be me. 
In my defense, the neutral bypass was defeated a long time ago, so it can move under either gasoline or electric power⊠making it (rather technically speaking) âhybrid.â
Although a little deceitful, but not nearly as shameful as giving the most convenient parking spots to hybrid vehicles rather than folks with disabilities, I think I wouldâŠ
âŠturn my vehicle into a hybrid. Iâd purchase slightly used (from a salvage yard) or brand spankân new HYBRID badge appliques and stick them on my car. 
Voila! Wouldâya looky here? Iâve got myself a hybrid! 
Couple that with my âwheel chairâ logo license plates or mirror placard and I can pick the best place to park to give me the access I deserve. 
When I think about it, it kinda makes me wonder if all the âhybridâ vehicles in the âhybrid parking spotsâ are hybrids. 
CSA
Now thatâs funny!
Maybe watering the grass while its raining beats that.