@TSM I really don’t know. I never encountered one of them. I did inquire about becoming a volunteer a few years back, but I couldn’t make the class time. I have not seen an appeal for volunteers since then.
Instead of writing up a citation and sticking it on the window I wonder if simply taking a pic of the miscreant vehicle from several angles showing the license plate and the vehicle as currently parked would be a cleaner way of doing things?
Click “Send” and have S.W.A.T. there in a New York minute or a citation sent through the mail.
Citations are sent out due to red light cameras, turnpike scofflaws, etc so why not HC violators.
This is an interesting thread as I drive a relative with a wheelchair to go grocery shopping. Sometimes we can’t find a handicap space due to the cheaters. Agreed, it is not easy to judge who is handicapped or not but I have confronted a few who were not and also have felt badly after confronting a person who had an invisible handicap. The person was very nice about it; was possibly used to the accusation.
I like the civilian ticket issuer concept as the police usually do not have the time for handicap parking enforcement and it may not be a large enough crime to get much of their attention.
Image search “humorous handicap parking ticket” if you want but it might not be good to get caught issuing one. I have some Mickey Mouse parking tickets and actually used one when some fool parked his car about a foot away from the right side of mine. You can slip the ticket under a wiper without touching the car. I saw a cop do that.
@ok4450 That’s a good idea since nearly everyone carries a camera phone these days.
You know, I’m against parking in HC parking stalls, and for following laws and regulations, but I have severe concerns about normal citizens running around with cameras catching people violating such laws and regulations and informing the police. I just finished a book on the Nazi movement from 1933 to 1936, and guess what, neighbors informing the troopers on other neighbors. I dunno, I guess its a fine line but it sends a chill down my spine. Take a kid to Macs and someone will think its child abuse. Have a smoke closer to 50 feet from a door way and the police will be called. Your pencil will be confiscated by the TSA police as a dangerous weapon (as it is). Take a hand gun into New York and you can spend years in jail. I think we have to stop some of this before its too late to turn back. Also see the post on electronic monitoring of your teen driving.
You know, I'm against parking in HC parking stalls, and for following laws and regulations, but I have severe concerns about normal citizens running around with cameras catching people violating such laws and regulations and informing the police.
Are there any laws you’d agree a concerned citizen with a camera should inform the police?? Rape, kidnapping? Or is it the principle of concerned citizens turning other citizens that upsets you?
I just can’t see Nazi comparison.
I see no problem what-so-ever with citizens recording and sending that information to the police. Some people who need the HDCP spots have a very difficult time walking that extra 20+ feet. There are malls and stores that my mother-in-law can’t go because the HDCP spots are so far away.
“I just can’t see Nazi comparison.”
+1
I think that Mike Godwin was really on to something when he propounded Godwin’s Law.
Godwin’s law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. “Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust”, Godwin has written.
Sure lots of laws I would think it is the duty of citizens to help the police enforce like drive bys, murders, robberies, assaults, even vandalism. But I think we must be careful. Lives have been ruined because of inaccurate and unprofessional reporting by novices and the eager prosecution by clueless government prosecutors.
Godwins Law? I dunno, I think the study of history is partly to show how easy it is to fall off that slippery slope from seemingly innocuous actions to tyranny. The Nazis are only one of hundreds of examples through history that just says we should remain vigilant at the first steps in a long chain easily started. When you look back and say how did we get from there to here, often a simple step or action would have broken the chain. How easy it is to discount any objection by calling it an over-reaction without an examination of the true intent or the road that is being paved. Holocaust survivors often cite the frog in pan as the heat is gradually turned up. As Reagan said it only take one generation to lose our freedoms.
I’m not in favor of the average citizen running around amok snapping pics and turning everyone in for anything they perceive to be out of kilter.
In the situation mentioned by MG McAnick those people are apparently sanctioned volunteers working with the police departments so I don’t have an issue with it.
And I’m one of those people who think that government intrusion into daily lives is a bit much at times… 
I am not familiar with the Nazi reporting theme, but do recall a patch my father in law had acquired. I looked it up and possibly reporting on these types of people was encouraged in Nazi Germany.
In Concentration camps, besides Communists, liberals, anarchists, Social Democrats, Freemasons, and other opposition party members also wore a red triangle.
I’m a little leery about regular citizens reporting crimes to the police also.
Don’t misunderstand…we should all help catch the murderer, rapist, burglar or the person beating their kid in public. BUT.
I’ve heard many people blame someone for something that they did, but when you (a bystander) point out the flaws in their assessment, they go deaf to the facts. Being disconnected from the parties, you can see how flimsy their evidence is, yet they will hear nothing of it.
“I heard my window break while I was in the bathtub, and when I went to the window, I saw Billy Bob walking by. He must have done it”!!!
Some people hate their neighbor’s so bad, they would actually go to the length of setting them up to be blamed. Some people hate everyone, and some would get a power trip out of reporting that you only came to a rolling stop once.
Volunteers, that go through a little training would be fine with me though.
Yosemite
There’s a couple of unmarked PD parking enforcement cars that run around here and have done so for the last half dozen years.
The thing is that I’ve never, ever seen anyone being ticketed anywhere at anytime. One would think that the odds favor seeing someone get whacked a little on a random basis.
Maybe they are just there to spot the reckless driver and report them and follow until a regular PD car locates them.
If they never issue any tickets or warning, your city/ county/ town is getting nothing in return.
I’m the one that sees someone pulled over and I think"good get the idiots off the road".
My wife thinks "oh those poor people, and they have two kids in the car too, they will probably be late fro where ever they are going.
Yosemite
They are obviously emotionally handicapped. Otherwise, why would they park in handicap spots?
I would definitely call the police on the guy with the boat. That’s just plain selfish and arrogant.
@Yosemite those unmarked cars here are operated by uniformed full time city officers so that makes it kind of strange. I’ve seen them drive right by illegally parked cars in HC spots and never even give them a glance.
That guy with the truck and Seadoo is hogging up at least 3 spaces. They should be cited for each space they’re hogging.
Too bad some truck driver didn’t park his rig there and block them in for a while until the PD shows up.
When I see someone pulled over I whisper to myself “there but by the grace of God go I”, in the words of Martin Luther.
Now we should have some mercy on those violators, there are a fair number of people that think New Mexico is in Mexico, so how are they going to comprehend parking stall markings and signs. (tongue in cheek).
You’re right @Bing. I remember about ten years back, a story about a test given to high schoolers.
One question; What country boarders the southern US.
Some said Cuba…I’ll give them that one, but some said Texas.
I know them there Texans are an independent lot, but…
Yosemite
Bing, how about showing compassion for the poor disabled people who should have had those spaces available to them rather than the selfish, self-centered SOB with the pickup & personal watercraft?
Mercy my buttocks! May the pickup owner suffer severe pain with every step when he grows older. I’d be happy to break his spine for him so he can begin to appreciate why handicapped people need places near the door.