Financially handicapped?

In a post last week I discussed my observation of an inordinate number of handicapped placards on cars parked in metered spaces near my office building and surmised that something was amiss. You see, in this city, where parking is very expensive, a handicapped placard excuses one from having to feed the parking meters.

In the past week I've tried to be vigilant for handicapped drivers and just haven't noticed any...until today.

While out grabbing my morning java I watched a woman with her blue handicapped placard parking her Volvo wagon on the street (imagine, a Volvo wagon in the Bay Area!). Since I was in no real hurry to get back to the office, I watched. She walked from her car to my office building, a distance easily 300-400 yards. While she didn't use any sort of walker, cane or crutches, she was quite overweight and moved slowly and deliberately.

Now the interesting thing is there are at least two parking garages that are closer to the building than where she parked on the street. So if we give her the benefit of the doubt and agree that she has some disability so grave that a doctor felt, in the interest of her health and safety, that she be given special parking priviledges, then why didn't she park in one of the garages? Well, because she would have to pay to park in a garage, disability or not.

My point in last week's post was that I believe handicapped placards are abused by people who don't deserve them to the detriment of people who do and to the city's taxpayers. They are scum. My point today is, disabled or not, some people abuse them because they're just too damn cheap to pay for parking. Physically handicapped doesn't mean financially handicapped. How do people like that sleep at night?