Oh dear.

[conuly]

Remember the woman who sends evidence about people who illegally park in handicapped spots?

Donovan McNabb and Jeremiah Trotter were found guilty of parking in handicapped spots. Their vehicles were photographed by Mary Ann Cottrell, who has made it her business to police the handicapped spots. I would suggest Ms. Cottrell look in the mirror before she takes another photo.

She has a handicapped license due to her caring for an adult child with autism. An individual with autism has complete mobility, and it is not necessary for them to use handicapped parking. Let those who are physically impaired use the spots, not Ms. Cottrell.

1. Stop it with the asinine phrase "adult child with autism". Just quit it.

2. You and I have no evidence that Ms. Cottrell's daughter does not, in fact, have any physical impairment.

3. Even if she did, she may still have a perfectly valid reason for using the handicapped spot - for example, if she gets lost very easily, as some people (me) do, due (I believe) to a spatial agnosia and bad sense of direction. That's for the courts to decide.

3.5 Which they already did, didn' they?

Shouldn't Ms. Cottrell be working or taking care of her handicapped kid instead of stalking the citizens of New Jersey?

I guess Ms. Cottrell didn't watch the Eagles play last season. Otherwise she would agree that McNabb definitely deserved a handicapped spot.

Humor as a defense mechanism. Never seen that one before.

Why would Donovan be so foolish as to contest a ticket for parking in a handicapped space?

He's a millionaire making more than enough to pay such a fine with the wages of an hour. Yet he brings a well-paid lawyer in to fight this fine. Why? Teammate Jeremiah Trotter isn't much better.

Exactly. He's just making himself look bad. *nodnodnod*

Three letters, two of which aren't worth the paper they're virtually printed on. *le sigh*

On a related note, about how many children under six do you have to have before a presumably non-disabling pregnancy justifies taking the handicapped spot? I'm not sure, but I think it *must* be more than just two.

Comments

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

I suppose the ostensible reason is that if the child has a meltdown she needs to be able to get him to the car fast, and I can kind of see that might possibly be a valid reason. (NB: Lots of deliberate weasel words in that sentence.)

But I'd like to know if she has ever used it when her child isn't with her, because she's "only going to be a few minutes" or "the only open spaces were too far away". I don't know about Pennsylvania, but in Maryland it's just as illegal to use someone else's handicapped tag -- even if it's on your car -- as it is to park in a handicap space without one. The person for whom the tag was issued must be in the car for its use to be legal.

But no cop will question that, of course. Since I have an invisible disability and often look perfectly fine even when I'm in severe pain, I always carry both of the forms that show my hang tags (one for each car) were issued to me. But in the 17 or so years since I've had them, I've never, ever, been asked to show them. So Ms. Cottrell can be quite confident she won't be asked whose tag it is either.

[maelorin]

she seems to perserverate over this whole issue somewhat. perhaps mrs cottrell is somewhat autistic herself?


i'm still bemused by the notion of an "adult child". surely she means an adult dependant? :)


as i understand, you cannot use children to justify taking a parking spot for which you have no permit. no matter how many you've popped out, or cart about with you.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

I always WANTED one when Bolt was little, but couldn't get one (although I have other friends with autistic kids whose doctors DO give them the paperwork).

My reason? He was a runner. I mean a RUNNER. He was almost killed on TWO separate occasions (prior to his diagnosis) when friends of my mother had taken him out and not understood what I meant when I said "Hold his hand ALL THE TIME - no exceptions". Being in the handicapped space meant less chance of Bolt running out in front of cars, because they are often right next to the entrance. I had this relief for 3 or 4 months following knee surgery, and I always longed for the relative safety it offered.

And actually, Liane Holliday-Willey told me that I should get disabled tags because I used to lose my car (even in my office lot, where I worked for 5 years!). She said that, or to get a huge, red SUV like she had, that was hard to lose. :-)

For that problem (now that Bolt has outgrown being a runner - at 13!), I have a defense mechanism that works thusly: if I am in a parking structure, I always park on TOP, and if it's not multi-level, I try to always park on the end of a row, even if it's quite far from the entrance. This really helps with the getting lost.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

i couldn't resist commenting to one of the comments on that link to the handicapped-parking place taker. i just don't see how being pregnant justfies breaking the law.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I hate those attitudes. What, it might cost them an extra half hour, fifteen minute walk each way, maybe a potential temper tantrum... call it an extra hour of their lives. Well, great - suck it up. If I have to walk extra it'll cost me an extra few days, because that's what I need to recover from walking for twenty minutes. Plus, if I am already low on energy, it means I may end up having health problems wherever I am, and thus a) not be able to accomplish whatever I was there for b) have to do things that are socially awkward like lying down in public places (but it's less socially awkward than fainting).

My sister got a temp placard while she was pregnant. And if you feel the doctors in your area are unreasonably prejudiced against the potentially disabling aspects of being pregnant, by all means fight that. But stop taking spaces if you're not disabled. I don't have any sympathy for your "just five minutes" and not wanting to walk for ten minutes. And that's for one very simple reason: You can walk for 10 minutes.

You can, and you won't suffer any horrible consequences from it. In fact, for many of those people it will actively be good for them. It will improve their health. And it won't cause them agonizing pain.

Really, I'm too lawful for my own good. I'm stuck in limbo with so many of my benefits being based on vision, but needed for mobility issues. I'm not using my placard til I can sort it out, because technically I have it for blindness. But I'm uncertain on whether that's actually the right choice, since I'm damaging myself by not using it. But I really do like following the law. The tricky part is figuring out who to go to to get my placard for other reasons, since I don't really trust my GP to understand, and I'm about to probably lose my health insurance. Which means going out less often, because I truly can't handle the walking.

I just wish that every time someone parked in a handicapped spot without anyone handicapped being involved that they would then get the horrible leg pains that I get when I overwalk. Not anything too horrible... I wouldn't force on them all of my symptoms, but let them get the leg pains. Oh, and the inability to use my legs. So, they have to take itty, bitty steps and have trouble on staircases. They can also have the hip pain. Just a small fraction of what extra walking costs me. Every so often, if they get tired of that and want a change of pace, we can just trap them in their cars for awhile and pretend they need a wheelchair they can't exit the car with.

[sunnydale47.livejournal.com]

I suppose the ostensible reason is that if the child has a meltdown she needs to be able to get him to the car fast, and I can kind of see that might possibly be a valid reason. (NB: Lots of deliberate weasel words in that sentence.)

But I'd like to know if she has ever used it when her child isn't with her, because she's "only going to be a few minutes" or "the only open spaces were too far away". I don't know about Pennsylvania, but in Maryland it's just as illegal to use someone else's handicapped tag -- even if it's on your car -- as it is to park in a handicap space without one. The person for whom the tag was issued must be in the car for its use to be legal.

But no cop will question that, of course. Since I have an invisible disability and often look perfectly fine even when I'm in severe pain, I always carry both of the forms that show my hang tags (one for each car) were issued to me. But in the 17 or so years since I've had them, I've never, ever, been asked to show them. So Ms. Cottrell can be quite confident she won't be asked whose tag it is either.

[maelorin]

she seems to perserverate over this whole issue somewhat. perhaps mrs cottrell is somewhat autistic herself?


i'm still bemused by the notion of an "adult child". surely she means an adult dependant? :)


as i understand, you cannot use children to justify taking a parking spot for which you have no permit. no matter how many you've popped out, or cart about with you.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

I always WANTED one when Bolt was little, but couldn't get one (although I have other friends with autistic kids whose doctors DO give them the paperwork).

My reason? He was a runner. I mean a RUNNER. He was almost killed on TWO separate occasions (prior to his diagnosis) when friends of my mother had taken him out and not understood what I meant when I said "Hold his hand ALL THE TIME - no exceptions". Being in the handicapped space meant less chance of Bolt running out in front of cars, because they are often right next to the entrance. I had this relief for 3 or 4 months following knee surgery, and I always longed for the relative safety it offered.

And actually, Liane Holliday-Willey told me that I should get disabled tags because I used to lose my car (even in my office lot, where I worked for 5 years!). She said that, or to get a huge, red SUV like she had, that was hard to lose. :-)

For that problem (now that Bolt has outgrown being a runner - at 13!), I have a defense mechanism that works thusly: if I am in a parking structure, I always park on TOP, and if it's not multi-level, I try to always park on the end of a row, even if it's quite far from the entrance. This really helps with the getting lost.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

i couldn't resist commenting to one of the comments on that link to the handicapped-parking place taker. i just don't see how being pregnant justfies breaking the law.

[leora.livejournal.com]

I hate those attitudes. What, it might cost them an extra half hour, fifteen minute walk each way, maybe a potential temper tantrum... call it an extra hour of their lives. Well, great - suck it up. If I have to walk extra it'll cost me an extra few days, because that's what I need to recover from walking for twenty minutes. Plus, if I am already low on energy, it means I may end up having health problems wherever I am, and thus a) not be able to accomplish whatever I was there for b) have to do things that are socially awkward like lying down in public places (but it's less socially awkward than fainting).

My sister got a temp placard while she was pregnant. And if you feel the doctors in your area are unreasonably prejudiced against the potentially disabling aspects of being pregnant, by all means fight that. But stop taking spaces if you're not disabled. I don't have any sympathy for your "just five minutes" and not wanting to walk for ten minutes. And that's for one very simple reason: You can walk for 10 minutes.

You can, and you won't suffer any horrible consequences from it. In fact, for many of those people it will actively be good for them. It will improve their health. And it won't cause them agonizing pain.

Really, I'm too lawful for my own good. I'm stuck in limbo with so many of my benefits being based on vision, but needed for mobility issues. I'm not using my placard til I can sort it out, because technically I have it for blindness. But I'm uncertain on whether that's actually the right choice, since I'm damaging myself by not using it. But I really do like following the law. The tricky part is figuring out who to go to to get my placard for other reasons, since I don't really trust my GP to understand, and I'm about to probably lose my health insurance. Which means going out less often, because I truly can't handle the walking.

I just wish that every time someone parked in a handicapped spot without anyone handicapped being involved that they would then get the horrible leg pains that I get when I overwalk. Not anything too horrible... I wouldn't force on them all of my symptoms, but let them get the leg pains. Oh, and the inability to use my legs. So, they have to take itty, bitty steps and have trouble on staircases. They can also have the hip pain. Just a small fraction of what extra walking costs me. Every so often, if they get tired of that and want a change of pace, we can just trap them in their cars for awhile and pretend they need a wheelchair they can't exit the car with.