Handicap Parking Abuse

In downtown Winston-Salem NC, there is (or at least was) an interesting situation regarding parking. In the area around the courthouse/federal building/jail, almost all of the on-the-street parking spaces are (coin-operated) metered. It is the policy of the city of W-S that if you park in one of these spaces AND you display a handicapped tag, you park in those spots all day long WITHOUT having to re-feed the meter. Actually, without feeding the meter AT ALL.
We thought this was interesting, since we noticed that almost every parking spot in that rough area was occupied by a car displaying a hanicapped permit, that had an expired meter, so we recorded the cars parked there. This gave us an idea of what cars to look for, because it was usually the same cars day after day. THEN we shot video of the drivers of those cars, and observed their relative level of mobility. The observations were interesting, to say the least. This story was produced and aired in 2007. At that time, the city of W-S discussed changing the policy, but not action was taken in the immediate 2 year period afterwards. I do not know if any action was EVER taken.
Story written by Tanya Rivera & Alan Wagmeister.
Video shot by David Renner, Dave Fields, and Chris Keimig.
Video edited by David Renner.
Story produced by David Renner, Alan Wagmeister, and Tanya Rivera.
Story aired April 26, 2007 on WFMY-TV 11PM news.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Handicap
• parking
• abuse;
• David
• Renner;
• Alan
• Wagmeister;
• Tanya
• Rivera;
• WFMY-TV;
• Wants
• To
• Know

[kantwalkfar]

Has anything been done? I still see this abuse in every parking lot. There is a way to fix it... The handicap placard is issued at the DMV..... Have the DMV add your picture to the placard! Your sick grandmother will not look like the kid that took it when she died...

OR... remove all handicap parking.. period... Handicap people can not use them anyway! all the bums and lazy azzed people use them... just look.. better yet.. SAY SOMETHING

[bigrider2806]

i am starting to get very angry about the abuse of disablede badges , time to reclaim the spaces ! these people make me sick

[hpiguy]

Being a lazy jerk that got a hangnail one day in the Navy doesn't make you "a handicapped Veteran".

[brooktoman]

I still believe that the handicap shall have free parking everywhere in the United States of America. I also believe that placard abuse is wrong, and I have no idea how the h*** these non-handicap persons are able to possess these placards. This whole problem is so bad, so If I were mayor of any city or village, the first thing I would do is remove the parking meters and make parking free everywhere for everyone and this problem would go away. Cut the city budget and no one needs parking meters

[disabledchampions]

This really is a global problem - but stories like this will punish those scumbags, one at a time.

[inkey2]

the real question is......how are healthy people getting these plackards

[dave2806]

" i always ask them if they are disabled , then when they say no , i ask them if they would like to be "! scum make me sick.