Parking question...
Does anyone else’s Wal-Mart, or local box store, disabled parking with loading, look like this?
I am doing a You Tube video on this, and probably sending it to the ADA as well.
I’m calling this store manager on Monday and asking if they will let me record a “talk about parking for a project” and work into asking them about how they store their shopping carts and why.
There is no reason they don’t store them on the inside of the sidewalk instead of merchandise.
Not to mention those parking in the loading zones without ramps or lifts…
& the ever-present non-disabled resident…
This was just today, us randomly showing-up, but it is normally like this at the busiest of times. When it is slow and they have a surplus of carts, there are NO spots for those with lifts/ramps.
There will always be douche-bags that park in the ramp-loading zones. Around here they'll enthusiastically tow/clamp your ass in private lots. But short of expending more energy (costs++), they aren't going to do anything about that.
Having carts in the ramp-loading zones is inexcusable. The person responsible should be sacked, and the person responsible for them should be sacked as well, . . .
This was a large Wal-Mart, there were two possible spaces I had to wait for that I could park in. All the rest were taken by carts.
We call them trolleys over here, and they have their own special corrals - areas closed off by fencing on three sides. It makes perfect sense because that way the trolleys can't "drift" and damage someone's car.
Obviously people do still abuse disabled parking here, but at least the stores behave responsibly.
They have them here too... apparently some stores choose not to use them.
The carts are a training issue with their employees. It's %100 their responsibility. Customers illegally parking is partly their responsibility in how aggressive they are in calling the police.
I called the cops and am going to talk to them about it.
The store manager is never "there" when I am there or when I call.
I really wanted to tape the call and use it in a YT video about this.
That they have the entire inside of the front sidewalk full of merchandise instead of using it for this purpose and/or more corrals disgusts me.
My mother is putting together a PowerPoint presentation focusing on dissabilities world wide, on the accomodations made...and the countries who do not make accomodations available. She showed me part of it and it was powerful to see how far we've come and how backwards we can still be.
I hope you don't mind, but I think I will mention this to her and see if she could put it in her presentation. If she needs photos to use, and would like to use yours, I'll have her contact you or I'll get ahold of you via PM for permission.
I'd like to see that when it's done, HH.
I think one of the difficulties in my country is the apparent lack of financial assistance in making buildings compliant. There's help there in the form of grants, but I don't think for private companies, or licensed premises. I was trying to get hold of some kind of grant funding for the Working Men's Club in my ward, because the British Legion (old soldiers mainly) use it for many of their charity functions and the only suitable suite within the club is upstairs. So far I haven't found any that would assist a private club.
I realise it's a different problem to the one the thread started with, but I do think it's quite a large reason for so many smaller businesses, stores, clubs and pubs still being very disabled unfriendly.
On a more positive note, the campaign to save the Remploy assisted factories (the one whose rally I spoke at) has had some success. The government's announced a £560 million rescue package to help the factories modernise the areas that need it and assistance in securing local government precurement contracts. That and an assurance that no factory will close without the direct involvement/permission of the government minister responsible. Oh yeah, and no compulsory redundancies :)
That's a coup, I think. The T&G union played a blinder with that campaign and utilised the party conference machine beautifully, to push the agenda.
Remploy was set up in the aftermath of WW2 to provide jobs for the war-disabled. The factories produce real goods, are often very skilled work and the jobs are proper jobs. But...they are not having to compete for those jobs against non-disabled workers, the factories and workshops are designed to be accessible to anybody, regardless of their physicality. They've grown into an organisation that employs many thousands of people, with every conceivable disability, including learning disabilities. Their factories have training centres and support staff, social areas etc.
They used to make pretty much all the uniforms for the armed forces as well as most of the furniture in our schools. They do everything (in different factories and regions) from bookbinding (which is what they do in my area) to steelworking.
Jinx and I walked past 8 empty handicapped spots at Target today, and she made an excellent point...
You live in Florida, rage. There's probably a MUCH higher demand for HP spots down there because there are so many coffin dodgers.
PA is #2, behind FL, in the amount of people collecting Social Security.
Aren't most coffin-dodgers reasonably well off? Does disabled badge automatically indicate SS claimant?
That said, L&J are comparing Target with Walmart....
here, I have noticed rows of empty disabled spaces at Target, and overflow at Walmart.
So maybe the answer is that there should not be a set in stone # of disabled parking spaces, -the number should depend on the need at each store. perhaps what we really need is an AI parking system which designated spots as disabled/regular according to need? A challenge admittedly, but that's what makes life fun. Alternate compact and regular parking spaces in the lot, when more disabled needed, nearest available compact next to regular is designated disabled plus lift space....?
i think i know how to solve this problem:
I have a theory about parking enforcement and big box stores in small towns.
The town uses taxes to enforce parking Nazi-style downtown to run everyone to the big box stores who have lobbied, under the table, for this treatment.
It makes no financial sense, if they took that one parking attendant and patrolled the whole town for more serious parking offenses they would make in one day what they make in a month for the petty parking tickets running business away from the few mom & pop stores left down-town that are actually supposed to have people in them for long periods of time.
Especially in illegal disabled parking tickets alone.
Don't shop at Wal-Mart.
Or, make them an offer to be their parking regulation enforcer for hire. You could scoot around the parking lot putting violation notices under the wipers of the cars and the child restraint straps of the carts. You could work on a percentage basis. The sky's the limit! You could even get one of those twirling blue lights (I know they're so K-Mart, but WallyWorld can hook you up I'm sure) bolted to your rig. And a bullhorn, for a PA system. And if they get feisty, cap'em. I'm sure FL's Castle Doctrine extends to parking lots. Nothin but upside as far as the eye can see. Go get'em tiger.
Nope... I love it when you show what you are.
That you *like* whining doesn't make it any less whining. Just more annoying.
Reading emotion into text without description of that nature is projecting, incorrect and shows a lack of emotional intellegence/maturity... I am neither whining nor complaining.
Just making a statement of fact.
Troll.
Waaaahhhhhooooo!!!!!!!!!!
Chicken-shit couldn't just stay on topic like an adult.
2nd Investigation of Federal Judge Nottingham Launched after Disabled Parking Violation:
KUSA - The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has launched a second investigation of Judge Edward Nottingham, the Chief Judge of federal courts in Colorado.
Nottingham is the judge in the Joe Nacchio trial. Nacchio was the former CEO of Qwest.
The Court of Appeals began an investigation of Judge Nottingham in September following allegations of improper conduct involving strip clubs.
The most recent investigation began less than a month after the first investigation. It involves a grievance filed by a Denver attorney over Judge Nottingham's behavior after parking illegally in a disabled parking space.
The attorney who filed the grievance, Jeanne Elliott, was paralyzed in 1986 after being shot four times during a court hearing in the Arapahoe County Courthouse.
Elliott was representing the ex-wife of an Aurora police officer who shot Elliott because he was angry about an increase in his court-ordered child-support payments.
On September 15, Elliott says she was in her wheelchair on her way into a Walgreen's at Race and Colfax in Denver. She says she had to park on the street in her wheelchair-accessible van because all of the disabled parking spaces were taken. Elliott says she noticed one of the handicapped spaces was occupied by someone without the proper authentication for disabled parking. So, she pulled her wheelchair behind the SUV and waited for the owner to show up.
According to Elliott, the man who owned the SUV saw her behind his van, walked past her and got in his SUV without speaking with her.
"And then he put the car in reverse, because I could tell from back-up lights going on and I thought, 'Oh boy, he's going to back over me,'" said Elliott.
She says the driver actually backed up towards her while she was sitting in her wheelchair behind his SUV. According to Elliott, the driver then got out of car and said, "Get of my way.'" Elliot, who filed a grievance with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, then says she told the driver he was parked illegally in a handicapped accessible parking space. That's when Elliot says the driver identified himself as Judge Edward Nottingham and showed her his identification. Elliot says Nottingham threatened to call the U.S. Marshal's office if she didn't move.
"I was offended about the U.S. Marshal threat," said Elliott. "Here he is parking illegally. He's a federal judge who is held to a higher ethical standard and he's threatening me."
Elliott didn't move. Judge Nottingham called 911. ~snip~
There is more in the linked-article.
Got in touch with the manager today, he would not talk for my YT video.
He denied knowing it occurred at all, then denied it happened every day (my wife drives past the store daily), then blamed it on construction.... they have been doing it since the store has been built and I have seen it at more than one store
Four days since the police operator told me someone would call me back.
If you want to watch the YouTube video on this topic, PM me.
Thought this was interesting.
[YOUTUBE]ApjTTdgp3M8[/YOUTUBE]
The Weekly World News had a front page article about a man who cut off his own arm with a chainsaw to get a handicaped permit. He was quoted as saying "It was the best decision I ever made in my life!"
Seriously, it is really sad how people abuse the system. I have a friend who is a paraplegic and very active. He took me to lunch one day and had a hard time parking in the handicap space at the shopping center because there was a big motorcycle in the unloading zone. As we got out of his truck he carefully assembled his wheelchair and shifted his body from the truck to the chair and we went up to the sidewalk where a couple was seated at a table having lunch. They had pretty much ignored us (they had helmets on a chair so we new that the bike was theirs). My friend casually said to them, "if you happen to see the assholes that parked their bike there could you tell them it's a handicaped zone and that they should move it."
The couple stood up and began shouting at us and even said that if we had only asked they would have been happy to move their bike.
Real jerks.:mad2: