It’s not illegal to park behind them and take longer in the store. You might get towed, because private property, but it’s not ‘illegal’. I’ve done that to a very very able bodied young man who used a handicapped spot and then jogged in at a shopping center before. I live parked him in for 25 minutes. Dared him to call the police on me if he had an issue. Dared him to so much as touch my car. He backed down, and I watched his privilege deflate, which is a rare treat in a new-money town. Yes, am that a-hole to a-holes IRL sometimes too.
It’s just a matter of how inconvenient you’re willing to be to other people. That’s a personal standard, not a legal matter. If I can stick it to that guy without inconveniencing anyone else, and I have the free time…
the blocker has a 3:1 advantage. Do we want to enforce this behavior where everyone in the car gets out to scramble for open spots, now we have dozens of people in a busy lot, running for spaces among diving and weaving cars? How about launching automated drones when someone arrives to a parking lot?
at some point, doesn’t the zipper move further upstream and now you have lane zoomers again? It takes a coordinated effort of every individual to pull this off, and many people don’t even have the wits to drive a car, let alone carefully regulate their speed and spacing.
I agree, completely not worth it. But I had a friend at university who had no problem punching out someone who flipped him the bird while driving, (he spent his early years in a tough environment - if you didn’t fight back you were victimized even more.) Needless to say he did spend the occasional weekend in jail for assault. Doing that in a parking lot with someone like that would not end well.
Correct when moving with traffic on a street. In the parking lot, a minor on a bike would for insurance purposes be classified as a pedestrian. And the driver who hits this kid while he is not moving would be sued to the max for it.
But sure. Side with the dink who’s crying about their parking spot.
I mentioned it in a comment above, but I have a disability…however it is invisible to most people. I keep crutches around to this day where I use them if my left leg gets inflamed to the point it is limping and lifeless. And yet, there are weeks / months that I can go to the gym and jump on a treadmill as if nothing is wrong. I have no cartilage left in that leg, and even when it isn’t inflamed it is in pain CONSTANTLY even when I forget about it until something reminds me. Sometimes I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier just to amputate and get a prosthetic until I read the horror stories about what these people go through and then realize that no matter how cool they look, it would bring another set of issues that I’d have to deal with.
Just because someone LOOKS very very able bodied, you don’t know whats going on with them. If the guy stole a spot of yours…then you know they are an asshole and it doesn’t matter if they have 72 hours to live…slash their tires and be happy about it. The fact that he used a handicapped spot in and of itself is no indication if he is or is not disabled.
That said, even when I had the opportunity to use these things, I wouldn’t because I know there are people with FAR more problems than I have.
If you routinely have no choice but to drive to places where there are literally no open parking spaces so that your only options are camping or endless roaming, and if your time really is that important, then by all means do whatever it takes to get into a parking place and get to work, or pick up medicine, or get food for your kids, or whatever. If it’s that bad there are serious failures of infrastructure and social organization that cannot be solved by individual parking lot behavior.
But if you’re not in those circumstances, move the fk on so that the rest of us don’t get stuck on our way to the available parking that’s further out. Like dan7000, I routinely walk past people who are still waiting for someone to pull out because they wrongly think that’s more efficient. Where possible I do drive around. But me and the person camping for a space usually aren’t the only ones driving in the parking lot during busy times, and it doesn’t take much for a stopped car to clog up an already congested parking lot.
Working in a city, downtown is very expensive if you absolutely have to drive yourself in and out every day.
I’m just glad I finally have free parking at work. For a long time, I was having to pay the same in parking as I paid in rent. Just because my shift didn’t coincide with any form of public transportation. And I’m not cycling 20 miles home at 1AM every night. That’s just asking to disappear and never be heard from again.
Or how about free full-time valet parking in all lots? Someone said that all this won’t be a problem once everyone has self-driving cars, but until then we’re going to have plenty of people in need of jobs, right?
And assuming that one is able to walk, wouldn’t circling around cost them more in gas, and make more air pollution, than just going to a less-congested part of the lot straightaway?
Kind of like the people who circle around for the closest parking spot at the golf course even though they will be walking for the next 4 hours. (Or at the gym).
