Is Wide Spread Fraud Common?

Yesterday I read a story in the New York Times about handicapped parking that gives me a good excuse to update what I wrote about last July: that is l no longer use handicap parking. Apparently California is disturbed by the large number of people that use handicapped parking fraudulently. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a measure that increased the fine for violators of handicap parking. Repeat violators can be fined up to $1,000. California has a car culture that is unique unto itself and it is no surprise to me that the governor is upset. Since 1994, triple the number of California drivers have handicap placards. How dare those crippled people ask for the must mundane of rights! Is wide spread fraud common? Of course it is. Frauds exist in California, New York and every state between. My reaction to this hardly news worthy story is so what. Being unable to find a parking spot is an inconvenience. I have learned a lot about this inconvenience in the last few months. Since July, I have not parked in handicapped once. My political refusal to use handicap parking is going well. I have not gotten hit by a car zooming by me in a parking lot. However, I have wasted a lot of time driving around and around looking for a place to park. I have also dropped groceries pushing my wheelchair to the end of the lot where I prefer to park. I have even been yelled at by strangers who exclaim "You should not be so far away from the entrance. You are a hazard".

The above has led me to wonder if handicapped parking a right or a privilege? More generally, what does handicap parking tell us about disability in American culture. To me, handicapped parking is a privilege. It is the acknowledgment that certain people have trouble physically navigating their surrounding environment. People who are elderly and those that cannot navigate long distances come to mind. People with heart or lung disease who lack adequate circulation or breath also come to mind as do women that are nine months pregnant. But what I do not think of is the poster image for handicap parking--wheelchair users. As I wrote in July, I do not think I have the privilege to park in handicapped parking. Simply put, I am too physically fit. I reject the medical model of disability, one that would legally enable me to use handicap parking. Thus I see handicapped parking as being nothing more and nothing less about a physical impairment. My physical impairment, a spinal cord injury and resulting paralysis, does not preclude me from being physically capable. If I can ski and kayak for miles on end do I truly need handicap parking. In a word no. But am I perceived to be the iconic image for handicapped parking and that is wrong.

The debate, angst and furor over handicap parking says less about car culture than it does about our skewed perception of disability. What causes people to get upset and pass laws about handicapped parking never ceases to amuse me. These same people do not think twice about violating the ADA or the waiting lists for necessary services for people with a disability. No one thinks about institutions that warehouse people with a disability when they could with minimal support live in the community. No one complains about the barriers that exist once people park their cars and cannot enter buildings because there is no access or the "special entrance" is locked. No one wants to know why 66% of people with a disability are unemployed or why so many live below the poverty level. Instead, the average person accepts the medical model of disability without thought. Handicapped parking is for people like me, the chrome police. People like me must be protected. But what is being protected need not be protected at all. I do not care about handicapped parking, I care about my civil rights and those rights are violated on a regular basis. This sort of story is never deemed newsworthy. The iconic images associated with disability are wrong, demeaning and must change. We need to think about much more than handicapped parking. We need to think about the rights of people with a disability and consider them a distinct and insular minority group. We need to break down the barriers between groups of people with a host of different disabilities. We need solidarity. People must unite and handicapped parking is not what we need to rally around. Instead, we need to ask President Obama why he does not have a full time person on his staff working on disability rights (kareem Dale wears far too many hats and cannot do his job well). We need to listen to ADAPT and question why we do not have a Community Choice Act.

I am not sure what I can do aside from write, advocate and teach. Yet I have learned one thing in the last few months. When you don't park in handicapped parking you get a lot less door nicks on your car. No one leaves coffee cups on your hood, gum on your tires, or bangs their shopping cart into your car because they are pissed off you have a better spot to park your car. What I am thinking of doing though is giving up my handicap plates entirely. Yes, that means braving the department of motor vehicles and asking for regular plates. I wonder if I can do this via the mail. If so, my handicap plates are history. If not a trip to the motor vehicle office is in my near future. I will keep you posted.