Wheelchair Accessible Parking Courtesy
Many times, the public isn’t concious of the disabled parking lines painted in parking lots across America. Often, especially with recent snow falls, wheelchair accessible parking spaces are hard to see, and parking lots are already extremely full. All too often, this leads to crowding wheelchair vans and their drivers or passengers, creating impossible situations for them. Many people with disabilities drive customized vans for wheelchairs that include ramps or mobility lifts that need room to extend. And once extended, these wheelchair ramps and lifts could be too close to an adjacent vehicle to allow for easy access by a mobility device.
This dilema causes the person with disabilities to have to wait for the offender to move their car. Cold weather can complicate some disabilities, and wheelchairs and other mobility equipment do not do well in frigid temperatures. So the person driving a wheelchair van or accessible vehicle has to wait in the cold, or wait in the store and try to see when the car blocking their access moves (hard to do when sitting in a wheelchair with shoppers walking in and out of a store) Often the police become involved.
In short, be considerate when parking. If there is a spot open right next to the front door of the store, think twice. It might be a wheelchair accessible parking space, or the additional reserved space needed for wheelchair accessible vans.