Many People with "Invisible Handicaps" Should Not Have Handicap Parking Permits

If there's a medical condition that gets worse from walking an extra 75 yards, I'd like to know what it is. Even people with painful peripheral vascular disease and diabetes neuropathy (examples of two "invisible handicaps") are urged by any sensible physician to walk every day for exercise. I knew a woman with PVD who found it painful to walk, and she told me she had a handicap permit. She also told me she never used it, because she knew that cheating herself out of walking would do her harm, not good.

So who really needs handicap spaces, then? People with wheelchairs, because - if for no other reason - they need the extra space to get their chair out of the car. I knew a paraplegic man whose shoulders were three feet across from bench pressing 250 pounds and doing other weight lifting, but as strong as he was, he still needed that space to unfold his chair and maneuver out.

When my mother injured a tendon in her foot, her doctor ordered her to keep weight off of it. This meant using a walker and limiting her walking, so while her foot healed, she relied upon a handicap permit. People at risk for falling also need the permit. A simple step on a small stone could send them pitching forward, even though I recently witnessed a woman who had right-side paralysis make her way across a parking lot, even though the handicap spaces were not occupied. More power to her for giving her body opportunities to be as efficient as possible.

I am always witnessing people pull into the handicap spots, with the permit dangling on their rearview mirror or the decal on their license plate; then they get out of their car and walk like nothing to their destination. These people don't teeter the slightest. They don't wince. They don't shuffle. They don't grimace. They look quite comfortable. Why do they need handicap parking? They saunter to the store with the ease of a child. I strongly doubt that they are at risk of falling flat on their face, or are suffering agonizing pain from injury or some medical condition. Have you ever suffered pain while walking? It's hard to make yourself look comfortable.

Many people with multiple sclerosis use handicap spots, even though these individuals look "normal." When they are at risk of falling, they should use their permits. When they are not at risk, they should walk as much as possible. When people with MS walk as much as possible, it does wonders for their condition.

I have known people with handicap permits. One had heart disease and was 70. He also jogged around his gym's track and did jumping jacks, after parking in a handicap spot! Another woman weighed 380 pounds. But she had no medical condition that made walking harmful to her body. Shame on doctors who encourage inertia in the very people who need to walk as much as possible. What is it with these droves of doctors, issuing handicap placards to people who need to walk more, whose condition was perhaps caused by lack of exercise?

I know another woman who goes to the gym, who wears special stockings there; she obviously has a circulatory condition or phlebitis (inflammation of the veins). What's she using a handicap permit for? She needs to move those legs as much as possible! I might add that she ambulates about the huge health club with no problem.

Being unable to run shouldn't earn you a spot closest to your destination. Lots of people cannot run. Lots of people are overweight. Lots of people have medical conditions. This doesn't mean they should limit their walking and hog up handicap spots, when people who REALLY need them might be searching for them at that very moment. The biggest disgrace is when people with handicap permits use the handicap spots at health clubs, then use the cardio equipment and leg machines. Shame on you.