Reader Says High Fee Could Curb Errant Parking Habit

A Spokane man who isn’t shy about confronting able-bodied motorists who use parking places for the disabled has a suggestion for curtailing part of the problem.

Charge for the permits.

That, Sylvester “Sy” Hutton believes, would discourage people from obtaining them dishonestly, something a recent report in the Seattle Times says occurs frequently.

Make the fee high enough to force would-be abusers to take a second look, say $150 a year, suggests Hutton. “It might stop some of those freeloaders.”

Indeed it might. It also will be interesting to hear from the truly disabled on that point.

Hutton, who is 72 and recently had a stroke but considers himself in good health, says he has approached people he sees using disabled parking spots without appearing to be disabled.

He remembers a woman pulling into a handicapped spot at a North Side bank’s parking lot a few years ago.

“She was parked in a handicapped space and I told her there’s a $50 fine for that. She didn’t like it; she got mad.”

But she moved her car, says Hutton.

“There may come a time when some of those freeloaders are going to need those spots themselves and somebody who isn’t qualified to park there may be parked in them,” he observed.

Hutton added that another class of motorist that annoys him is made up of “these dingbats that run these school zones with children standing along the street. The signs plainly state what it’s for and they won’t slow down.”

On morning last week, he said, he was taking his wife to work near Audubon School.

“We were going along there slow and there was a boy standing in the middle of Northwest Boulevard waiting for traffic to clear so he could cross. Two cars went by in front of that boy that had to be going 40 miles an hour.”

Back to the parking permits: “Perhaps an appropriate fine for misuse of these permits would be the loss of their driving license for a year,” said James A. Nelson, Spokane.

“One way to stop it,” said Rob Larich of Newport, “would be to hobble them. Another way would be, once they’re caught, to give them a parking spot out at the end of the parking lot and make sure they park out there.”

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