“Apparently there has been a custom of people believing, probably falsely, that just because you possess a placard or a handicap plate that you don’t have to feed the meter. If you’re driving a car just like everybody else, able-body, you can follow the law just like everybody else,” said Dawn Blakely-Harper, assistant corporation counsel, during Tuesday’s council meeting.
It appears there was a large number of parking tickets issued to handicap drivers that parked in handicap spots — blue painted curbs — around the city without feeding the parking meters. Ms Blakely-Harper said that handicap drivers are not exempt from feeding the meters when parking at a designated handicap spot; she clarified that although handicaps are required to put coins into the parking meters they are not required to return when the the time expires to re-insert more coins.
She did not only speak about the handicap parking problem, but also addressed other issues — see video. That seems a bit strange: what keeps an individual with a handicap placard from parking at an expired meter, and bypassing the meter feeding?